I. A few years ago I was visiting my children’s elementary school, catching up with a friend of mine who teaches there. She asked about my older children who used to attend there and I told her they were mostly doing well, but recounted a difficult experience (now long forgotten) we’d been through with one of them. As I explained my frustration over being experienced enough to know what was better for my child, yet not being able to “make him” make the correct choice about something, another teacher caught our conversation in passing and piped in,
“That was the other plan.”
II. When my oldest child was about a year old we had the opportunity to move across the street from our tiny basement apartment into a very nice home for three weeks to care for our neighbors’ sons, ranging in age from preschool to high school. As we were getting our last-minute instructions as to their schedules and needs, I asked the mother about the curfew for the oldest son. She looked at me rather oddly and then replied, “He would never choose to be places he shouldn’t or be out at an unreasonable hour, so he doesn’t really have one.”
III. Recently I was giving one of my daughter’s friends a ride home and she brought up the serious consequences she’d been facing from home at the end of term had she not pulled up her grades to near perfection. We talked about the expectations placed on her to work hard and earn a good GPA. She stated that while she felt good about the results, her feelings were mixed. She believed that because her parents were so strict she was making choices out of fear, and not, necessarily, because she wanted to do and be good. That didn’t feel right to her.
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Parenting can be risky business. We are charged with responsibility for our children. Yet we have to balance that with allowing them the agency they need at various ages and stages to learn and grow. That balance can be different with every child. Allowing children agency to choose–and stepping out of the way so they can learn from the natural consequences of their choices–can, at times, make parenting a painful prospect.
It’s instinctual to want to protect our children. But while we have a responsibility to protect them from life-threatening situations, protecting them from the consequences of their own actions can be harmful as well. One, removing consequence from choice is contrary to the natural order and even purpose of our mortal lives. Two, it may send a message that the consequences themselves–rather than the choices that elicit them–are what’s wrong or bad, and therefore to be avoided, regardless of the choices. Three, stepping between a child and the results of his or her actions can allow the child to divert “blame” onto the parent, rather than learn to accept responsibility for his or her own choices.
The deeper I get into this parenting thing, the more I feel I may be in over my head. I used to think math was hard, but parenting is way harder.
I don’t really have any answers, but I’d love to hear your perspectives on the subject of parenting and agency. Particularly those of you with teenage and even adult children. Particularly those of you–if there be any besides myself–whose older aren’t perfect.
Do you find yourself thinking that when it comes to your own children, “the other plan” maybe wasn’t such a bad idea? (Padded rooms, bubble wrap, military school anyone?)
Do you ever find yourself wanting to run interference in order to protect your kids from the natural consequences of their choices? Why?
Do you have kids who seem to need more boundaries than others? More space? Or kids that seem to only learn things the hard way? How do you deal with that?
How do your own experiences as a child being parented by your own parents affect your parenting style?
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