Dear Family Coach: Our daughter is a very gifted volleyball player. Her coaches say she has great potential for a scholarship to a top college. Instead of that information motivating her, it seems to feed her ego. She isn’t following through with her coaches’ recommendations for training. I’m nagging her constantly because I’m afraid that if I don’t, she will blow this opportunity. We are fighting, and it isn’t working. Do I have to let this slip through her fingers, or is there something else I can do to push her? — Running out of Time
Dear Running: It never seems like a good time to let our kids fail, does it? All through their childhood, we protect our kids from the pain of their own actions (also known as consequences) because, frankly, we can. It’s easy enough to run that homework to school when it’s left behind. It doesn’t seem like such a big deal to allow a teen to miss school because he wasn’t ready for a midterm. And maybe it wasn’t so wrong to work through the night completing that diorama because your kid lost interest and didn’t budget enough time. Each instance of helpful intervention on its own isn’t harmful. But when we cease to let our children experience consequences, we fail to prepare them for the world.
Updated: Sat Jun 03, 2017
Source: Dear Family Coach