Week 1: Do nothing. Say nothing.
Yes, it’s what it sounds like. I can’t tell them what to do, I can’t tell them what not to do, or do anything for them. I can’t repeat or remind or prompt or nag or punish or otherwise interfere in their lives! I drive the car when they ask me to, and I’m there just in case anyone does anything physically dangerous.
The goal is for me to learn all the ways I’ve been unknowingly interfering with their independence, and to step back and observe what they can already do, what they can figure out how to do, what they truly need our help with, and just generally what happens when nobody is there to dictate.
We explained it all before hand, “Girls, as you know, mommy and daddy took a parenting class, and we found out we’ve been making some terrible mistakes. We are so sorry. So now we are going to start to fix these mistakes. Here’s what’s going to happen: for the next seven days, we are not allowed to ….” And we laid it all out for them … apologetically ….
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May 24, 2011 at 12:30 am
[...] handing the whole thing over to them? Are they ready for that? Am I ready for that? What about that first week when they all stayed up late watching TV just because they could? Will they do that every night? [...]