Let your children fail.

When your child succeeds at something, do you feel a personal sense of accomplishment and pride? When your child does something wrong, do you feel like the whole world is pointing at you and saying 'bad mom' or 'bad dad'? You would be the exception if you didn't.

I remember the countless times I ran back home to get the left books, homework, lunch or whatever. The science projects that I helped with that were brought up the night before they were due (stop laughing: you know it is true, or you will if you haven't reached that point yet). I didn't want my child to be the only one without a project or a lame project. We want our children to take school, success and being responsible for themselves seriously. Well take it from someone who took way to long to figure this out. You are not helping when you help so much. Let your children fail sometimes.

Help them to be organized. Teach them the importance of being prepared. Set them up in everyway to succeed, then let them fail. It is the fastest way for them to learn a lesson. If they forget their book and have a consequence at school, or work on an assignment that they didn't bother to put back in the backpack and now it is late and worth less, they will feel it. It should be thier problem, not yours.

If you keep bailing them out they will need you to clean up their messes for the rest of their lives. They will develop that annoying sense of entitlement and laziness our teens these days are so known for. They must learn to own the problem.

If you think someone will think badly of you for not running to their aide everytime, so what. If you feel the imaginary glares of people judging you, it is mostly in your head. They aren't the ones who are personally responsible for helping that person become a mature, responsible adult. If they do have an opinion, again I say, who cares. Do what you know is right. It isn't about what people think of you, it is about the responsiblity that God has given you. He is the only accountablily you need.

Be sure to start early with this though. This lesson learned later can be much more costly and a difficult pattern for all of you to break.

Does anyone else have some experience with this? Join in on the conversation. This is a forum to share, not just a platform for me to pontificate.