There’s a natural tendency to loosen the reins on kids as they get older. Parents don’t have to bug them to go to the bathroom, or brush their teeth or do their homework or whatever, as much because they’ve come to realize that not doing those things have some consequences like sitting in a mess or having bad-breath or having their parents nag at them.
But lately, the Wife and I have loosened the reins even more noticeably, and deliberately. The boy and the lass play together a lot, and often times the lass will try to rough-and-tumble with the boy. I’m speaking now of those times when it’s clearly all in good fun.
For a long time now, the Wife and I have closely monitored this stuff because we didn’t want the boy accidentally hurting his sister. It wasn’t unusual for one of us to completely cut it off after a point because it seemed like a sure thing something was going to happen. And if we weren’t telling them to stop outright, we were telling them to watch out for this, or that, or don’t break this or that.
But somewhere along the way, we both stopped doing this. It’s like we both decided at the same time that it was high time they learned themselves what can happen. Now, the only thing we tell them is to go and do it somewhere else since we’d like to have a little peace and quiet.
And the other day for the first time, at least that I can remember, something happened. I was upstairs at the time, but I heard the crash followed by the panicked wailing of the lass. When I got downstairs, the boy was sheepishly hanging back while the Wife was checking out the lass’ chin. She was still crying pretty hard at that point. In the end, she got a good bruise on her chin from her fall and that was it.
I still don’t really know the full details, but I do know that the two of them were going around and around with each other before it happened. So all I did was go up to the boy afterwards and calmly told him to try and be more careful next time. But I didn’t scold or punish him because they were both equally to blame for it. Actually, I’m not even sure “blame” is the right word. Fact is, stuff happens and it’s not always pleasant.
It just so happened that this time, the lass took the brunt of consequences. Next time, maybe it’s his turn in the barrel.
Is there a payoff to our new non-interventionist mindset? Mainly, I’d say it’s reduced stress level. Not playing the part of the ref in a fight takes quite a bit off our shoulders. Plus, the kids may figure out quicker what they can and cannot do without our input. After all, it’ll be their mistakes and by this point, they understand what’s appropriate and what’s not.