9. Universal Truth No. 7: All Children Need Opportunities to Solve Their Own Problems

There once was an old woman who asked a little neighbor boy to watch over her butterfly chrysalis for a few days.

Have you heard this one?

The boy enthusiastically agreed. For a while nothing happened, but then the butterfly began to move inside the chrysalis and then to shake. The boy felt sorry for the butterfly and wanted to help it. When he noticed a small crack in the chrysalis, he took out his pocket knife and cut the opening just a little bit bigger. Soon, the butterfly emerged. It fluttered a bit—then fell to the bottom of the jar, and died.

Upon her return, the old lady explained that laboring was an essential part of the butterfly’s growth. The struggle was needed to force fluids from its body into its wings. Without those fluids, its wings were too weak to fly. By easing the butterfly’s struggle, the boy had prevented the tiny creature from gaining the strength it needed to survive.

Despite our best intentions, we parents step in to “take care” of our kids too soon and too often these days, robbing them of a key developmental milestone—the chance to flex their decision-making muscles—and running ourselves ragged in the process.

It’s little wonder. As new parents, we become quickly accustomed to being our children’s everything. Babies and infants are 100 percent reliant on us. We learn to meet their every need, and we get to be really good at it! So much so, in fact, that solving their problems becomes a habit—second nature.

When children begin to pull away from us and encounter problems that are theirs to solve, we may not even recognize it, much less welcome it. But dealing with adversity is like any other skill. We get better with practice. The first time we changed a diaper, it was a challenge. By the hundredth, we could do it with our eyes closed. So it is with our kids. When we let them face their own struggles and expand their responsibilities at every age, they surprise us with their capacity and resilience.

And bonus: We cut down significantly on our own stress because we stop adopting our children’s problems as our own.

How “Sending Solutions” Sabotages Our Own Best Efforts

Parents are natural advice-givers, which is why so many of us find it difficult to refrain from guiding our children out of various predicaments. Sometimes it takes all of our energy just to suppress the phenomenon that Thomas Gordon called “sending solutions”—that is, offering up our perspectives and opinions regardless of whether they’re needed or wanted.

“Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.”

—ROBERT A. HEINLEIN

For many of us, it’s second nature to hop to it when our kids present problems, or potential problems, in need of quick solutions. We push “guidance” onto our kids without thinking that we are saving them from the good kind of struggle. For example:

• “A kid was mean to you on the playground today? Next time, go tell a teacher.”

• “All your school clothes are dirty? You should have put them in the hamper. Now I’ll have to do a load of laundry right away so they’ll be done before school.”

• “You didn’t buy enough Valentine’s cards for the whole class? You’ll have to make the rest by hand. I’ll get you some paper.”

• “It’s cold out. Put your jacket on!”

• “Don’t forget your lunch.”

• “Stop talking to your friend that way. You’re being mean.”

Unfortunately, as Gordon wrote in PET: Parent Effectiveness Training, sending our kids solutions tends to make them feel “put down, controlled, and, worse, they grow up expecting to be handed solutions everywhere they go.” Plus, our language often is laden with evaluation, judgment, criticism, shaming, moralizing, and commanding—all messages, Gordon said, “that convey unacceptance of the child as he is.”

Go tell a teacher . . . You should have put the clothes in the hamper . . . You’re being mean.

And this—the tone and language that surround the solutions we give—lies at the heart of the problem. Our acceptance of our children is like the fluid being pushed into a butterfly’s wings inside the chrysalis. Our acceptance is what makes children feel personally strong enough to make decisions for themselves and to change and grow on their own.

“It is one of those simple but beautiful paradoxes of life,” Gordon wrote.

Natural Consequences Are Your Copilots

Now, this may sound fine on paper, but if you are anything like us, you have questions. For example: Are we seriously supposed to let our kids make all their own decisions? Even if we know damn well they will later regret those decisions? Are we really expected to accept all of our children’s mistakes? Even when they make them over and over again? Even when their actions seem more like carelessness than mistakes?

And where do you draw the line anyway? Obviously we need to guide our children, to show them right from wrong. What if their “decision” is to walk in front of traffic? What if their “decision” is to play soccer in the living room?

