I know I'm not alone when I say I want to protect my son for as long as possible. Every mother reading this is thinking the same thing, too. We just stick together on things like that.
But at some point point our children have to work more than is comfortable for them, and they'll be in a place where they will feel a little bit of pain. Otherwise, they'll never grow up.
I was watching my son swim laps for an hour Monday night at swim team practice. The coach assigned him to swim lap after lap of the stroke he dislikes the most - the butterfly. Why does he dislike it? It is HARD for him, he runs out of energy, goes too slow, and it's his worst stroke. The others seem to come easy for him.
I watched him struggle lap after lap and could visibly see his energy lagging (imagine that in a 9-year-old boy). I knew if I was down in that lane, I would not have made it (fyi, I'm nowhere close to 9). It made me so tired just to watch, that I wanted to scoop him out of the water and say - "Nice effort! Now take a break." I knew he couldn't stop - it's the coach's rule that if you stop and interrupt the lane flow, you gotta get out and do push-ups. So I felt his pain from my spectator's seat, and I realized: this is just a small hurdle. There will be much larger ones for him. I faced them. He will, too. And there's no way I can make some of them easier. And there's really no reason I should.
Our job is to take these little munchkins and grow them into responsible, independent, contributing citizens. It takes a little adversity - and a lot of work - to accomplish the goal. Sometimes as parents we need to move out of the way.
My thoughts for the day! Do you agree?
Happy hump day,
TCB
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