At what point do you cut the cord? When do you push your kids out of the nest?
At what age are you comfortable with letting your kids do things on their own?
Like riding their bikes to school? Or taking the subway as did the nine year old child of Free Range mom.
We've been struggling with the boys and responsibility for a few years. Specifically, how to help the boys become more responsible.
Chores haven't helped. Nothing seems to have stuck. At their ages, they should already have developed a certain level of responsibility, but they haven't.
As a parent you wonder if you've failed. Have you coddled them too much? What did you do wrong? Or is it simply your kids are lame? Or just lazy?
Believing that to become more responsible, you have to be given more responsibility, today we went back to making letting the boys ride their bikes to school. This year they're at different schools so there's that worry that something could happen, but that's just my type A nature and helicopter mom coming across.
The Big One wasn't too excited about the idea at first when I broached the subject while picking him up from school a couple of weeks ago.
The Big One: "I have to bring my bike with me to every period."
Me: "You're telling me there are no bike racks on campus?"
The Big One: "Yeah. I see kids having to push their bikes around campus all day."
Me: "That doesn't make sense. I'll tell you what. I'm gonna park and see for myself."
Seized with fear that his mom would come on campus while there were still students around, the Big One immediately responded, "Um. Maybe there are bike racks."
Yeah, just what I thought.
So they rode to school this morning. It didn't take them as long as we had thought, only 15 minutes each as opposed to 30 minutes. Definitely faster than if I had driven them.
I've gained one hour in the morning and two hours in the afternoon during the workweek, with the exception of the days they have cross country meets.
An extra three hours a day to get more work done on my businesses and blogs, and extra time to practice on my machine. Extra time so that I can get up to 250 words per minute.
But will it work? Will riding their bikes to school help develop that sense of responsibility that they have been lacking? Or will it just give me more gray hairs while I wait for the phone to ring, letting me know that they made it to school safely?