All of these questions, and so many more, will be answered when we introduce a wonderful, life-changing parenting concept known as “natural consequences.”

The natural consequence of a child forgetting her jacket on a cold day is that she may get chilly. The natural consequence of a child choosing to skip breakfast is that she may get hungry. The natural consequence of a child being rude to a friend at school is that the friend may refuse to play with her at recess.

Natural consequences are the results of a child’s choice or behavior. The moment parents step in to impose or augment a consequence, the consequence is no longer “natural.”

Natural Consequence: Any outcome that naturally follows a child’s choice or behavior. Natural consequences cannot be imposed by a parent.

Natural consequences make the best teachers, and parents would be wise to engage their services as often as possible. But, alas, as Kathryn Kvols pointed out in Redirecting Children’s Behavior, this is not always possible. There are four important caveats to allowing natural consequences to play out without your intervention. In determining whether you are dealing with one of these caveats, ask yourself the following questions, based on your child’s age:

1. Is the natural consequence unsafe?

2. Is the natural consequence unhealthy?

3. Is the natural consequence too long range for the child to make the connection between the action and effect?

4. Does the natural consequence interfere with anyone’s personal boundaries?

A natural consequence of walking out in front of traffic is that your child will be hit by a car. (This is unacceptable because it’s unsafe.) A natural consequence of eating only junk food all day long is that your child will feel unwell. (This is unacceptable because it’s not healthy.) A natural consequence of not brushing her teeth is that your child will develop cavities. (This is unacceptable because, in addition to being a health issue, the natural consequences—cavities—are too long range for the child to make the connection between cause and effect.) A natural consequence of throwing a ball in the house is that it might break something. (This is unacceptable because it violates a boundary.)

Whose Challenge Is It Anyway?

So how do you quickly tell the difference between a challenge best left up to the child to solve on his own and a challenge that requires adult involvement? Part of how you tell the difference is by identifying who “owns” the challenge in question. Is it a child-owned challenge or a parent-­owned challenge?

A child-owned challenge is one that does not directly involve us because the challenge in question does not personally affect us. Of course, we might care about the problem—because we care about our kids!—but the problem does not interfere with our getting our own needs met.

Child-Owned Challenge: An age-appropriate problem that the child can manage on his own and that has no tangible effect on the parent.

A child who stubs his toe, is bored of his toys, forgets his locker number, spends his allowance too quickly, or picks a fight with his best friend is in the midst of a child-owned challenge. Again, we may care about these situations—and may even be triggered emotionally by them at times!—but we have no stake in how the problem is solved because it’s not our problem.

Parent-owned challenges, on the other hand, are challenges that do have a real-world impact on us. Our children may be the catalyst for the problem, but they don’t own the problem. We’ll be talking about how to solve parent-owned challenges in the next two chapters.

Parent-Owned Challenge: A problem that has a real-world impact on the parent. Parents may enlist the child’s help in solving the problem, but the problem is the parents’ to solve.

Test Yourself: Who Owns the Challenge?

In these modern times, parents are treating most challenges as though they are parent-owned. We have become so used to flying into action when we perceive our children need a hand. We adopt their problems as our own. Without so much as a second thought, we lift the weight from their little shoulders and take it on ourselves.

It’s time we stop this.

Allowing kids a little extra time to be confused about what to do is a good thing. Allowing them to experience the natural sadness or disappointment that may accompany natural consequences is a good thing. And encouraging them to keep working at the problem and to reach their own solutions is a great thing.

See if you can identify whether the following situations are child-owned challenges or parent-owned challenges. Write “parent” or “child” below each statement.

1. Two-year-old throws a tantrum in the middle of the store.

2. Ten-year-old forgets umbrella.

3. Three-year-old won’t stop coloring and get in the bath.

4. Twelve-year-old is throwing a Frisbee in the house.

5. Nine-year-old forgets homework.

6. Four-year-old wears same shorts to school three days in a row.

7. Five-year-old gets in an argument with best friend.

8. Eight-year-old talks back to father.

9. Eleven-year-old doesn’t do own laundry and has no clean underwear.

10. Fifteen-year-old didn’t make goalie on the soccer team.

11. Nine-year-old won’t do daily chores.

12. Thirteen-year-old complains of boredom.

13. Fourteen-year-old leaves wet towels on the wood floor.

14. Sixteen-year-old doesn’t have money to go to the movies.

15. Seventeen-year-old doesn’t turn in college application on time.

Answers:

1. Parent. 2. Child. 3. Parent. 4. Parent. 5. Child. 6. Parent. 7. Child. 8. Parent.
9. Child. 10. Child. 11. Parent. 12. Child. 13. Parent. 14. Child. 15. Child.

