Page 47 - The Intentional Parent

to cultures where children leave their home environments and have the permission and ability to re-locate anywhere or stay close to home and have a large extended family, based on their preference and their presumed. In either case, there is the sense that child rearing imposes a responsibility on the parents to “prepare” children for life and its challenges when children are on their own.
Effective family leaders develop a sense of timing around the issues of freedom, permission, entitlement and privilege. We have already spoken about the necessity for parents to say, “no,” so let’s turn our attention to the importance of the word “yes.”
Whenever a child requests permission to exercise his or her judgement as a substitute for yours (a very, very important process for parents to successfully teach kids), think of you saying “yes” as almost always having “strings attached,” so it is never really, “yes,” as much as it is “yes, so long as ...” and the “so long as” part reflects some criteria for your permission.
For instance, when a child wants to be left somewhere unsupervised (a repetitive request that children make throughout their entire childhood and into their teen years), it is my advice that parents need to base their permission on responsible behavior that a child has already demonstrated. In other words when ten year old Joey wants to have a play date at Danny’s home and part of that play date is that they will both be home alone in Danny’s home, you need a reference of some kind that tells you that Joey has shown behavior that is mature enough to handle all of the worst case scenarios, even ones where Danny is doing something that could get them both in trouble.
The Intentional Parent by Peter J. Favaro, Ph.D. 47