Clearing snow and learning: How are they related?

As I was clearing the snow off my son’s car this morning, I was fraught with guilt. Am I enabling him? Is he lazy? Shouldn’t he be doing this himself?  

But if I am honest, what I also felt was relief.  Relief because there are so few ways that I can help these days.  He is the one who is navigating his workload, social life, and all that comes with the demands of those two buckets.  Then there is the activity bucket, the logistics bucket, the family bucket… that’s a lot of buckets, arguably as much if not more than I have.  

I found this ruminating similar to the conversations I have with parents about supporting their children at home.  When to step in and when to step away.   Each child is so different that helping one might be enabling another.  How do we sort through all of this? 

I have a few ideas.

Step back and turn off the noise. 

Stop listening to other parents, stop reading posts on social media (except this one, of course), or, better said, choose wisely. Limit yourself to two or three sources, or if you can’t do that, then limit your time with sources.

Remember, you know your child better than anyone. While we can take away some good ideas or fresh insight, there is no easy answer or formula to parenting. 

When a specific situation arises, ask yourself these questions. 

1. What is the real concern? Is anyone in danger? 

If the test doesn't go well, if he is late to a class, or if he stays up late, what is my role in this? 

If we continue on with my snow-clearing story, the genuine concern was that he was already late and would skip the step of clearing his car, drive off with only a small patch of visible windshield and get into an accident. 

If we apply this to learning, it would probably be something around not wanting our children to feel stressed or overwhelmed and wanting them to receive a good outcome and result for their effort.  

The tricky thing is they need a little stress. They need to feel what not being prepared or not doing well feels like because those are the experiences that cause them to engage differently going forward.  So, a parent’s job is to figure out when to step in and when to step out. 

2. Does my concern stem from my wanting control over the situation, or worry about how things might look, or is it about supporting my child, helping him help himself? Oh, these get so conflated!

Back to the snow and car, my concern really was about his safety which comes back to what I can control but it was also about how he is ever going to learn to do this himself if I do it for him.

Again, with learning, we worry about how much support to give, and if we give too much, will they ever learn to do it themselves?   I like to describe this as the snowball effect of parenting. If I help him with this, then I will have to help him every time, and then he will always need my help and it will snowball into a situation where he can not do anything on his own. But more often, the other version is what I call the mini snowball, helping just a little.  Parents often feel that if they get their child started, help them a little, just clear the windshield so to speak, then kids will do the rest on their own.  For some, this is absolutely true. They need a warm-up, and then they off and running. But for others, it is the initiation, the warming up, that needs the most work, so that kind of stepping in is not helpful.  

So then ask yourselves:

3. If I let it be and step away, what happens?

He drives to school with one small patch of windshield cleared and gets into an accident. 

If I don’t remind him that he needs to start on his essay, it will be done last minute, which means he will be stressed, stay up late, and then will be cranky, which affects all of us living with him. 

Then ask yourself, is that really the only outcome? 

4. If I step in, what happens?

He sails off to school, thinking cars have the ability to defrost themselves. 

He will never study on his own without my reminders, and how is he going to go to college, and how is he ever going to be independent? 

5. What can I take away from all of this? 

Trust yourself, and trust what you think your child needs. These are different times. As the New York Times reported, teens are more anxious today. They are worried about their futures and their own mental health.  We can speculate on all the reasons for this, including the pandemic, cell phones, and much more, but I am going to focus on the situation, not the reasons. 

Our kids are feeling more depressed and anxious. 

So, back to my son and the snow. I have decided that each morning is different. 

There are days when he can benefit from sorting out how to get the snow off the car.  And it most likely won’t be the way that I would do it. It is amazing what a teen can do with one gloveless hand. 

And of the many days when this kid is doing all he can, filling all his buckets like a mother hen feeds her chicks,  frantically and diligently, he might benefit from his mom clearing his car, making a sandwich for him, and sending him on his way.