Reply to What age will you consider your kids "grown up" and no longer bail them out?

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Reply to "What age will you consider your kids "grown up" and no longer bail them out?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My kid's 4 and I don't bail him out.  By which I mean, i have made the choice now not to view his mistakes as my problem.  I am here for him to offer advice, support, coaching, sounding board, resources, etc., but ultimately I try to let him take the lead with problem solving.  I am hyper aware of this, because I watched as my (now 26) stepson went through late childhood/adolesence/early adulthood and his mom bailed him out every time.  It wasn't until he was convicted on some drug charges and she COULDN'T bail him out that he finally started to turn around.  I won't let that happen to my son.[/quote]

I'm completely with you.  If you protect a kid from consequences of his actions, his actions are likely to keep getting worse and worse until he hits a consequence that you can't protect him from.  I'd rather my kid learn early and let him face authentic consequences for minor problems, so he will develop his own self-discipline.  Hopefully, he will become stronger and more responsible because I'm not taking responsibility for his mistakes.

I contrast this with how my stepdaughter was parented by my DH and his ex...until mid-high school, they bailed her out of every small mistake she made because, well, don't you want to make life easier for your kids?  So if she forgot her history homework at home, they'd leave work to go home to pick it up and drop it off for her at school.  If she left her ballet shoes at the other parent's house, one parent would be sure to drop them off so she didn't miss a ballet class.  If she was failing a class, they'd blame the teacher for not explaining things clearly rather than holding her responsible for her failure to even attempt assignments.  She's a sweet girl and I love her very much, but she's hobbled emotionally.  She's just had it SO easy that now, at 19, when any small hurdle comes in her way, she has a complete meltdown.  When she misses a deadline, she blames everyone else.  She failed her first semester at college and she's completely lost about what to do next.

It's ROUGH to learn responsibility and self-confidence as an adult, where nearly everything is high stakes.  I wish she didn't have to go through what she's going through, and I won't put my son through that suffering.  [/quote]

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