Lawn Mowers & Helicopters
First, there were helicopters. Next , came the snow plows. And now, the term lawn mower parenting has become popularized by recent events. The college admissions scandal and survey by the New York Times and Morning Consultant have cast a light on some really bad parenting. In some cases, crimes were committed by parents willing to risk everything for their kids to get into a prestigious college.
I have known thousands of students in my career and I am certain there are many really good parents out there holding their kids accountable and teaching them the right things. However, in schools today you may find a table in the main office that prevents kids from learning from their mistakes. At any given point, one will find several lunches, notebooks, projects, instruments, athletic bags, and anything else a well-intended parent can drop off for their forgetful child. I’m not sure this table has a formal name, but it’s basically one baggage claim area for the entire student population.
As I was driving to work the other day, I realized I forgot to put money into my daughter’s lunch account. She expected me to do so. An image of the table in the main office of her school popped into my head. Then I laughed to myself, “What a great opportunity for her to figure it out!” It would certainly be interesting when I got home that night to see if she had gotten the basic school lunch. Basic lunch was probably not as exciting as pizza. And, I was very curious to see how she would handle it. When I arrived home, I apologized about forgetting her lunch money that day. She said not to worry about it. She had an extra $5 tucked into her backpack and really enjoyed the pizza.
The best place to start when we want to stop enabling kids, is to take the mindset that allowing children to experience natural consequences - also known as life, we are building them up to tolerate frustration, become problem solvers, and most importantly not crumble when circumstances are not perfect. The day I forgot my daughter’s lunch account, I was tempted to drop off money, but I knew it was a good learning experience. There was no real danger even if she did not get any lunch that day. The worst that would happen is she would have experienced being hungry for a few hours and I would have had to hear about it.
- Here are a few ideas you can start using to stop enabling kids -
Allow kids to be bored - it’s not realistic to entertain kids all of the time
Kids should do chores without being paid. Kids that contribute more, do not complain as much
Slow down with all the gadgets and screens - these are bad on so many levels, but especially for empowering kids to easily make very bad choices
Let your kids solve more problems on their own. There are times that kids need us to step up for them, but many times we should be handing the problem back for them to solve