More Slack === We got a brand new eight week old little puppy yesterday, and I have dogs on the brain. I'm all consumed with dog toys and crates and potty schedule and feeding schedule. And because of that, you are getting a little piece of my doggie world today. Our little puppy, Benny, is actually an emotional support animal for one of my kids. And as I have been researching this world of emotional support animals and psychological support animals and support dogs and all of that, I have learned so much and I am so excited to share all of that with you. But I'm going to save that for another episode because today I want to share something that has been on my mind as we got this little puppy. Yesterday, my husband and I drove two hours up to Phoenix to get Benny, and then as soon as we got him, we turned around, got back in the car and went back home. And this cute little puppy was brand new to us, and we were brand new to him. And yet here we were getting to know each other for two hours in the car. And not far into this . Benny started whimpering a little bit and we thought, does he need to go to the bathroom? Is he just a little nervous? Is he scared? So we pulled over into a gas station parking lot to take Benny out and see if he needed to go to the bathroom. And of course we had brought a leash to put him on so that we could take him and walk him around and we put this leash on him and set Benny down on the ground and he did not know what to do. We would tug at the leash and he was like, what is happening? He didn't, he didn't follow us, he didn't come with us, he didn't know what to do on the leash. We basically had to pick him up and move him around or just let him walk on his own because he didn't know that that little tug around his neck was actually just us trying to help him go in the right direction so that he could stay safe. After we got back in the car and got him settled and continued the rest of our drive home, I kept thinking about that leash and it reminded me of an experience we had with another dog of ours just a few months ago. We were out on a walk with our family after dinner and we had taken our dog with us and all the kids were there and they wanted to take turns holding Our dog, Livvy's leash. Now, Livvy is a pretty large dog, and she's very muscular, very strong. In fact, she is much stronger than my youngest boys who were trying to hold her on the leash. She could absolutely have gotten away from them at any moment, but Livvy had been trained to behave on a leash. So as we were walking, I noticed that my youngest son who was holding the leash at the time, anytime Livvy would kind of venture to smell something or see something off of the path, off of the sidewalk that we were walking on. He would pull her leash a little tighter. He would pull it into his hand so that her leash got shorter and shorter and he had more and more of the leash in his hand. And the more he did that, the more she wanted to pull, the more she wanted to have more freedom. She felt so restricted that she didn't want to stay right by him. She wanted to pull and go away. So after a few minutes of watching this leash get shorter and shorter and Livvy pull more and more from my son I said, hey, why don't you give her a little bit more slack in that leash? Let her have a little bit of room to explore and I bet she'll stay with you a little better and sure enough He let out the leash. He let out the slack in the leash and she would explore on the sides of the sidewalk But she stayed right with him In fact, she was much more likely when he gave her a lot more slack in that leash to walk right next to him. And I thought a lot about this and how this example of the leash can actually help us better understand our role as parents. When our kids are really young, whether they're babies or toddlers, they don't know how to use a leash. They don't know what it means to be on a leash. We set rules, we say no, we give them boundaries, and they don't really know what to do with it. We have to teach them what those rules, what those boundaries are for, and that those things are in place to keep them safe. to make sure that they are okay. They're actually for their benefit. And we teach them this over and over as we say no, and as we set rules, and as they have a consequence as the result of breaking those rules. And just like with a little puppy, it's not that big a deal if they're off the leash, because there's not that much damage they can do, right? We can catch that puppy and scoop it up in our arms because it can't really get away from us. They're so small and we're so much faster than they are. But we know that as they get bigger, as they become more capable and stronger, we are going to need that leash. to be able to keep them safe. And that is why we teach them as puppies how to behave on a leash. Because when they get to be teenagers down the road and they are stronger and they have more independence and they can do a lot more damage, we want them to understand that the leash is not to control them. The leash is to help them stay safe. Our goal as parents of teenagers is to give our kids as much slack as possible in the leash. while still keeping them safe. We have a path that we see before us that we want our kids to take. We think it would be the best path for them. We think that they should get good grades. We think they should have good friends. We think they should be involved in certain activities. And we can see how all of those things enrich their lives, how all of those things are for their good. But our teenagers need to explore a little bit off the path. They need to check things out for themselves because they don't want to just blindly trust that that path is the right path. The ultimate goal of teaching the dog to walk on the leash is to keep it safe, whether you're there or whether you're not. To teach the dog that you have their best interest in mind. And if you are walking on a certain path, they would do well to stay by you, whether or not they are on a leash. It's to create that relationship and that companionship where the dog can keep itself safe. And the same is true for our kids. Eventually we won't have a leash to guide them. They will have to guide themselves. And if we have given them some freedom to explore the sides of the path, and they have learned that our guidance and our gentle reminders, that little tug of the leash is to help them, to keep them safe. And they've learned that when they listen to us, there is a benefit for them. Then they are going to be much more likely to keep themselves on the path. Now, of course, we're not going to give them so much slack that they're out in the middle of the road and they get hit by a car while we're walking them on the leash, right? We would pull them into us to keep them safe. But we want to give them as much freedom as we possibly can to explore on their own, to discover the things that are good and bad for themselves, while using that leash as a way to keep them safe when we have to. Part of living in the desert is that our sidewalks are lined with cactuses. There are cactuses in everyone's yards and While I try my best to keep my dog from going off the path and getting caught in a cactus or poked by a cactus, it is pretty much inevitable with every dog we've had that they are going to get poked by a cactus at some point because they need to experience that for themselves so that they will avoid the cactuses in the future. And while I'm not going to guide them into a cactus or push them into a cactus or say, Hey, go stick your nose in a cactus. Sometimes that is the experience that they need so that they know to avoid it in the future. In fact, a run in with a cactus is one of the best ways that our dogs have learned to stay on the sidewalk and to stay right by us because they know that wherever we are is the place where it is safest. And I think the same rings true with our teens. They need to have some of these hard experiences for themselves. And of course, we're going to encourage them to stay on the path. We're going to try and keep them right there on the sidewalk because that's the safest place. But sometimes they just need the experience of having a run in with a cactus. To be able to figure out for themselves that they want to stay on the path. I hope that this visual has been as helpful for you as it has been for me, as I think about the way that I parent my teens. We want to give them as much slack as we can in that leash. Give them the freedom to explore. Encourage them to stay on the path, but let them have the run in with the cactus every once in a while so they can figure it out for themselves. Eventually, they are going to be off leash, free to roam wherever they want. And we want them to know and trust That what we encourage them to do is coming from a place of love and with their best interest in mind, we want them to walk alongside us, not because they're tethered to a leash, but because they have learned that that is where they want to be. Those later team years should feel like they are walking off leash alongside us. We give them so much slack that they feel like they are completely free to do what they want. If this sounds a little scary to you as a parent, I want you to know that I am right here cheering you on. I am here to support you in whatever way I can as you start to give your teen more and more slack while still keeping hold of that leash. Finding that perfect balance can be tricky because the amount of slack you need in the leash changes as your child grows. But you don't have to try and figure out that perfect balance on your own. I'm here ready to support you, and I'd be so honored to be your coach.
