LEARNING TO EMPOWER YOUR CHILDREN RATHER THAN ENABLING THEM

As a wife and mother to four children between the ages of 13 to 3, I often write about my own experiences whether they be successes or failures in the hopes of helping other women overcome their daily struggles.  That is how my career as an author began; I wrote about what I knew.  My latest book, The Happy Wife & The Happy Mother chronicles my journey down both roads.  Don't get me wrong... it is not an autobiography but rather a 7 Step Program intended to aid in the success of your family.  There are those days when I feel like my roles are those of "Miserable Wife & Frustrated Mother."

I can remember being in my Senior English class of high school where we were asked about what career we were interested in pursuing as adults.  My response was, "I want to be a writer.  I also want to have a career that isn't boring and has something new and different to look forward to each day!"  Ask and you shall receive.  My first career was that of wife and mother before I became a writer and I got exactly what I asked for!  Not one day has been the same as the one before...  Each day presents itself with a new set of challenges.  Like many mothers I have been guilty of wanting better and more for my children than I had as a child.  That often leads to giving in to our children when it is unnecessary or simply giving to them in excess.  Both habits hurt our children more than they help them even though we have the very best of intentions.

I have learned that it isn't always the best idea to rush to my children's defense when a problem arises before I have all the information.  That isn't to say that you aren't ALWAYS your child's advocate, but rather helping them to view situations in an objective light and learning to make reasonable decisions as opposed to ones made in haste.  This exact scenario came up at our dinner table two nights ago.  We take the opportunity to eat dinner as a family at least 5 or 6 nights a week and during our meal we discuss collectively the events of our day.  When it was my 13 yr. old daughter's turn... actually she didn't even wait for her turn because she was so distraught that she had to blurt out what was eating her up inside, she exclaimed, "I MADE A 28 ON MY SCIENCE QUIZ AND I GOT ALL THE ANSWERS RIGHT!!!!"  My husband and I exchanged our raised eyebrow expression that said to one another, "Yeah, uh huh... that makes sense."  I asked her to please explain this profound miscarriage of justice.

I was all settled in for a lengthy explanation when to my surprise it was quite simple.  Her teacher was an idiot who wasn't qualified to teach.  She ended her explanation with, "So when are you going up there to talk to her???"  Simple enough.  March myself up to the Jr. High and demand a conference with the science teacher who had the nerve to give MY daughter a 28 on a quiz!!  That was surely the best way for my daughter to improve her grade and gain the admiration and respect of the aforementioned idiot.  No problem... at least not in my daughter's opinion anyway.  I'm not completely heartless.  Of course my initial response as a mother was to rush to my child's defense and actually believe that she had been discriminated against in some way.  It was at that point that I took off the "mother goggles" that inhibit me from seeing my children's wrongs and looked at the situation with objectivity.

After talking for 30 minutes with our daughter in a complete circle we had at last come to the bottom of it.  She had combined two steps in a cycle rather than individualizing them, thus causing her to miss every subsequent step which resulted in a 28.  I told her that the 28 was already in effect and the best that she could hope for was to try to bring it up to at least a passing grade.  In her defense, she did get all steps in the correct order and her 28 didn't accurately reflect her knowledge of the assignment; therefore, she had some bargaining power.  I asked her to approach the situation with diplomacy rather than arrogance.  I explained that situations escalate when people feel attacked and they become defensive.  I further explained that when she had her first job and her boss gave her an impossible deadline that I wouldn't be there to walk in to his office and demand that he be fair to my baby!  Unless of course she wanted to get fired.  I told her that she needed to learn how to handle conflict with grace and restraint even if the other party was undeserving.

Even though my natural instinct was to rush to her defense and to protect her, I knew that it was the wrong message to send her.  The truth was that I wouldn't always be there to bail her out, even if I wanted to.  She is growing up whether I am ready or not and it is my job to give her the tools she needs to be an independent contributing member of society.  It wasn't what she wanted to hear, but she at least pretended to listen to my lecture and promised to give it a good faith effort.  I was proud of her for at least trying to be diplomatic when she clearly felt like she had been crucified.

I spent today feeling proud of how well I had handled that situation knowing that her teacher would appreciate the maturity my daughter exhibited in simply presenting the facts and offering to do whatever was necessary to bring her failing grade up to passing and prove that she did in fact grasp the concept of the lesson.  At 4:45 this afternoon my daughter walked through the door and said, "Well, she said that was too bad.  I got a 28 and I was going to keep a 28."  I asked her if she used the tactics that I had discussed with her and she replied, "Of course I did and she wasn't impressed in the least."  Now it looks like I will be marching myself up to the Jr. High tomorrow and demanding a conference with the science teacher to tell her that she is an idiot who isn't qualified to teach.