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Raising Independent Children By Letting Them Fail
Beep, beep, beep! It must be 7am and that is my daughter’s alarm going off. I wait a couple minutes to see if she emerges from her cave. Some days she does but this time she doesn’t. That means she turned off her alarm and laid back down.
I wait and nothing.
A few minutes later I hear stirring but it’s from one of her brothers, then another and finally the youngest wakes up. Still no girl. It’s now 7:26am and I’ve finished making my preschooler’s lunch and have sent the other kids upstairs to get dressed after they got their own breakfast. Even with their loud noises, she doesn’t stir.
7:49am — she busts out of her room crying about what time it is and why didn’t I wake her up? I remind her that the night before we talked about how she was going to get up in the morning to her alarm. She knows I’m not her wake up service if she wants to get to school on time.
She is ten and while I probably won’t let her miss the bus, letting her sweat it out a little is where parenting gets fun. Trust me, I was not on her good side. It was evident as she slammed her way out of the house this morning without a hug or goodbye.
Even though I wanted to wake her up, I didn’t. It’s not because I’m heartless and want to see her squirm. It’s because I am teaching her in a safe…
