Letting my child make a mistake?

Being a parent does not mean swooping in and fixing it whenever our kids mess up, it means advising them on how to fix it themselves and letting them deal with the natural punishments so in the future they will be prepared to fix their mistakes and learn from them. Its our job to prepare them for the future when they are on their own, and doing everything for them is inhibiting that. So she wont have recess for a day, okay, not the end of the world, and I bet she wont be forgetting her books anymore. Its a lesson of you made your bed, now youre going to lie in it, you reap what you sow. When she gets back and is upset about her missed recess, tell her youre sorry that she missed it, but now she knows, you cant forget your books, so she should from now on have them all packed up in her bag the night before so they wont be forgotten.

I completely understand how you feel. I have an eleven and thirteen year old who have both been "rescued" this week. My daughter failed to tell me when she got the low account notice on her lunch, but I ran money up to school the moment I got the email. I also ran a federal form up to school this morning after reminding her three days in a row and even pinning it to her backpack yesterday. My son asked if I would walk him into the building this morning to sign a late homework policy letter that he had forgotten in his desk and I did it.

As a stay at home mom, I not only feel guilt, I also feel the misplaced responsibility -- I stay home, so it somehow, like almost everything, must be my responsibility, part of my job. I have to admit that, as much as I love being here for my family, I have begun considering returning to work in an effort to create some independence for myself and to force independence on my family. Every week I find myself running my daughter's cello to school, taking care of extremely inconsequential things my husband doesn't want to do, and dropping in at my son's school to take care of something he forgot.

I have tried not doing these things for them, but the guilt is overwhelming. I need a twelve step program to help me with my co-dependent issues.

It's always hard the first time. But yes, in this case, it is best to let your child deal with the consequences.

If you bring the book, your child will only learn that it's okay if you forget something because mommy will bring it.

The hardest part about parenting is watching your kid fail once in a while. If you bring it in he will just continue to forget. Recess detention is hard but it might be the thing that makes him remember. It only gets harder from here.

Don't let your guilt get the better of you. Children who never suffer consequences for their mistakes grow up thinking they're above the law because mommy will always be there to fix it when they mess up. You're not doing your child any favors by sheltering them.

I too want to rescue my child from the penalty when he forgets his homework and we really have to try not to do that b/c it doesn't allow them to learn about personal responsibility.

Your child will suffer if the lesson isn't learned at an early age....He or she will live through the recess detention. :)

Yeah, that is one of the tougher parts of being a parent. It's tempting to 'fix' everything for them, because we're bigger, smarter, and have been there before. You see them about to do something and you just want to break in with the, 'No, no, no... you don't want to do that, believe me. _I've_ done that, and this doesn't end well for you.'

Parenting, tho, is just a long process of letting go. It begins today for you.

You don't mention her age, but if she's old enough to be in elementary school and to have regular homework like that, she's old enough to learn how to pack her own backpack and keep track of her own reading book. You don't have to throw her to the wolves and expect her to figure this all out on her own by any means... you've still got an important place in this process. It's just time to make the shift to teaching her how to handle herself instead of doing it for her.

I do not consider it is an obstacle of creating errors. We must coach the kids two matters: one million) As mom and dad, we DO make errors two) When we do make errors, we ADMIT errors Children have to see that during us and they are going to obviously be trained and also will now not dedicate the errors we made ago.

We learn from our mistakes. If you don't let your child make mistakes, you hold them back from learning.

I know that sounds harsh and I completely understand that you're trying to do the best you can for your child to make your child's life happy. What you have to understand if that you're giving them short term happiness but you're also setting them up for longer-term misery.

I'm not saying you should go out of your way to consistently rain on the kid's parade, but letting them screw up every now and then is an important part of their development.

I think there's a line between "you're responsibility, you deal with the consequences" hard lining and "mom cares enough about you to help you out whenever she can. I think there has to be a balance between both.