Mummy's meltdown

A few weeks ago I had a meltdown.

It built up gradually over a few days in the mornings getting the kids ready for school.  That time of day was filled with me hurrying the kids along, getting them to eat some breakfast, get dressed, get their bags ready, make their beds, feed the fish.... you get the idea.

Then as we're on our way out the door to the car, I'm running through the check lists for what they need for the day.... hat, bag, lunch, sports gear, clarinet...etc. etc.

School mornings have been like this for a while now, I've just accepted that this is the way it is with school kids. (Ours are aged 9 and 11) .  However, more and more often we were arriving at school only to find someone had forgotten something important for the day. A hat - without which they aren't allowed to play outside; or a swimming costume, so the after school lesson would be missed.  

We just live a few minutes away from the school, and since I work from home, I can just pop home to pick up forgotten items.  This was definitely a big mistake on my part!  The more often I did this, the more often things seemed to get forgotten! Not deliberately mind you, it was just that there were no negative consequences for forgetting things, other than my own frustration!

Well, finally I reached breaking point and realised that I've been doing far too much for our girls, and although they may have needed this when they were younger, they have grown up lots and are quite capable of remembering their own things each morning without me nagging them and fetching and carrying things for them.

When the frustration got too much and the realisation hit me, I just crumbled into tears, telling the kids I'd had enough. Me trying to help them was no longer having any effect and it was time for them to step up and start doing things for themselves.

They were a bit shocked - seeing mum in tears is never a good sign. But they gave me hugs, listened to my rants and raves and agreed something had to change.

I decided that I wasn't going to remind them of ANYTHING EVER AGAIN!   Ok, so that was a bit extreme, but it was how I felt at the time!

"But what if we get to school and have forgotten to put our shoes on?" , they asked.

"Then you'll spend the day at school in your socks", I replied.

"What if we forget our lunch?"

"You won't starve for one day."

They took it all good naturedly and to be honest, they were quite excited about finally being given some responsibility.

As a family, we have chosen for me to be a stay-at-home mum to take care of our kids. But this doesn't mean I should do everything for them.  I also need to teach them to be, and yes LET them be independent.   

I've always felt with our kids that it takes me a while to figure out how to be a mum with them, how to 'parent' them. Once I've got it all figured out and settle into a routine, they decide to grow up a bit and what I've been doing doesn't work any more. Then it's back to square one, figuring out how to be a mum to a kid who's a little bit older and more and more capable.

This is the stage I've reached once again - and will continue to over and over and over again as our girls continue to grow and mature.

So, my tearful meltdown was then followed by a couple of school mornings which were VERY quiet - making me realise just how much of the silence I filled each day with nagging, reminders and cajoling the kids to eat, dress, etc.

Gone are the reminder notes on the door telling the kids what they should be taking to school each day.  No longer do I check their bags each day.

I've accepted that there might be times when they forget something and have to miss out on an after school activity that we may have paid for. But it's all part of learning for them....and me!

One day shortly after we started this, our youngest forgot it was a sports lesson day at school and wore her school dress. She had to run around playing soccer in her dress and school shoes rather than her much favoured shorts, top and trainers!  Lesson learned, she doesn't want that to happen again, so I think that will be one day she'll remember each week for sure!

When I had my meltdown/ realisation of how I was doing too much for my kids, I felt like I was an overprotective, mollycoddling parent who'd been doing it all wrong for who knows how long. In wanting to help my kids, I'd actually been hindering them.

Once I started talking to other mums about this, it was a big relief for me to find others who felt the same way.  You do tend to forget this at times, that there are plenty more out there going through the same thing as you - making similar mistakes, feeling rotten and blaming themselves.

So that's why I thought I'd share my meltdown on here too!

A few weeks on, I feel much better about where I'm at with my parenting skills. The girls are happily taking on more responsibilities - clearly thinking "About time Mum.", and my mornings are far less stressful now and more enjoyable for us all.

Are you a parent?  Do you ever feel like you do too much for your kids? How do you know when they're ready to break free from mum and dad and do things 'all by themselves'?

I'll share in future posts what our girls are now taking on and learning how to do 'by themselves'.  Many things they probably could have done much sooner, but at least we've made a start now.

Please do tell me your thoughts on this. I'd love to hear some other ideas and suggestions.

Why is it so important that our kids fail?

As parents we are forever being told that we shouldn't be push our kids, nor should we reward them for their successes and that by filling their lives with after school activities that we are pressuring them and setting them up for failure as adults.

