@chercheur I love your sentiment. It sounds like you have found a nice balance.
My adult child regularly tells me the best gift I ever gave her was independence. I trusted in her ability to overcome the obstacles she encountered, and she reaped the rewards in self-esteem and confidence.
I think it may be rightly perceived as mean to withdraw help from a kid if you would have given it to an adult in a similar situation. Family members should help each other when need arises, assuming it’s an actual need and not just a desire to have a favorite bottle, or have somebody take care of things for you.
We always thought our principal role as parents involved (a) protecting them from harm, including risks to health; (b) watching them grow, while exposing them to myriad opportunities to discover their own talents and interests. They did not have to be pushed. They did not need us to either set up or take away barricades. We provided materials, time, and encouragement.
No. 1 was highly cognitively advanced (a reader at age 2-3). Not so much physical (athletic) ability. We did no “lawnmowing.” We gave him opportunities and largely got out of his way. Early exposure to reading, numbers, sports and other physical activities. He plunked on the piano but didn’t have the coordination needed for that. He read above 5th grade level when he entered K. His numeracy was equally advanced, and he combined his reading and numbers into an interest in sports statistics as a young kid. We focused on “humanizing him,” i.e., playing with other kids. What we see today was unpredictable, perhaps, but not surprising. He went to an excellent university, majored in economics.
No. 2 was not as advanced with numbers as her brother, but an early reader, a well above average student, and very talented in drawing. Could have been an athlete but she only wanted to go so far with it by the time she entered middle school. She had the same opportunities as her brother, but followed her bliss. Incredible amounts of paint, colored pens, scissors and paper, etc. She could draw what she saw. She could visualize and construct things in three dimensions. She had some musical talent – and a chance to learn piano and flute – but not a strong interest in it in the end. She went to a top art school, and later earned an MBA.
I think I have been perceived (and probably actual) as mean from the outside looking in at my family. But my kids just perceive me as Dad being Dad. Now that my daughter is actually in college and thriving in her space, I think she has already started to appreciate some of the lessons we tried to teach her (including putting her in situations where she initially failed). I don’t really worry what others think (but I do want what’s best for my kids) and the only advice that I ever give to other parents is to do it your way. You know your kids and no one cares about them more than you do.
You knew what your kids needed, and you provided it. Well done. The proof is in the pudding, as they say!
"There are two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children: One of these is roots, the other, wings."
~ Henry Ward Beecher
When we remove obstacles in their path without a lesson learned (whatever we as parents feel that lesson should be), we are doing our kids a disservice. Another favorite saying of mine is “with every action there is a reaction”. That reaction could be negative or positive and solely based on your actions.
I am a firm believer in natural consequences. That isn’t to say I won’t deliver your homework to you if I can…but I will not do it if I’ve already reminded you before you walked out of the house and I certainly won’t make a habit of it. I won’t give you movie money on Tuesday if you spent all your allowance/chore $ over the weekend, even if it is an unexpected invitation (that’s why we save lol) . You will learn to find enough to eat from the dinner table selections so that you don’t go to bed hungry because I don’t cook separate meals.
The hardest thing for me over the last few years is insisting that my D make her own choices for the big things. She was, and sometimes still is, just terrified of making a wrong choice. She is slowly learning that even a wrong choice can end well, just different. This is something we are working on together moving forward as she gets ready to graduate from college this May.
It really has very little to do with retrieving things for your kid. Being a lawnmower parent means doing things you shouldn’t be doing all the time for the kid-so much so----that the kid doesn’t learn the skills they need to become an adult.
Contrary to the popular belief, kids getting into trouble by their lawnmower parents pale to the vast number of neglected kids. If you want to lawnmower, just don’t forget the big picture and lawnmower carefully while giving enough focus on them practicing independence, so that they will be fine after leaving you.
I sometimes think about mentouring children the same way they learn to swim. They often have difficulty learning new skills or strokes and keeping up their endurance (completing general tasks) at the same time.
Mine usually have a crisis (disorganized, forgetful, get sick) and need help while tackling a brand new challenge or high stakes test. We participate in major decisions, just making sure they have considered all options.
