Car Wash

This morning I read an article about how parents inadvertently make their children more fragile by protecting them from boredom/pain/small failures and so on. One of the points the article made was that children need to be allowed to make mistakes, to be expected to work, and to let them be bored once in a while (yes, I realize that there was more than one point there). If you are curious, I found the article here: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200411/nation-wimps).

I've been thinking about how I parent and I feel I do really well in some areas and not so well in others, but the law of averages seems to be working in my favor as my kids are reasonably well-adjusted, capable, and happy. However, I sometimes make silly mistakes. Like today, when I didn't take Squirt to school for the 4th/5th grade fund raising car wash.

I couldn't find info in the school newsletters and there wasn't any clear information sent home or on the website so I figured it was just 5th grade and we didn't go. Instead, Aeryn got to play outside with her friends, make her own lunch, sweep the kitchen and vacuum under the table as a result of the mess from cooking her own lunch, sit in time out for a small mistake, and get bored. When she got bored, she chose to do this:

Yep, she chose this on her own.

Which is when I realized that I may be imperfect in many ways and I could easily over analyze my parenting on so many different levels, but I truly think she's going to grow up and be ok.