Doing the hard thing…

One of the unexpected difficulties I’ve found with parenting our oldest is allowing the natural consequences of his actions to occur. I want desperately to rescue him from his bad choices and mistakes. Smooth and iron out all the rough patches that life and childhood are always full of. I wish that if I could make everything easy that he would grow into a well-adjusted, hardworking, and self-accountable young man. But that’s not how it works.

Fortunately, unfortunately

Sadly I have to be the “Bad Guy” more than I want. And not even by enforcing punishment or ensuring that he follows through with commitments, but by just sitting on my hands. It starts out small when they’re little; making them clean up the spilled milk, not leaving for the park until they sit nicely and buckle (or allow for me to buckle them without fighting back), or making them pick between treats at the grocery store. As they get older the consequences are still just as hard to maintain, but now it hurts more. Not cleaning your room, no we can’t go to the event today. Homework took too long; sorry the movie is over now. You yelled and screamed at everyone, no you don’t get to play the game with us anymore tonight.

Hardest of all though, they understand and EXPRESS their full displeasure with the holding of boundaries. Missing a movie or a playdate because of their own failure, having to sit out of a ball game because they forgot their helmet (after being reminded multiple times); those are real consequences, and they really hurt.

8 is better than 28

At the end of the day, no matter how much it pulls on my heart strings in the moment, I’d rather he (and all my children) learns these lessons now. I think I would feel worse if in 20 years I blink and I’m still snowplowing life and ironing life’s troubles for my kids. I want them to feel and experience the full spectrum of life’s ups and downs. And to take away all their problems is to take away that full spectrum experience.