Room for Resiliency

Resiliency is, rightly, a trait parents increasingly desire to cultivate in their kids.  Luckily, I have stumbled into many ways to give my kids room to grow their resiliency muscles.

First, I am not a very nice person, which is to say I often don't care about avoiding discomfort for myself or others.  When I took Jada to DC earlier this month, we walked a lot, in blazing heat and not always under the safest of conditions.  (There may have been some highway underpasses and sketchy neighborhoods that we could've avoided but didn't.)  I tipped my hat to her for keeping up with me without complaint.  

I also thought about how I had told her we needed to leave the house early to get down to DC in time for all of the things I'd planned for us.  Which didn't strike me as particularly newsworthy, until I overheard a mother at the doctor's office later that week, nixing time after time being offered to her by the receptionist because she didn't want to subject her child to having to get up so early during the summer.  Lady, roust that kid up!  (Or, better yet, do like I did the night before my DC trip with Jada and let 'em know when you expect them to be ready by and leave it at that.)

Second, I'm a pretty busy person, so I need the kids to handle things on their own without my help, rather than having to remind or accompany them.  Riding the bus to the orthodontist, packing for sleepaway camp, and doing your homework are all within the realm of a pre-teen to handle.  So I let them handle it.  They make their mistakes, which I could've protected them from, but those mistakes are really good teachers, so why would I keep them from making them and learning from them?

Third, I'm lazy.  Dishes, counters, and floors are on them.  There have to be extenuating circumstances for me to intervene.  If it's just that they're tired, that's part of the gig; chores aren't just for when everything breaks right, but rather are what you do because you have to, irrespective of how you feel.

Maybe you find these praiseworthy traits or maybe you are horrified at me as a person.  If they make my kids resilient, that's what matters to me.