This week I read an article from The Telegraph Uk telling us that are kids are growing up

"incapable of accepting failure".

My first question is - why do we want our kids to 'accept failure'.

What parent would say to their kid, "Sorry Johnny, you just have to accept - you're a failure."

Those parents who 'push' their kids, are teaching them not to accept failure, but to strive for success.

 The kid who is the one achieving top marks in school, who plays the violin and is captain of the the soccer team; do you think these things simply 'happened' to them - or their parents made them happen? Of course not - they happened because the kid worked hard - studied hard, practised hard and trained hard. Have they ever experienced failure? Of course they have - that's part of learning. They've gone through the endless hours practising a musical instrument until it sounds tuneful; the weeks of repetition of exercises to perfect a sporting skill, and hours of maths practice sheets. Nobody just picks up an instrument  or takes up a sport and is instantly an expert. It takes years of practise - of getting it wrong, failing, and learning how to correct and improve in order to get it right.  These kids have learned resilience, persistence and the rewards of those attributes in their academic results not to mention their considerable musical and sporting abilities.

Perhaps their parents pushed them to study or practise but sometimes kids need to be pushed to achieve their potential - to enable them to see the rewards of hard work and study. Surely our role as parents is to encourage, guide and help our children grow into mature and capable adults with the skills necessary to lead the life they want to live. Given the choice - how many kids would spend every day after school, and every weekend playing computer games or watching TV?

The aforementioned article also states that,

"Some of the country’s top girls’ school have already begun

 introducing measures to encourage their high achieving

 students to accept defeat."

These 'measures' include one school introducing a test where it is impossible to score 100%. Why should this be helpful to anyone.  To set an impossible task doesn't give the student the incentive to put in 100% effort.

To me it seems like the issue is not whether the kids can cope with failure, but that schools and teachers cannot accept that some kids strive for success, work hard and are high achievers.  Just because a child is achieving, it is now seen as a result of pushy parents. It's as if kids couldn't and shouldn't want this for themselves. 

The constant 'labelling' of parents as helicopter, snow-plow, bulldozer or whatever, gives no credit at all to the children themselves.  If a child is doing several after school activities, then of course it's because their parents are pushing them into it. It is assumed that no child could possibly want to do several after school organised activities.

We are told to 'let our kids be kids', to stop all these organised after school activities and just let them play with their friends and grow and develop those natural life skills that people did a generation or two ago when they learned independence and resilience from building dens in the woods, and riding round on bikes all weekend with their friends.

The reality is that kids want to play sports with their friends, they want to learn to play musical instruments, and believe it or not - kids want to be good and things, to succeed, get top marks and win races.

Yes, there will always be parents who push their kids to do things they don't want to do, and equally there will be kids whose parents don't care what their kids do and never show any interest in them. There will also be kids who spend all their free time watching television or playing on computer games. 

So even for those parents who do push their unwilling kids to get active and learn skills, it's a lot better than many of the other options open to kids these days.

Personally I never really enjoyed doing the extra Maths and English work at home on a Sunday evening that my parents made me do, but I did enjoy being at the top of the class at school, and understanding what we were learning in the lessons. Once I reached high school and was too old to let my parents tell me what to do, I understood the results gained from hard work and study and could apply these myself.

Later in the Telegraph article, it states that,

"Helen Fraser, the chief executive of the Girls' Day School

 Trust, of which both Wimbledon and Oxford High School are

 a part, has previously explained that they try to teach failure

 so that the pupils understand that "being perfect is the

 enemy of learning"."

If people really believe that high achieving students think that they are perfect and don't want to learn, then they are missing the point. The whole reason that these students are high achievers is because they are good at learning, otherwise they would not be at the top.

In Australia, there is a phrase called "The Tall Poppy Syndrome." In Japan, there is a proverb that states, "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down."  Both explain the idea that everyone should be equal, and nobody is 'better' than their peers.

The fact is that we are not all equal and if someone chooses to work or study hard, then that should be rewarded and encouraged not criticised.  What kind of education do we want our kids to have. Don't we want them to grow up to be strong, independent and hard working, always striving for more?  Isn't that how civilisation has grown and progressed over the centuries?  Let's not stop progress now. 

Stop worrying that some kids don't know what failure is because they are achieving success. It's time that schools and education authorities stopped trying to bring down the high achievers and concentrated more on bringing up those kids who are not achieving well.