I love it. I wish I would have done as you suggest. My kids are 16 and 12 now, and I think we would all be better off if I had ignored them more when they were younger.
Agreed one hundred percent! If I could add one more area that we had a lot of success with by ignoring? We ignored all the “I don’t like to eat this” complaints. My view is no child is going to starve to death by missing a meal. The result is that my kids (now 22 and 25) eat most everything!
I come from a family of seven siblings - while our parents were involved, most of the time for us as children we were off in the world, reading, playing outside with each other, with friends, or with each others' friends. When not in school, we'd go missing for large parts of the the day (not photo on milk carton missing, but absent from parental observation).
My Child Bride™ and I waited 15 years before having our first child. We did helicopter initially. But we tried to let them learn to do things independently. She's now 22, a college grad, doing her thing. Our second, 3 years younger, just texted me that she and her college apartment crew have just started their road trip from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, enroute for at least 8 hours to Eureka CA to visit our oldest, where they will be camping in the rain for the weekend, then travelling back generally towards our house in the Sierra Nevada foothills for more rain camping, returning to Cal Poly Wednesday, and then she'll catch a bus back here to hang out at home Thursday - Sunday. I think that they picked up on independence.
As to "to borrow the Aussie term" - our oldest was enthralled with The Wiggles at the turn of the century - her first concert was The Wiggles at 2 years old (first concert I've ever been to with a stroller corral). I honestly thought that she would end up with an Aussie accent. She out grew it. But I still have a Wiggles play list in my vehicle (the music is actually quite delightful) so 20-plus years on, I find it easy to slip into Aussie-isms.
Love this. Boredom is the new incubator. My kids are older and I’m still learning about things they did and learned (and survived 😬😳) when I wasn’t hovering. Win.
I love it. I wish I would have done as you suggest. My kids are 16 and 12 now, and I think we would all be better off if I had ignored them more when they were younger.
Agreed one hundred percent! If I could add one more area that we had a lot of success with by ignoring? We ignored all the “I don’t like to eat this” complaints. My view is no child is going to starve to death by missing a meal. The result is that my kids (now 22 and 25) eat most everything!
I come from a family of seven siblings - while our parents were involved, most of the time for us as children we were off in the world, reading, playing outside with each other, with friends, or with each others' friends. When not in school, we'd go missing for large parts of the the day (not photo on milk carton missing, but absent from parental observation).
My Child Bride™ and I waited 15 years before having our first child. We did helicopter initially. But we tried to let them learn to do things independently. She's now 22, a college grad, doing her thing. Our second, 3 years younger, just texted me that she and her college apartment crew have just started their road trip from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, enroute for at least 8 hours to Eureka CA to visit our oldest, where they will be camping in the rain for the weekend, then travelling back generally towards our house in the Sierra Nevada foothills for more rain camping, returning to Cal Poly Wednesday, and then she'll catch a bus back here to hang out at home Thursday - Sunday. I think that they picked up on independence.
As to "to borrow the Aussie term" - our oldest was enthralled with The Wiggles at the turn of the century - her first concert was The Wiggles at 2 years old (first concert I've ever been to with a stroller corral). I honestly thought that she would end up with an Aussie accent. She out grew it. But I still have a Wiggles play list in my vehicle (the music is actually quite delightful) so 20-plus years on, I find it easy to slip into Aussie-isms.
Love this. Boredom is the new incubator. My kids are older and I’m still learning about things they did and learned (and survived 😬😳) when I wasn’t hovering. Win.