Here’s today’s Zits comic strip. It pretty much sums up how to crush your child’s dreams: just say no.

[Click here for a larger image.]

I would hate it if I turned out to be the mother in this strip, the one who just gives an automatic no. No thinking, no sharing of the child’s excitement, only flat-out no. I’m not thrilled that mothers take the blame — don’t dads ever put the kibosh on things? — but it still speaks the truth about parenting in general. So I see the strip as an example of what not to do: Don’t just say no. Turn off the “automatic no” switch and instead support my kids’ dreams. Over the past two years or so, I’ve come to see myself as my children’s partner in dream fulfillment. We’ve still got to get through the day-to-day realities of life, but I’ve learned to say yes more and more, and it makes all the difference.

So instead of saying no to some of their wackier-sounding (to me) ideas, Mr. Enigma and I say yes a lot. And then we try to figure out how we can make whatever they’re asking for happen. Maybe we can do it right then and there. Often, we have to work together on a plan to make it happen down the road. Sometimes we tweak the details. But the answer is still, “Yes, we can. Let’s figure out how.” Our kids still think we say no too often, but I know that we’ve made a shift and that we’ll continue to work on saying yes more.

In May, a 13-year-old friend of ours was telling us about a trip to Paris she’s planning with friends for when they’re 18. My daughter, age 10, immediately asked if she could go too. I said, “Sure!” She can go, even though she’ll be younger than the other kids. We might have to delay the trip until she’s 16 and the others are 19. And we’ll have to plan very carefully to make sure we can ensure her safety. If we can figure out how to make the trip safe (within reason), she can go. Maybe I’ll fly over there with them to get them situated. Maybe my brother, who lived in Paris for 10 years, can hook the kids up with some local friends to help make sure they’re safe and have a decent meal once or twice. He might even be living in Paris again by then. Who knows? The specifics are irrelevant right now. The key is that I wasn’t going to say no to that trip. Why would I crush the dream?

Within a couple of days, my daughter and I started to figure out we could make the trip happen. To estimate the cost, we researched current airfares, Eurorail, and youth hostel rates, as well as what other young, cash-strapped travelers have said about food and related travel expenses. We calculated what a 2-week trip would cost in today’s money. And then we figured out how much she’d have to earn and save each year for the next 5.5 years. It came to a few hundred dollars per year. To her, the money seems almost impossible. We’re talking about a young kid with very few opportunities to earn significant amounts of cash. But I explained to my daughter that as she gets older, she’ll have more opportunities to earn money. She also has a savings account she can tap into for the trip. Financially, it’s very doable, and I want her to believe that it’s doable. If she wants it, she can do it.

Will my daughter ever take that trip? I don’t have a crystal ball. Five+ years is a long time. But if she doesn’t, it won’t be because her father and I just gave her an automatic no. We’re not going crush her hopes and dreams.

Link: Zits, 08/02/09

Tags: automatic no, parenting, saying yes, Paris, crushing dreams,

If only our insurance company would allow us to have a trampoline. Then the boy would have a place to jump, a place actually designed for jumping. Since he was a toddler, he has loved to jump on his bed. First we put our full size guest bed in his room. He jumped, and jumped, and jumped on that thing. But the bed was too big for his room, and when he was four, we bought him a twin size platform bed with drawers underneath. Naturally, the very first thing he did was climb up there and jump on it, only to find that we had replaced his big bouncy bed with a small stiff bed.

He was not pleased. He did not ask for this new bed, and he did not want this new bed.

But that didn’t stop him from jumping. Jump, jump, jump. For the past five years, that bed has taken a beating. He’s big for his age and a wee bit enthusiastic, so it was inevitable that at some point he was going to crash through the platform. And a couple of months ago, he did.

Mr. Enigma, my husband, had patched the hole with some 1/4-inch plywood, but he was afraid it wouldn’t hold forever. So last weekend, he swapped in the platform piece from our daughter’s old bed. (She doesn’t need it anymore because she built her own bed last year.) But before he did, I made him illustrate just how big the hole was. Look how horrified he was to assist.

Of course, uncovering the bed meant unearthing some major dust bunnies. I swear, they’re alive.

Mr. Enigma has all the right tools for just about any job. He has a staple-puller-outer-thingie to pull crazy-long staples out, and a staple gun to shoot crazy-long staples in, among other handy devices.

The bed’s fixed, good as new, but it’s still rotten for jumping. So now the Duke jumps on my bed. There’s no platform to break, unless you consider the second-story floor a platform.

Um….

Tags: jumping on the bed, broken bed, tools,