Tara’s Tips: Part 3
When our boys were little, Scott and I used many of the principles from Jim Fay’s Love and Logic parenting methodology.
At its core, Love and Logic combines empathy with accountability. You give children age-appropriate choices, allow them to experience natural consequences, and resist the urge to immediately rescue them. The goal isn’t to control every decision. It’s to help children learn how to think, solve problems, and take responsibility for their choices while the stakes are still small.
This worked incredibly well for our family.
When Ben and Jack were young, they helped in the kitchen, completed chores around the house, picked up their toys, and cleaned the playroom. Were they always thrilled about it? Of course not.
Did they always do everything perfectly? Definitely not.
But perfection wasn’t the goal. The goal was to teach them that being part of a family means contributing to the family.
As they got older, their responsibilities grew with them. By middle school, they were doing their own laundry. Truthfully, I don’t like doing laundry, so this was an easy responsibility for me to hand over! But this year, when Ben left for college, I realized just how brilliant that decision had been. We didn’t need to have a single conversation about sorting clothes, operating a washing machine, or remembering to move a load into the dryer. He already knew how to do it because he had been doing it for years.
Now, let me be clear: This isn’t a message about never doing things for your children.
We do things for our children because we love them. Caring for them is often one of the ways we express that love. I know moms who genuinely love doing laundry for their families. Laundry is not my love language… but cooking absolutely is. I made their lunches, breakfasts, and dinners as often as I could because I loved taking care of them in that way. But when I traveled for work, I never worried that they would go hungry. They knew how to cook. Cooking was something we had done together since they were little. Along the way, I taught them simple recipes, kitchen basics, and little tricks that made them more capable and confident.
The message isn’t: Don’t do things for your children.
The message is: Don’t make them dependent on you.
Do things for them because you want to - not because they are incapable of doing those things without you. There is a meaningful difference between lovingly caring for our children and unintentionally teaching them that someone else will always handle life for them.
That same sense of ownership began showing up in other areas of Ben’s and Jack’s lives. They took responsibility for their sports. They went to the gym, created practice schedules, researched coaches, and looked for additional lessons. They weren’t simply waiting for Scott and me to make every plan or tell them what to do next.
It also carried into their academics. We have a pretty high bar in our house: A’s are expected; B’s are okay. But we don’t micromanage their grades. Their schoolwork is their responsibility. They are expected to know when assignments are due, turn in papers on time, manage their schedules, and ask for help when they need it. That doesn’t mean we haven’t been involved. We have always been available to help with an assignment, study for a test, or talk through a challenge. But there is a big difference between supporting your children and managing everything for them.
From the time they were young, Ben and Jack understood that we would help, but they owned the timeline, the deadlines, and the responsibility to get the work done. I believe that is one reason high school never felt completely overwhelming for them. Not because it was always easy, but because they had been practicing time management, organization, and self-discipline since elementary school.
They had already learned how to study. They knew how to prioritize. And when something wasn’t working, they knew it was their responsibility to ask for help. I don’t regularly log in to check their grades because I trust that if they aren’t winning, they will come to us and tell us what is happening.
We established the same expectation for problems at school: If something wasn’t going well, it was their responsibility to talk to us before we heard about it from a teacher, coach, or administrator. That expectation taught them to be honest, self-aware, and proactive - even when the conversation might be uncomfortable.
As parents, it can feel loving to make life easier for our children. We organize the schedule, remember the deadline, pack the bag, email the teacher, solve the disagreement, and step in before they struggle. But when we continually do for our children what they are capable of doing for themselves, we may unintentionally take away the very experiences that build their confidence.
Every age-appropriate responsibility sends your child a powerful message:
I trust you.
You are capable.
You can figure things out.
And when you need help, I am here.
Discipline and accountability are not punishments. They are gifts we give our children.
They teach leadership, self-awareness, decision-making, time management and personal responsibility. Most importantly, they help children develop the confidence that comes from knowing: I can handle this.
So, ask yourself: What am I currently doing for my child that they are capable of learning to do for themselves?
Start small. Let them try. Allow them to make mistakes. Be available without immediately taking over. Because our job isn’t to manage every part of our children’s lives. It’s to prepare them to manage their own.
Our job is to help them be who they came to be.
Keep shining -
