While I realize that many readers of this blog have very young or preschool-aged children, I couldn’t stop thinking about something that happened to my seventh-grader recently. It has to do with a concept called “hands-off” parenting which, for me, is about as unnatural as not breathing.
My daughter was asked to join a book club at school – something akin to the Junior Great Books program we had back in the day. She was given a challenging book to read and was expected to keep up with the chapters and be prepared to discuss what she’d read with her group.
While my darling daughter has many positive qualities, keeping track of her belongings isn’t necessarily one of them. A few weeks had gone by, she was way behind on her reading … and her book was suddenly missing.
As she came to me, nearly in tears over the missing book, my first instinct was to “fix” the problem for her. I could run to the library and pick up another copy. Or we could download it onto a Kindle. Or we could drive to school and see whether a kindly janitor might allow us access to her locker.
So what did I do?
Absolutely nothing.
My aunt tells the story of some DNR researchers who were trying to help revive the bald eagle population. The eagles had no problem laying eggs in captivity, and the eaglets were even able to start to crack out of their shells by themselves. In their exuberance and desire to help the babies, the researchers would assist the eaglets in breaking free of the eggshell … only to lose the babies a short time after they emerged.
It took some trial and error to determine that it was the very act of pushing themselves out of the eggshell that made the baby eagles strong enough to survive. Once the researchers stopped “helping,” the baby eagles did just fine.
I think of this story often when I look at my kids. So strong is my desire to help them through the challenges of this world that I fear I sometimes act like those researchers and don’t let them crack free of their shells on their own, whatever that might entail. And though it went against every mom instinct I’d ever had, I sat on my hands and told my daughter, “You’d better look for that book tomorrow.”
It took her two days (and I nearly pulled my hair out in the meantime), but lo and behold she found that book. And though it cost her some much-needed sleep, she persevered and finished it right on time.
There are many, many times where my heart is ready to burst with pride over my kids’ accomplishments. But this time, for sitting back and doing nothing, I’m going to feel a little proud of myself, too.
