Successful Human Beings

It’s another Manic Monday and your week is off and running.  I know you’re trying to get your child to be as independent as possible.  This quote from Ann Landers, the famous advice columnist, is the goal.  We’re empowering our kids to do for themselves.

However

My advice on this craziest of weekdays is as follows: don’t beat yourself up when you need to jump in and help to move things along. Sometimes, time is of the essence. The bus is coming, or the activity is starting, or you need to get to the doctor’s office – now.  It’s okay to keep your day on track.

Overall, we want to keep moving our kids towards independence and ideally, we want to start the ‘getting ready’ process early enough in the day so that our kids have time to do their thing independently.  If you’re able to give them enough time and supports, maybe they can do it by themselves today.

Depressurize

But, if they can’t (yet) and there isn’t time (right now)…it’s okay to take the pressure off yourself and them and make the day work.  Beating yourself up about it won’t make anything better.

And there will be another opportunity to build independence later in the day, week, month.  There will be many opportunities…fear not!