Mom Challenge....Day 19

Day 19: Teach your child one thing he can do on his own today.

I've got a kid who just happens to be my oldest kid and she's kind of got a learned helplessness thing about her. This is totally my fault because I've always been there to do things for her but I've been trying lately to really help her see that she can do a lot of things herself, especially since she's almost 11 and when I was 11 I was already babysitting up a storm and hence, pretty responsible. The thing is that she is majorly capable of doing anything but she doesn't want to try sometimes so we've been really working on it.

On this day, we were heading home from our short, but sweet, vacation. We had been hoping to be all packed up before going to church in the morning, but didn't get to it, so we were running behind. Ben was loading the car and I was trying my best to get everything packed and cleaned up. This was actually a great opportunity for her to learn to do some things on her own. I put her in charge of the kids, packing away all of their stuff into the car, getting everyone's water cups filled with ice (by using an "old fashioned" ice cube tray), and making lunch for the family. She wasn't too excited about it, but she did it! Way to go Sky!! Next time maybe I'll put her in charge of all the packing and cleaning up!