If you haven’t read Part 1 of this series, I encourage you to do so (you can click here to get there). Basically, to recap: Many Stepmoms commonly voice their concerns about sitting by and watching while an entitled generation is being raised. I left things on a pretty heavy note in my last post which is something I don’t like to do. I truly believe that every downside has an equal or greater upside, it’s just all in the way you see things. Like for example: if you spend all your money on Lululemon (downside), then you have a closet full of clothes that make you look and feel extra foxy (greater upside).
This post is the greater upside to Part 1. The greater upside to being a Stepparent to a kid who challenges you is that at the end of the day, you get to be one of the people who is going to shape who that little person ends up becoming — and if that kid ends up being a really cool person, then you know you’ve contributed to that. Every time his teacher tells you that he swept the classroom without being asked, every time his soccer coach tells you he chose to go cheer up a teammate who was sad, every time he asks you if you want a glass of wine (I know, right?), you know as a parental figure in his life that you have helped to create that amazing kid that everyone else is super pumped about. That’s why I take my role as a stepmom ultra seriously (but not too seriously otherwise… yikes).
If you ask me, I really think this is a generational issue as so many parents helicopter over their kids’ every move, wanting to save them from everything bad in the world. Like that line in Finding Nemo, when Dory tells Marlin that he can’t “never” let anything happen to Nemo, or nothing would ever happen to him — way too many parents are Marlins! Protecting our kids from failure, fighting their battles, leaving work to bring their forgotten homework to school, buying them new cell phones if they lose their first one, replacing their smashed iPad screens, cutting the crusts off their sandwiches, not expecting them to do any chores — it might seem at the time that this is an example of loving parenting, but really all it ends up teaching kids is that it’s okay to be irresponsible and that if they think the world owes them something then they’re right.
It’s tricky living in the role as a Stepmom sometimes, because you have a unique perspective on someone else’s kids. Yeah, they’re kinda your kids too, but not so much that you have the same level of patience or love-blindness as a bio-parent. Parents everywhere share a common goal of wanting to give their children the best life they possibly know how to (and are able to) provide.
Here are some strategies we use in our own home to teach the value of appreciation.
Practice Gratitude
Our custody arrangement is such that my stepson spend every other weekend, from Thursday to Monday night, in our home. This provides us with 5 opportunities per stepweekend to have supper as a family. We eat our dinner together each and every single one of those nights. Before we eat, my husband does the honours of saying Grace, followed by listing things that he is grateful for. These usually include: that we are all together; that we have a roof over our heads in a safe home in a safe country; that we have food to eat; and an expression of gratitude for an accomplishment that someone in the family has achieved. I will commonly chime in afterwards to please keep the people who don’t have a home warm/safe tonight, or to please help feed the hungry mouths in the world, or say thank you for something positive that has happened to our family recently. This is just one example of how we, as parents, lead by example that practicing gratitude openly and on a regular basis is so, so, so, important. My husband’s son will frequently add something he is grateful for (he almost always says he’s thankful for garbage cans so that we have somewhere clean to live hahaha) but I feel this is a way that we can be grateful and emphasize that we have more than so many people, without giving the Starving-Children lecture that kids roll their eyes at. Family dinners, with no digital distractions (other than music) allowed, creates a set-time — a date, if you will — that we can all connect with each other and be reminded how fortunate we really are. Another way we practice gratitude in our home is that my husband will randomly shout out, “Hey! List 5 things you’re grateful for!” The best part about this pop quiz? We always list each other. In this digital age of over-stimulation, mass levels of consumerism, and displaying our lives on social media, it is so easy to lose sight of what we have in front of us. Teaching mindfulness, gratitude, and the importance of counting your blessings has been an invaluable parenting win in our household.
Teach the Value of a Dollar
A couple of winters ago, my husband took my stepson out to shovel driveways to earn money. When at the end of the driveway, the homeowner placed a $2 coin in my stepson’s hands, he was beaming at the fact that he had earned some cash all by himself.
