The driver of tomorrow is not thinking Green...

The driver of tomorrow is not thinking Green...
He's thinking Classic. (click on photo)

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Aug 8, 2012

Neuron energy, unite!

One of the concepts I work on (perhaps this comes from my upbringing, I'm not sure..) is not encouraging my children to allow me to figure it out for them. We have 5 and I find, especially for some reason, our daughters want to ask us the most basic question that they surely can figure out themselves if they apply a little bit of neuron energy. This extends to the inability to pick up something they are sitting by in the living room, or the inability to remember to pick up after themselves but they can remember whatever playdate or invitation or party function coming up. So I began to say "what if I wasn't here, what would you do? Pretend I'm not standing in the room and you need to answer this question yourself" or "You want to go where? Well perhaps you should take a look in your room and come tell me the answer". I went to a women's conference years year years ago and this gal had a great story about being a single mom & exhausted after working all day to return home to her teenagers constant request to go out with friends, but her room wasn't cleaned, etc. She would nag, argue, etc. Finally she just set the rules in the house, if this was done, then the answer was YES! So the kids could answer their own question, the responsibility was on themselves so when they asked for a privilege she would say "I think you can answer your own question" or "you tell me what the answer is" and they would have to evaluate if they'd picked up the toys. I haven't quite perfected that but it helps me a lot to remember that story and prompts a change at times in my own reaction. Sometimes I feel guilty at "expecting too much" out of the kids and I remember the story of one speaker who decided she was sick of her kids taking advantage, not helping out and she came home, plopped herself on the couch and opened a magazine. The kids of course started saying "mom, we're hungry, when are you going to make dinner?" and were perplexed when she didn't. She calmly explained to them that when they completed their part of living in the house (cleaning up), she'd complete hers. Of course, these are issues dealing with older children who need to start being more responsible but I don't think it's too early to teach self sufficiency and team building as part of a family. Our oldest just graduated, our 2nd next year and 3 more to follow so I'll let you know when we're done in 8 years how we did, haha! ;))
 

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