“Children’s frustrations, puzzlements, deprivations, concerns and, yes, even their failures belong to them, not their parents.”

—THOMAS GORDON

Keep Those Feeling Acknowledgers Handy

Now, just because a challenge is “child-owned” doesn’t mean the parent’s job simply goes away. We still have a role to play, and that role consists primarily of empathy.

If natural consequences are your copilot, empathy is the in-flight crew keeping your kid comfortable and calm while natural consequences run their course. For example:

• “So frustrating that you forgot your jacket! It’s colder than you thought it would be!”

• “Your teacher said that to you? Oh man, I bet your feelings are hurt.”

• “You were really looking forward to that party. You seem sad about not being able to go.”

You’ll notice that in none of these situations did the parent rescue the child. In the jacket scenario, the parent empathized but did not run home to get the jacket. In the teacher scenario, the parent empathized but did not offer to call the teacher. In the party scenario, the parent empathized but did not change the family’s vacation plans to accommodate a hastily planned birthday party.

Offering a bit of genuine empathy during child-owned challenges isn’t just to “make kids feel better,” though. It’s more practical than that. Empathy, as we learned in earlier chapters, helps keep kids in the zone, which ensures they have access to their frontal lobes. Empathy helps get them thinking in terms of what to do next.

As Gordon wrote, “Active listening provides parents with a way of moving in and offering to help the child define the problem for herself, and [of] starting up the process of problem-solving with the child.”

The Price of Helicoptering—and How Not to Do It

In Between Parent & Teenager, Ginott quoted a teenage boy as saying, “Mother hovers over me like a helicopter.” The metaphor hit a chord with parents throughout the country. Now, a half-century later, “helicopter parent” is a term found in The Merriam-Webster Dictionary (“a parent who is overly involved in the life of his or her child”)—and a Google search for the term pulls up four million hits.

We’ve all witnessed helicopter parents: The mom who second-guesses a child’s decision on what to wear or how to style her hair. The dad who advises the kid on how to spend (or save) his birthday money. The parent who answers questions on behalf of their kids even when the kids are standing right there. Helicoptering also looks like the parent who doesn’t let a ten-year-old cook, lest he cut or burn himself, or tells the waiter what the seven-year-old wants for dinner rather than letting the child place her own order.

Let’s face it, we all have some helicopter in us from time to time. But if we’re lucky (and strong), we manage to avoid the type of extreme hovering seen on school campuses across the country. How often are modern kids encouraged to talk to their teachers or principals directly about complaints or questions? How often are kids encouraged to stand up to the girl who teases them and try to settle on a solution before the parent decides it’s necessary to intervene? How often are grades allowed to be less than stellar? How often would children’s science projects, if dusted for fingerprints, not reveal parent-sized prints all over them.

Helicoptering is perfectly appropriate when health and safety are genuine concerns—but we’re far beyond that. Our inability to leave our kids alone has become pandemic, and the results aren’t hard to find.

Our friend Kim works at a major university, where she hires and works alongside many young adults just entering the workplace. Once, she made a new hire—a young man who was personable, smart, and talented. A couple of weeks into the job, though, he stopped showing up on time. She confronted him and learned that he’d lived at home the first two weeks, where his mother had been responsible for waking him. Since moving into his own apartment, he was finding it difficult to get up in the morning. This college-educated professional still lacked the basic skill of getting himself up in the morning without his mother.

Around the same time, Kim hired a woman whose performance was lacking in some key areas. The employee was given several warnings, but when things didn’t change, Kim leveled with the recruit: “Your job is on the line here,” Kim told her.

“Do you want to talk to my dad?” the woman asked.