At both his Mom’s house and our house, my stepson (age 10) has chores that he needs to complete daily to earn $5/week. He exclaimed to us when he came for his weekend, “5 bucks isn’t even that much!” But realizing everything he actually has to do in order to earn 5 dollars, he’s started to think twice before asking for things.
In all of these instances, even though it may not be as harsh as the real world is (should it be so harsh? he’s a kid!) my stepson is slowly starting to equate how many shovels-full of snow or bathrooms he’d have to mop to earn certain amounts of money. With these small lessons that don’t make him feel guilty for being given things, he’s started asking us “does this cost extra?” when at the movie theater and he wants butter on his popcorn, or wants to order a movie on TV, or wants a refill on his drink at a restaurant. Does he still lead a privileged life? Yes, absolutely. But at the age of 10 he is continuously bouncing ideas of “inventions” off the adults in his life in order to hopefully strike it rich. He is starting to understand that money doesn’t have an endless supply, but that if you work hard, you’ll have more of it.
Spend Time, Not Money
My husband has been no stranger to the guilt that comes with going through a divorce when there’s a child in the mix. We are bombarded with constant streams of information, and within that information are some little tidbits that tell parents how badly they’ll screw their kids up if they get a divorce. And then there are little tidbits that tell parents how badly they’ll screw their kids up if they stay in a loveless marriage. And then there are little tidbits that tell parents not to remarry without their children’s blessing. And then there are tidbits that tell parents to go ahead and remarry anyways. And in all the tidbits that are fired our way, we will end up with one giant mishmash of a super-tidbit that tells us “no matter what you do, you are a failure.”
(FYI that is so not true.) Unfortunately for my husband, his super-tidbit tells him that because he chose to no longer live life with his first wife, their son will suffer irreparable, damaging, and lifelong consequences. Men are fixers. They protect. They provide. And when they feel like they haven’t measured up to those attributes then oh Lord, they board a one-way train to Guilt City.
Unfortunately, Guilt City is known for being laden with trinkets and gifts galore to collect and pass on to children who inadvertently have built Guilt City. He and I have had many conversations about how spoiling the sadness out of his son isn’t going to help him sort through any residual feelings he has about the separation of his parents, nor will it create good habits for the future. A new toy or electronic gadget may initially put a smile on that little boy’s face, but it will quickly be cast aside in the pursuit of something newer, better, bigger, faster, shinier. What that boy really needs is an opportunity to explore the big feelings within himself, rather than wanting the acquisition of a new toy to numb them. He needs his dad to take him fishing. He needs his dad to sit down and practice drawing with him so they can talk and connect. Really, he just needs his dad, not his dad’s credit card.
When we raise our children to believe that buying things is the answer to unhappiness, we end up creating more unhappiness as we teach them to slap layers of Band-Aids over a wounded soul. The biggest lesson of all: holes in our hearts cannot be filled with stuff.
Be Responsible for Your Own Actions
My husband, I think (I’ve never asked him, but I know), believes me to be a smidge heartless when I encourage him to let his son be late for hockey practice. Trying to get my stepson out the door for anything on time has proven a feat comparable to climbing Mount Everest. But why would we let his tardiness affect our stress levels? Why get our knickers in a bunch, scrambling to get him out the door on time, raising voices while sweating with anxiety as he calmly plays upstairs with his toys (still not dressed, I might add)?
I am a true believer in allowing children to encounter the natural and logical consequences of their actions. If he was to be late for hockey practice, then what would be his consequence? Perhaps he’d have to skate lines. Perhaps he’d have to fill the other boys’ water bottles. Perhaps he’d have to sit on the bench while his teammates played their next game. These are my favourite kind of consequences, as they are not imposed by parents and therefore your kids cannot reasonably blame you for them (though they will likely try to).
But how else will they learn that being late is unacceptable? Clearly, while you can suggest until you’re blue in the face that being late is a blatant disregard for someone else’s time, until they realize that being late means bad things for them, they just won’t actually learn.
