The economist Russ Roberts lives his life by a number of rules and rituals. He keeps Shabbat, for instance, and he commits to regularly tithing his income. He has another rule, as a father, that we should all observe as parents: If your child offers you a hand to hold, take it.
Life and relationships are an endless dance of reaching out and pulling away. You reach out to your kids, they pull away—they’re busy, they’re in front of their friends, they’re mad at you. You try to help them and they don’t want it. You want what’s best for them but they don’t understand.
We can’t control that. What we can control is that whenever they do reach out—whenever they offer us a hand to hold—we take that opportunity and grab it. When they want to lie in our bed with us, we can let them. When they call on the phone, we can answer—even if we’re in a meeting. When they ask to talk about something, we can listen, whatever it’s about. We can hold them tight every chance we have.
We can’t demand that those things happen, but we can make a rule that when they do, we take it for as long as it’s being given.