All of these milestones are just the beginning of learning to have a mentor, good friends and coworkers, parenting is a 2 person job and to unconditionally support your immediate family.
One major change in society is that we are scared to let children out of our sight and then family members live far apart instead of in the same community. Children used to have more freedom and young couples often lived close to family.
The worst type of “lawnmower-ing” I saw was at science olympiad. I remember in middle school two kids who came in first for an event commented to the each other about how happy their parents were going to be that THEIR project worked. We were right behind them and they went on an on about how funny it was that they got to play video games while their dads did the build. That was the year of the first “they are only cheating themselves” speech ; )
When my kids were in elementary school, my volunteer job was to clean out the lost and found box. There were a fair amount of single mittens and notebooks, lunchboxes and pencil boxes, but there were also expensive Patagonia jackets, ski jackets, and entire school uniforms. Did these kids arrive home naked? Were they not cold the next morning when they didn’t have a school sweatshirt (part of the uniform) or jacket to wear to school?
And what really surprised me was that they never looked for their things! Some of the items were labeled and I’d put those on the top of the lost and found boxes for pick up. After a week they’d be taken to the office and the student called down to retrieve the item, and sometimes they couldn’t be bothered to do that.
My kids didn’t lose things because they knew they wouldn’t be replaced. They each had one sweatshirt and if they lost it there wouldn’t be another until the next year. They knew that if they lost their uniform skort ($43- and that was 15 years ago), they’d have to wear one of the less attractive uniform options (pants with a belt! the horrors of a jumper). They also didn’t take extra clothes to school so really would have been naked if they left their skorts at school.
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My then 12 year-old S1 was heading to tryouts for a 13U select baseball club. I got a phone call the night before from the coach making sure he would be there. Turns out I was the only dad who had not contacted the coach to lobby on my son’s behalf. It just never occurred to me.
We had a parent who ran the Destination Imagination team. She got rid of one of the kids because he was smarter than her kids and upstaging them.
I’ve always been a hardass. If you (son or DH) forget something, oh well, deal with it. I don’t care if it’s your homework, lunch, uniform, passport, or laptop/presentation for your company’s most important client and your job depends on it. Not my problem.
Our son is now in the military and I kid you not there are parents who thinks it’s OK to call a commandant or general to discuss issues with how their cadet/solider is being “mistreated.” Beyond the pale. I love the military response though: Click.
@ChoatieMom My son recently finished up 8 years with the USAF. In his first letter home from bootcamp he was telling me about how ill-prepared so many of the young men were, that some (or I think he said many) were actually crying over being forced to do things they had never been asked to do or could not do. He did say that he say less of that with the young women. And he said he thought bootcamp was easier than home, I personally take that as a compliment LOL. I cringe at the term “snowflake” but I certainly see how some parents truly believe their children are fragile with no resiliency. This is simply not true in most cases.
@NEPatsGirl I thank your son for his service. But your name just brought back a 28-3 flashback for this Atlanta Falcons fan. Back on topic, my biggest fear as a parent is that I have not prepared my children for something or helped teach the fortitude necessary to overcome the challenges that life ultimately brings to the table. I know that we should never be guided by fear, but I know that it has played a least a small part in my own “parental style”.
I used to think this was exaggerated until my good friend, a senior VP, relayed this story - coming in from lunch finding a woman sitting in the lobby by herself. He stopped to ask her if she needed help and she replied, “No, I’m just waiting for my son to finish up his interview.”. Her 24 year old son interviewing for a tech job! My friend questioned her - she wanted to make sure he got there on time and didn’t get lost, so drove him. He didn’t get the job.
I want to live in a world where we, when possible, help each other out.
And I brought up two kids who feel the same way.
No one seems crippled by that, but rather, empowered.
So I’m with @oldfort
^ To add, I’m talking about the “bring things when forgotten if possible” kind of help, not the “do the work for them” kind.
@garland I think most agree with that assessment, but most also want to stay away from enabling their kids too much because the world sure won’t do it (some of the examples above).