Often times I have been asked about raising such great kids. It sound boastful to even type that out, but I really have. I am always proud to hear when people comment about their work ethic, their manners, their confidence, how thoughtful they are....... its of course great to hear all of those things. I have had young moms ask my advice in regard to numerous different matters and I honestly think that I (like many other moms) could write a book. There are so many topics you could cover, honesty, organizationg, sibling rivalry, favortism, the list goes on and on.
I have often thought about and discussed with many people the most important advice I have to offer. One thing that often comes to mind is the word 'decisions'. In life from the time you are a young toddler there are so many opportunities to make a decision and then see and sometimes feel the consequence for that decision. I think parents often times rob their children of the opportunity to become level headed strong decision makers by making decisions for their children to an extreme.
I often wondered how parents think their kids are going to be able to make important decisions when they are 21 or 22 if you cant even let them make the extremely unimportant ones at the age of 12. The ability to make a good decision and understand there will be an outcome from your decision is not something you just learn to master overnight. It really needs to start at a young age.
Of course there are some decisions you need to make for your children. However I do feel at a very young age you have to start allowing them to make some decisions for themself. Some suggestions could be; What foods they want to eat. (with guidance) What clothes they want to wear. (not a battle I ever chose to fight) How they want to wear their hair. (Trust me on this one, you would rather have a 7 year old with a crazy hair cut then a 24 year old doing crazy things because they were never allowed to when they were young). I knew a mom who told her daughter how to wear her hair into adulthood. Those same daughters hid things from their mothers and grew up to be young women who struggled with making their own decisions.
I cant count how many times I have heard a parent battle it out with a kid about if its warm enough outside to go without a coat. My approach on this was this, I will tell my child its cold out, I will suggest they wear a coat, I will in fact suggest they go outside to check out the chill themself. If after all that they want to insist on not wearing a coat, more power to them. Are they gonna be cold? Yeah probably!! Are they gonna learn real quick it might be a good idea to take a coat the next time? UH HUH!!! This is a lesson that sometimes even 15 year olds try to challenge from time to time. Just this year I suggested to my 15 year old Derek to take his coat with him one morning when heading out for a Jazz Band trip. He got short with me about not needing a coat. I bit my tongue and took him to meet the bus at school. Once we got there it was obvious everyone standing outside had a coat on and it was tough for me to watch him get out with his long sleeve white dress shirt on, knowing he was getting on a cold bus and gonna take a cold trip. In fact I was tempted to try to run back home, grab his coat and make it back before the bus left......... but I knew better. I knew if my son is going to gain the ability to not only make decisions but even consider other peoples suggestions, then I needed to not interfere.
I could give a ton of examples of times I wanted to intervene. I wanted to make the decision for my child because I thought I knew better then they did. Sometimes if not most, I being older and wiser, did have a better idea of what should be done or what would work best.... but in the midst of trying to make sure everything is perfect for our children, we are messing them up as adults. Adults NEED to have the ability to make decisions. The best way to give your children that tool is to guide and suggest but dont insist that every decision be made the way you know is best. :) Let them travel their own journeys thru life, even if it means they show up at church with shorts and a pair of red cowboy boots, trust me, it wont be the end of the world. :) You just may end up one day with people saying to you........"Wow your kids are so level headed and confident, what did you do to help them to grow in that way?" :) Your response can be "Decisions, I let them make some of their own decisions"
God Bless!!
