When the Stakes Are Lower
We had an emergency in our house yesterday. As the kids were getting ready for their football game, Pax realized his receiver gloves were missing. While he was stunned by this development, I was 0% surprised. He's known to just randomly put things in weird and unconventional places. Each time this occurs, I express the importance of things going in their place and the risk he's creating by being negligent with his decisions.
Yesterday, it bit him. His immediate reaction was that we needed to quickly run to Target to buy new gloves. That wasn't happening. It was nearly time to drive to the game, so there wasn't going to be an emergency run for new gloves.
Further, we weren't going to buy him gloves after the game, either. He made a mistake, and now he gets to experience the consequences. Later in the day, Sarah offered to take him to Target to buy new gloves that HE would pay for with his own money.....$20. Ouch!
He really, really, really wants gloves, but the thought of draining his cash to replace gloves he had just a week ago was too painful for him. I'm glad it was painful! Ultimately, he elected to not purchase the gloves. He will play his final two games without them as he considers his options.
It would have been so simple for us to buy him new gloves. However, doing so would have prevented him from learning a tremendously important lesson. Today, he gets to learn this lesson when the stakes are low instead of later when the stakes are much, much higher. This is such a critical concept for parents to practice. If we continually bail out our children (financially or otherwise), we rob them of experiencing the harsh pain and learning the tough lessons.
Pax is frustrated with himself. He wishes he had carried himself differently. And from now on, hopefully, he will. This $20 lesson at eight will possibly save him from a $20,000 lesson at 28. We need to let our kids fail when the stakes are lower, not protect them from failure today while setting them up to get crushed when the stakes are much higher.
As we play football in the backyard later today, I hope it stings him a little. I hope he remembers that feeling and subsequently grows through it. We'll still have a blast playing, though! That kid is getting good!
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