Letting him fail

Parenting gold on a sick day

I was home sick with Valor yesterday. Alone, with the triple header of a cold, a headache, and a stomachache. Normally I’m up and about with him, as he ambles around the house, opening this drawer or that one, investigating objects and spaces, climbing, tumbling, doing his absolutely perfect toddler thing of discovering the world around him. I’m usually right there with him, or nearby, doing my own thing, with an ear and an eye out to make sure nothing too calamitous goes down.

We’ve got a sweet little flow on our days together and I am mostly available and present and physically engaged in whatever he’s doing. But not yesterday. I needed more than anything to lie down. And I let him know, “I’m here with you, little man, but I’m going to be on the couch. I’m here to read and cuddle but I can’t be up and playing with you right now ‘cause I don’t feel good.”

He was mostly content to entertain himself, pushing a little cart around and around the house in circles. It was amazing to watch how much his motor coordination has developed in the past few months. He can now preemptively steer around corners and objects, instead of banging into them, screaming in frustration, and then backing up and trying again. His new thing is moving the cart down the stoop that leads down to the screen porch, and then trying to get the cart back up into the living room. This is a tricky maneuver. I’ve seen him try it before, and when I’m right there with him, I’ll bend over and give him a little assist. Just a tiny adjustment to help the wheel of the cart slide up over the edge of the stoop, so he can pull the rest up without too much impairment.

I’ve always thought I’d be a mom who let my kid figure things out for himself. Who didn’t prematurely intervene and deprive him of figuring out how to do it himself. But it’s so hard when he gets so frustrated, and the thing he’s trying is so easy for me to do. Especially when he looks at me, with a rageful pleading look that says, “Come on, HELP me! I know you can!” Mostly I cave. I do the thing for him. And promise myself that the next time I’ll weather his discomfort a bit longer and let him figure it out for himself.

But yesterday I could not. I was so exhausted, in so much discomfort and discontent, that I stayed on the couch. He was trying to get the cart back up over the ledge, wailing and screeching, and I just told him, “I hear how frustrated you are! You are trying to do a really hard thing and I believe that you can do it.” He kept shrieking, crying now, and it was quite painful to watch. I realized then that when I step in it’s often to comfort myself by comforting him: that seeing his pain and frustration is so unbearable to me, that I’ll do anything to make it stop, and quickly. Even if it means short-circuiting a valuable learning experience for him.

Yesterday it went differently. I stayed on the couch. I watched him, I murmured my sickly words of encouragement, and something astonishing happened. He got it. He repositioned the cart, figured out how to angle it just right and pulled it up over the stoop. The look of triumphant satisfaction on his face, his caw of delight, his immediate full-body celebration of his victory over gravity and physics were enough to make me forget my illness, just for a moment. My sympathetic hit of his happiness was huge. And it struck me then: by letting him try, and fail, I also make space for him to truly succeed. And stepping in before he can fail also means he doesn’t have the opportunity to succeed.

It was a mega parenting a-ha moment. And a wild silver lining of a sick day to show me that simple truth, to force me to sit on my hands and let my son discover his power and strength and resilience for himself.

Today I’m feeling better, and I’m up and about with him again. He’s still trying the cart-over-the-stoop maneuver. It is so hard for me to stay out of his way. I’ll admit it: I’ve stepped in and helped him a few times, even though I know he can do it!

It’s not a one and done, as it turns out. Just as he’ll have to keep learning what he’s capable of, through trial and error, so will I. God willing, we’ll get to keeping doing this together, for the rest of my life.

photo by Paul Kurnick