Challenge: When does patience / tolerance / assistance turn
into enabling bad behavior?
It’s 11am the day after Thanksgiving. My 16 year old son just had his first of
seven plates of leftovers. Done eating,
he ran some water over his plate and laid it in the sink. It still has more debris on it than I’d like
to put in the dishwasher… and he put it in the sink, not the dishwasher. Pretty sure he can handle the complexities of
getting a dish all the way into the dishwasher.
But he’s downstairs now playing video games.
You ever been in this situation? What would you do? Should I call him back upstairs to finish the
job? Should I rinse the plate and put it
in the dishwasher for him? Should I make
him do all the dishes today to reinforce kitchen courtesy? I guess I could just go to the ManCave and
let my wife handle it.
Dads tiptoe along a thin white stripe between
constant griping and letting our kids develop some bad behaviors. Do you wrestle with this? Infrequently “getting things straightened
out” can be messy business. You’re
suddenly tapping a reservoir of irritation and your child feels like they’ve
done a lot wrong for a long time.
Dads, we are the Loving Leaders in our homes. My goal is to lead my son to be a great husband
and father, himself. There’s a lot on
the line and not just about the dishes.
I don’t want to lead my son toward being a lazy person who expects others
to clean up after him.
I have never had a bad conversation with a child
that begins with “I want to explain why I think this is important.” Never.
No child is motivated by griping.
They need you to set the goal out in front of them and encourage them to
pursue it. Junior is still going to put
the well-rinsed plate in the dishwasher, but he will do so either begrudgingly
or responsibly. The difference is up to
me.
What did I actually do?
I rinsed the plate, put it in the dishwasher, and sent him a text that
he owes me $1.
Clark H Smith
