My three kids are all teenagers. They often tell me they feel like they were raised in a bubble. I wholeheartedly disagree, of course.
In their younger years, I didn’t send them to preschool, and I always got to know the parents before allowing them to go to a playdate without me.
As teenagers, they have a curfew, I make sure parents are home if they go to a friend's house to "hang," they follow the rules of the road, and if I find out they are doing something illegal, there are consequences.
If that makes me the overprotective mom they think I am, so be it. It’s all about parenting in your comfort zone
Let’s be honest here: We want to raise our kids in a way that will make them succeed and thrive when they get older. No one sets out to raise a “bad” kid. And while I think my kids are pretty damn good, I'm not one of those moms who thinks my kids can do no wrong.
I’ve never worked for something harder in my life
No, it isn’t
I wanted to raise good kids and I am doing that. Perfect kids who act like robots do not exist. They are all going to do things we don't approve of. That doesn’t make them a bad kid. And instead of giving them that label, we need to give them chances, help them learn and do better, and normalize the fact that they are going to screw up.
Most important, we need to give them a space to come to where they can feel safe and not ostracized because they did something we probably did several times when we were their age. It's called growing up, and in case you forget, your kid is still that same person you've poured your heart into.
