Learning to pack for themselves will protect your kids online
It all comes down to two simple questions
More and more, I’m looking for ways to streamline my parenting. What are the through lines between one part of my kids’ life and another? What I keep finding, more and more, is that most parts of my child’s life boil down to a few key ideas. And when I don’t know where to turn, I turn to my favorite two questions:
“What part(s) of this do I need to protect them from (because they don’t have the skills required yet)?”
What part(s) of this are skills they are ready to build?”
There is no better example of this recently than my child’s latest experience packing for themselves. My kid is a packing pro thanks to this approach but I still check their work casually to make sure they’re prepared. Recently they were going away without us, with other family, and I noticed they hadn’t packed something. I knew without it, they’d probably have a tough, unpleasant experience.
So I came back to my two questions. Since they were going for several days, without parents, I considered not only what my child needed protecting from but also what kind of additional labor the other adults needed to be protected from. If this had been one overnight with me, I probably would have let them experience the consequence of being unprepared (and maybe packed them a backup to protect them if needed).
I decided this was a time to intervene, so I did. But instead of just saying “no you did it wrong, you forgot long pants” I went to the second question- what parts of the skill do they need help refining? They had checked the weather, but had skipped over what it would really mean, so we talked through what they might do on their trip (be outside at night time, for example) and rethought what they’d packed.
How does this apply to the online world? We’re always finding the balance between protection and responsibility, but we need to remember that protection is not *shielding* them from something, but about empowering them with skills. I’m not going to let a toddler choose from any app in the App Store, but I may let them choose form the apps I have downloaded, and then ask them what they notice about how their body feels after they play certain apps.
As they grow and gain skills, we are handing over more of the responsibility of protection to our kids, because they are empowered. And, we will remain in the background ready to step in and protect, if needed.