If you were to stop loading up your kid’s backpack for him to take to school (not your responsibility), and he was unable to produce his homework that the teacher wanted to check, then he would learn in a big hurry what it felt like to be unable to prove that he did, in fact, practice his multiplication the night before. What would be the consequence? Perhaps simply his own feeling of disappointment with himself, which is in fact a very large driver of future behaviour.
When we continue to rush to our children’s aid in their times of disappointment, we are essentially robbing them of these opportunities to grow as people and to learn valuable lessons in what it means to be responsible, productive members of society. If your teenager were to drive home after drinking, would you continue to give them your car keys? If your child (God forbid) touched a hot stove, would she ever do it again? Fighting our kids’ battles for them, cushioning their falls, and enabling unacceptable behaviour will never benefit anyone. You don’t deserve the stress, and your child doesn’t deserve to have her resourcefulness taken from her before she’s even been able to develop it. Do your kids a favour and let them touch some life-stoves (not hot ones ok!). They’ll thank you for it later.
Failure is not your Enemy
As a general rule, kids just want to be “good.” They want to be happy. They want to have fun. But most of all, kids don’t like to be “bad.”
Somewhere between generations, it’s been passed on that failure is bad. Maybe that’s why suicide rates are at an all-time high (heavy, I’m so sorry). Maybe that’s why college applications are so stinkin’ stressful. Maybe that’s why being sent to the principal’s office (anyone else remember the spelling of principal by saying ‘your principal is your PAL!’ no? just me? ok…) feels like walking the death row of childhood.
But why can’t failure be thought of as an opportunity? Ask any successful business owner their biggest lesson and he’ll tell you that the reason he made it is because he failed first. Ask any doctor why she’s so good at doctoring, she’ll tell you it’s because once upon a time she let someone die (not on purpose!) so she’ll never do that again. God, this paragraph just got so heavy. I’m just trying to say that every “failure” has an upside.
If your kid doesn’t know how to cope with a setback unless you’re there to fight her battles for her, then in all reality you’re doing her more harm than good. So how have we taught my husband’s son to accept failure as an opportunity to grow? We ask these simple questions.
Stepson: “Ugh, I suck at that!”
Us: “How can you be better?”
Stepson: “Ugh, I can’t do my math homework!”
Us: “What specifically can’t you do? How can you overcome that?” *Note — this is not a volunteer position to do it for him!*
Stepson: “Ugh, they didn’t want me to play with them at recess!”
Us: “So what can you do instead next time?”
Stepson: “Ugh, I’m bored!”
Us (Ok, just me): “There are toilets to clean!” (I’m only half kidding, but nothing makes me tangle up inside than a kid who has a gazillion things to play with complain about being bored. It is not a parent’s responsibility to constantly entertain their children!!!!)
Teaching our kids how to come up with their own solutions for their own problems will set them up for success throughout their childhoods and well into their adulthoods. Unless we teach them the tools necessary to overcome adversity, they will forever remain crippled by a self-limiting belief that they are incapable of surpassing any challenge thrown at them. Although by not coming to their rescue, at the time it may seem at the time that we are letting them suffer in their own feelings, putting out their fires for them won’t teach them how to use a fire extinguisher.
Forgiving our Stepchildren for having a sense of entitlement likely won’t be a one-and-done accomplishment. It will likely be a process. We owe it to ourselves, to our societies, and most of all to our children, to raise tiny humans who are confident and steadfast in their belief that they can change the world if they choose to. How many great inventors and innovators of our time would be nonexistent had their parents been responsible for coming up with Google, or Facebook, or airplanes, or electricity? Let your children struggle through their uncomfortable feelings. The world –and your homes — will be a better place for it.
Which of these strategies do you utilize in your home with your children? Are there others that have not been mentioned that you think should be added? What have been your successes? Where have you still identified areas to grow? As Stepqueens, we are committed to ending negative Stepmother associations. How have you recently risen above the Stepmonster label? Comment below with your thoughts, or click here to drop me a line!
