At what point do we let our children learn from their mistakes?
At what point are we meant to intervene?
There is so much in the press about helicopter parents hovering over their children not giving them the space to breathe, robbing them of the opportunity to make their own decisions.
Then there are the parents who are so absent from their children’s lives that the children are practically raising themselves.
Which child will come out most equipped to deal with life and its sure uncertainties? How will the child who never made a decision cope when he has to make a decision? How will the child who had had no direction know when she is making a good decision when no one has given her any direction in the first place?
I am so torn with this tween stage in my twelve year old son’s life. He wants desperately to be independent. He doesn’t want us checking his homework. He thinks it’s cheating if we do because if he was in school we would not be checking his work. I respect his decision and I must admit I am in slight awe of him because he is obviously so sure of his ability that he does not need us to reassure him. But at the same time I worry when I see his homework results slipping compared to his class work. Am I meant to start hovering then?
My son’s school instituted a new system where parents now have access to our children’s daily grades and I’m on the fence about whether I like this system or not. I resisted looking at it all last term when it was first introduced because I felt it was too invasive of my son’s life and I did not want to be constantly checking up on him when he is a good student. However after hearing so many other parents’ feedback I decided to go in and check it out. Once I did I was hooked. Just like all of the technology that we find ourselves hooked on, I am obsessed with checking my son’s grades because I have immediate access to information – hard data - results.
I check and recheck my son’s progress every day, praising him on good results and reprimanding him when I know he can do better. But is this a good thing? Are we putting too much pressure on our children to be perfect when in fact at twelve my son is at the age and stage in life where he is trying to figure out who he is and where he fits in? How awful must it be for him that I know on a daily basis how he is performing at school?
I think back to the days when I goofed off at school, played the fool and still finished in the top three. There was no one hovering over me questioning my every flaw making me feel bad for being a tween. And I know I would have been mortified if my parent was constantly reviewing everything I did.
Do we as parents have far too much access to our children’s lives so much so that we are not letting them discover for themselves who they are?
I am struggling as a parent to strike a balance. I know what it feels like to be the only child who had no one show up for parent teacher meetings because I was that child. I know what it feels like to have no feedback from any parent because I was that child. I know how it feels to wish someone cared because I was that child. At the end of the day I learned to stand on my own two feet because I knew no one was going to rescue me if I got in trouble. I learned that life can be unfair, horrible even but as long as I was doing the best I could everything worked out eventually.
The school of hard knocks is a bit tough for me to pass along to my children because I don’t want them to feel neglected. I just hope I can strike the balance so my son and then my daughter have the space to breathe, to discover who they are on their own, learn it’s okay to make mistakes as long as they learn from them, and know they are truly loved, cared for and heard.
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