Recently, this was brought to my attention in two ways. Yesterday my three year old, Nathan, was playing with his brother. While his brother was out of the room Nathan grabbed some toys and began to name them. He's so creative with names. His sock monkey with button eyes is named Buttoneyes, his blue puppy dog is named Blue Dog, etc. With all this creativity flowing he decided to name the current toys Cutter and Smacker. Super Mom mode kicked in, as all I foresaw was the results of what Cutter and Smacker would do once Nathan's brother, Derek returned to the room. I donned my cape ready to spring into action, then I realized something. He was playing with the toy pizza cutter and spatula. Oh, I thought, that makes a little sense. I was a little disappointed in a weird way. I was ready to swoop in and explain why we don't smack people, etc, yet I wasn't needed.
The second instance was with my older, much more sensitive son, Derek. You see he came home with a rocket and a piece had fallen off. The worst part was that he had asked a friend to put it in his bag for him so he didn't loose the fallen piece and the friend had not done it 'right' (according to girls on the bus). So here's my sweet boy screaming and crying because he didn't have his astronaut picture. It was gone. I tried to explain that maybe it was a mistake, maybe the boy put it in different place and Derek didn't realize. I tried to offer to make an astronaut on my own, but that wasn't good enough.
So, it was time for Super Mom. I emailed the teacher, I told her I didn't know all the facts. But this kid had pestered (for lack of a better word) my son before, so clearly it needed to be stopped, right? She talked to the boys and found out that the other child had put it where Derek wanted...
But the worst part was that the other night, days after it all happen I picked up the rocket off the floor and down falls the missing astronaut...oops.
Maybe Super Mom should have used her super eyes....
All this made me think. How often do I swoop in to save the day, when my kids don't really need it? How often do I try to stop them from making mistakes, that would help them learn? I mean the reality is, that my son has not even touched the rocket since that day and Nathan was done playing with Cutter and Smacker before I knew it anyway. I always wanted to be the relaxed mom, the one that doesn't worry about everything, the one who lets the kids fall and doesn't run to save them until I know the need it. But I think somewhere I lost my way. I decided that they need me. I mean, I know that they do need me.
I heard somewhere that parenting is progressively letting go of control over your child, letting them gain more control over themselves. Yikes! Yet, it's reality, I don't want my sons to head to college calling me about every decision they make. Although, it might help them avoid the freshman 15...
So maybe, instead of running to my kids problems with my solutions maybe a better way would be to ask my child what a good solution is and go from there, helping them learn to work out their own problems. Then, maybe I'll have more time to change into my cape for the next problem....
I think this will be a work in progress... ;)
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