Inside the mind of a youth coach

Will you allow your children to fail?

Parents so often step in when they shouldn’t, scared that their child will fail and things that need to get done will not get done. So to this end, let me tell you what happened in our house .

Bronte (12) decided that she did not want me to nag her (remind her) about what she needed to do over the weekend. She decided and declared that she was old enough now to manage this herself. Now, of course I could see what might happen and could see that she would probably fail at this, however I know that the learning from this is far too great for me to miss this opportunity. So I left her to her own devices. Needless to say, it did not go so well and it ended up at her at 9 pm not having her homework, not finding her uniform , not having a shower and not cleaning our her animals. After trying to convince me I needed to write her a note as to why she had not done her homework, trying to negotiate with Dad about cleaning our her animals, she began to realise that she has indeed failed in her quest, so much so that she got up before 6am this morning to finish the things she did not do yesterday.

Now I could have stepped in and I could have rescued her for sure, however could I have then had this conversation with her?

“Bronte, you took responsibility for yourself this weekend and it did not work out well. So this weekend, let’s sit down and talk about how we can make it work”

And we will this weekend; we will come up with a system and because she has experienced the feeling of failure in this area, she will be more accepting of help and support.

Am I a bad parent for letting her get herself into this state? Make your own mind up but I always stand by the thought that I must do what is right as a parent and not what is easy. I had offered her help and she wanted to do it by herself; from this she has learned her limitations and what she needs to do next time to ensure success, so surely that is a good life lesson. If I had stepped in, what would she have learnt other then Mum will always step in and rescue me?

Gets you thinking, doesn’t it!