“Silence Makes It Their Problem” and Other Tips for Parents

Writer and educator Alfie Kohn once said, “The way kids learn to make good decisions is by making decisions, not by following directions.” When dealing with a child-owned challenge, the child generally initiates the conversation and you are in the position of sounding board. The important thing is to allow the child to make the decision, and to accept her decision whenever possible. Here are some tips to help do that:

• Take your dog out of the fight. The great part about natural consequences is that you can sit back and relax a bit. These are not your problems. Mini-lectures take away the power of the natural consequences, so refrain from saying things like, “See what happens when you forget.” Instead, say nothing or—if necessary—offer feeling acknowledgers.

• Allow your kids the “pleasure” of adversity. Adversity gives kids a chance to be creative, come up with workable solutions, make decisions, and experience the outcomes of those decisions—good, bad, or neutral. It allows them to build up their resiliency and, as you learned in Chapter 4, gives them practice regulating their emotions. In 1888, Ellen Key wrote in her book The Century of the Child: “At every step the child should be allowed to meet the real experiences of life; the thorns should never be plucked from his roses.” Give children age-appropriate responsibility, and they will gradually and naturally become responsible adults.

• Do not expect a solution to come on your timeline. Give your child time to mope, pout, cry, worry, rage, and think. When you try to bring an end to your child’s negative emotions, or rush a solution, you siphon off some of their problem and use it to create your own. This is unwise. If your child has a problem, the last thing she needs is for her support system—you!—to create another one.

• Show confidence in your child. Parents who are all empathy and no confidence may rear children who act and/or feel helpless. When the moment is right and your child has been heard, voice confidence by saying something like, “I wonder what you’ll do!”

• Do not “aid” a natural consequence. Although this probably goes without saying, never, ever set up your child for failure. Children—all children, regardless of their culture—are provided plenty of opportunities to work through problems. There will never be a need to create adversity for your child to overcome. Parents who “set traps” or exaggerate minor problems make themselves adversaries of their children—which is neither helpful nor kind.

The bottom line: When it comes to natural consequences, you get to be the good guy. Your silence and trust in your child’s decisions and, later, your genuine empathy regardless of the outcome build confidence in your child while strengthening your relationship.

“Nagging makes it your problem,” says parenting educator Barbara Coloroso. “Silence makes it theirs.”

“It’s hard to rebel against your own decision.”

—BARBARA COLOROSO

True Story!

When Kristen Hatfield was in the fifth grade, she knew it was her responsibility to make her own lunch or to bring her own lunch money to school. One day, she forgot both. Her mother noticed the lunch sitting on the table and fought the urge to rescue Kristen. She simply let it go and then picked up her daughter as usual after school. That’s when Kristen told the story: “I forgot my lunch today,” she said, “and my friend gave me enough money to buy an ice cream. So all I had for lunch today was an ice cream, and I’m starving!” As soon as she got home, she rushed to the kitchen and made herself a big lunch. Problem solved—and lesson learned—with no help from Mom.

ParentShift Assignment: Embrace the Struggle

The next time your child comes to you with a problem or complaint, assess whether it’s a parent-owned or child-owned challenge. If it’s the latter, let natural consequences play out. What happened? Did your child solve the problem? Did the problem go away? Were the natural consequences unpleasant? (And, if so, did you remember to offer empathy?)

Child-Owned Challenges Toolkit

Use this toolkit when the challenge has no tangible effect on you or if the natural consequence of the behavior is not unsafe, unhealthy, too long range for child to connect cause and effect, or in violation of someone’s boundaries or limits. For example, your child is bored, he had an argument with his friend, he forgot his jacket or homework, he’s a selective eater, his clothes and hairstyle are not what you would have chosen, or he wants to quit a sport.

•Allow NATURAL CONSEQUENCES to play out.

•SHOW CONFIDENCE in your child.

•AVOID RESCUING and HELICOPTERING.

•ACCEPT YOUR CHILD’S SOLUTION, whatever it is.

•Borrow liberally from the EMPATHY TOOLKIT (specifically, GET ON THE CHILD’S LEVEL, BECOME THE CONTAINER, use FEELING ACKNOWLEDGERS, and ask EMPOWERING QUESTIONS).