CHAPTER 6Trust and Accountability Are a Team Sport
Let's talk about kids.
Every parent has a different approach to parenting—and we'll never say a bad thing about any approach because your kid is your kid—but all parents can agree on two things:
- Raising children is an art.
- One of the most magical moments in any parent's life is the pivot.
The pivot is when your child is ready to take control, to handle tasks without parents eyeballing them every step of the way, to practice being a (very) young adult. It could be something as simple as walking to school on their own, or something as (relatively) complex as strolling over to the grocery store and buying some pretzels and a bottle of water with their allowance money. (If you don't have kids but want to experience the pivot, check out the Japanese show Old Enough, which follows toddlers shopping by themselves.) This is a huge step not just for the child, but also for the parents.
Soon, the parents will trust the kids with handling grown‐up activities and decisions that are arguably far bigger steps. Some parents cope with this pivot in a matter‐of‐fact, this‐is‐life fashion, and they may even appreciate the moment as an important one in both their kids' lives and their own. Others continue parenting beyond the point of being beneficial to the child, missing out on one of the most important components of personal growth: trust.
A parent's trust needs to be given. A child's trust needs to be received. And the same thing applies ...
Get Work Different now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
