When my son was in preschool, I would take him to the pool to pass the time. Full disclosure, I am not a fan of the water and I managed to pass that opinion on to my son (yikes!). But in the early years, I understood that it was important for him to be comfortable in the water so that he would not be in danger at summer camp or a pool party.
As a young, single-income family we did not feel like we could afford swim lessons and I naturally assumed that I was fully capable of teaching my son to swim. After all, how hard could it be?
So, I would show him the fundamentals and hover close as he tried to stay afloat and move forward, flopping his arms and kicking his legs. Inevitably, he would look so pitiful that I would grab him, sit him on the edge of the pool and demonstrate what I wanted him to do. As you might have guessed, the flopping and kicking continued, repeating the rescue-lecture-fail cycle all over again.
So, how did I break the cycle and learn a valuable lesson in the process?
Click below to see how.
It is time to prepare your tween/teen for the real world by empowering them to take care of themselves.
With this list of 7 things to STOP doing right now for your tween/teen, you will begin to transfer the self-care responsibility from you to your child.
At this age, your tween/teen should experience the natural consequences of poor choices while you are still around to help him/her make sense of the world.
Take lunch/snack time: If your tween/teen continually forgets to pack his/her lunch/snack, he/she will go hungry. It is okay, he/she will not starve. Or, if he/she packs only junk then you stop buying junk because they are not able to make wise choices.
Will it be hard? Yes.
But I PROMISE it will be worth it.
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