Have you ever heard yourself saying something like this? 

“Ugh—I forgot about my kid’s orthodontist appointment today!”

I’ve said things exactly like that more times than I can count. But, here’s what I had to change it to:

“Oops—My kid forgot about his orthodontist appointment.” 

Listen, I know that most kids with braces can’t drive, but you know what else I know? Every single child with braces has less on their minds than the parent or guardian driving them to that appointment. I also know that if your snap score is over a half a million and you have a 783 day streak with your BFF, you can definitely add your appointments to your calendar. These friggin’ phones have caused me enough parenting challenges, I can also demand that they help me. “Twerp, put your next orthodontist appointment in your phone please. Set an alarm, reminders—whatever ya gotta do not to forget next time!”

There was a time when I never thought that I’d be at the phase of life when I could hand responsibilities back to my children. When the kids were all toddlers, it seemed like everyone with older kids would say, “You think this is hard, wait till they’re teenagers!” ({mock}“You think this is hard, wait till they’re teenagers.”) It made me feel so defeated. I felt so exhausted and in the weeds, I couldn’t imagine parenting getting even harder. Now, one of my favorite things to do is to walk up to parents struggling with small kids and say, “I promise you, it gets so much easier.” 

Listen, TeamDe is currently smack-dab in the middle of the teenager/20-something chapter. I’m not going to deny that this stage of development brings a lot of draining challenges. You know the saying, “Bigger kids, bigger problems.” But, this period is so much less physically and mentally taxing compared to having to do utterly everything for four little human beings. But I know, this stage would not feel any easier if I did not receive this incredibly sage advice from someone fifteen years ago. I heard this very gentle man say:

“When you do things for other people that they can do for themselves, you both lose.”

Being indoctrinated into the school of thought that my doing things for my kids wasn’t causing us to both win, but instead leading us to “both lose,” has been my guiding force to hand over more and more responsibility to them as they grow. Whether it’s a dentist appointment or figuring out how to get to the game on Saturday while Daddy and I are out of town—you, as a growing young adult, need to figure this stuff out. It’s not on me anymore. 

• You need a haircut? Call around for an appointment. 
• You have a school music concert this weekend and you need a white shirt and black pants? Make sure you schedule a time with Daddy or I to head to the store this week. 

Listen Team, one of the major reasons why I’m so invested in making my kids as independent as possible as early as possible is because I just don’t like doin’ stuff for them. It just happens that in this case it has a lot of additional benefits.

And let us remember friends, this, “Don’t do for others what they can do for themselves,” approach applies to both the children and the adults in my life. 

You guys know, I’m constantly trying to figure out ways to simplify my life. And twenty-one years of parenting and twenty-four years of marriage, I can give this one lesson credit for making all of my relationships a whole lot simpler. 

Now, if you enjoyed this post, you’ll probably like this one too!
How to Stop Blaming My Husband When the Kids Screw Up

Next week, we’re talking about the single thing G Man and I did that might’ve given our kids the biggest leg up in life. Be sure to tune in for that, and thanks so much for listening!