Your 15-year-old can do a lot more than a five-year-old. Let him.
Looking at one’s 20-year-old son it can be hard to even recall the toddler who once carried that same soul. Where has that former body gone? And what about the baby body that preceded it or the chubby school boy body that followed it? Vanished into thin air — a disappearing trick that only Hashem could orchestrate. And as each stage is replaced by the next different developmental tasks and challenges present themselves.
This is where parental flexibility comes in: A parent is raising at least five different human beings — maybe more — within each child’s developmental 20-year span. Each of these five people requires different kinds of guidance and intervention. A parent lets tantrums pass without comment in an 18-month-old but addresses them firmly in an eight-year-old. One dials the doctor for one’s sick ten-year-old but hands the task over to a 19-year-old with hives. In other words everything changes along with the changing child: expectations rules discipline and responsibilities.
I’d Rather Do it Myself
Some parents however fail to make the appropriate parenting adjustments. “Yes I know the kids can make their beds but my hired help does it better and doesn’t argue about it!” When someone else will do it — whether it’s Mom or staff — it can be hard to explain to kids why they have to do it themselves. Of course one could give them the actual reason: “I want you to learn how to do it; it’s part of being prepared for life.”
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