My "Magic" Purse - Teaching Tuesdays

       C.S. Lewis explains storge love (one of the four loves we reviewed yesterday) as "affection, especially of parents to offspring, but also of offspring to parents." This type of love is the humblest of loves, because it is so comfortable, familiar and often assumed that a mother will naturally show love to her children by meeting their basic needs, and the child in turn will love their mothers by seeking her to have their needs met. The problem is that if we do our jobs right our children will eventually stop needing us as much. Since it is natural for moms to need to be needed, it is often hard to find the right balance between meeting our kids needs and letting them learn resourcefulness on their own.
        I like to carry a gigantic "magic" purse stuffed full of snacks, games, markers, and anything that I would ever need to meet the immediate needs (and usually wants) of my children should we encounter any kind of problem. However, by swooping in and rescuing my kids, I am neglecting to let them learn to "make do", practice positive problem solving, and figure out solutions with limited resources. I have to remind myself that my job as a mom is not to always be there to rescue them, but to teach them skills- like resourcefulness - that they need to survive and succeed on their own in the real world. I am not going to stop carrying my great purse. I just need to work on giving my kids opportunities to creatively solve their own problems before I whip out my swiss army knife and duct tape to fix their gameboy just so I can have the reward of their bright eyed, "Thanks Mom!"
       For practical ideas (family traditions, crafts, activities, and stories) about how to teach resourcefulness to your child, see April's edition of  my "Character Corner" Column for Metro Family Magazine. You can read it on my website (TheCharacterMom.com) before it is even published!

       Do our children not love us anymore when they stop needing us?  Of course not, but as moms this is sometimes how we feel. I would love to hear about how you keep your need to be needed in check.