In my first posts I talked about being a family and a team. Moreover, I wanted to illustrate our thoughts around a team.

My husband and I want our kids to learn from our actions (as parents) that not only do we provide lip service that we are a strong team, we will support you..blah..blah…blah…blah. Let me stop right here. No, we aren’t GOING to support you. We DO support you. Notice active versus the future. In a team, every day you support each other. Picture this like a web (kids are Spiderman fans). If one part of the web is pulled in one direction, the web shifts to support but does not break. In that way we support each other, EVERY DAY. Let’s think about this. If my daughter has a lot of homework on Monday, we shift and pick up the extra housework, and on Tuesday my son has a long day, we shift again. We ask our kids, what can we do to help. This makes them verbalize what they need. Verbalizing a need is a hard skill. Having to think about what you need, then verbalize it to actually get the help you need is a life skill. It takes humility and humbleness to ask for help. On the other hand, if we are going to ask the question, then we as parents we have to be willing to roll up our sleeves and dig in. So what does that mean? That means working math problems, that means helping wright essays, that means filling out worksheets, that means once I know my child understands and can do the work, we get it done! There are going to be people that wildly disagree with this philosophy, and that’s okay. We can agree to disagree.

Let me set this stage, we don’t do every problem for our kids, but when my child has been working for 4 hours on homework, has another hour and it’s 9:30, yes, we jump in, all hands on deck, brothers and sisters jump in for help. Our child needs to sleep to be ready for the next day and so do we. Now, let’s say our child came home and goofed off for 4 hours and remembered they had homework, well we are still going to help because mistakes happen but there are consequences. We are also going to help our children make plans and understand how to remember they have homework when they get home. The focus on homework over the next few days may become ‘difficult’ for the child, but there is an opportunity to succeed and grow. There is always an opportunity to learn. Our children understand that if they work hard, we will help, we will all help in our own ways.

My daughter is in high school and is taking college classes. For one of her classes, she had been working on an essay and discussion questions for 3 weeks thinking that she had 2 more weeks to finish. I received a text from her on Tuesday saying that she had read the calendar wrong and her essay and discussion were due Saturday. Mentally she had already assessed the situation and knew why she misread the calendar. My next response was not to condemn her, but was ‘what do you need us to do, how can we help.’ We then talked about the work remaining and what needed to happen to accomplish her goal of completing the assignment. We were all in! All of us. Did I help write, edit, do her chores? Of course, I did. Who was directing the work, and what needed to be done? My daughter. Why is this important? My daughter made a mistake, but not only did she problem solve how to fix it, she knew she had the support to get it done. She was empowered! She was confident!

#TeamJackson – Teamwork makes Dreamwork

Now, what would have happened if I had condemned her when she told me she misread the calendar? Would she have succeeded with her assignment? Maybe. Would she have learned how to figure out how to take a deep breath, forgive herself, learn from it and plan for success? No, she would not have. Did I deprive her of learning or hard work by helping with some of her essay? Maybe, but she learned way more than if I had condemned her. Now I have a child that knows if she makes a mistake and perhaps fails, how to handle the failure, how to learn, how to work through it and move on. She knows her #TeamJackson has her back. Will she make the same mistake again? Probably not. Will she make mistakes again? Absolutely! Most importantly, she will look at the mistakes as an opportunity to learn and without fear, pick her self up, and go on with the confidence to succeed.

I can see some of y’all thinking about how this situation transpired. No, I did not consciously think about how to layout this situation, I didn’t think and say…’ Oh! oh! oh! A teaching moment’. It just happened. It happened because my husband and I are dedicated to this line of thinking in all that we do. We are dedicated to being a team. We have to be, our jobs require it and it is a part of us. Emphasizing our family is a team is an everyday event. We are dedicated to being present every day with the kiddos. We know that our actions speak louder than words to our kids.

Ready, Set! Let’s try again tomorrow…