Friday, September 22, 2017

Free Agency

Laila was in her first car accident.   She was a little stressed, cried a bit, spoke to the police officer clearly...and realized that it's all survivable.  Chalk it up to experience.

Laila and I were driving in Farmington wanting to turn into Station Park.  Laila put her blinker on to turn into the first drive way, and I said, no let's pull in down there pointing a 100 feet farther down the street.  While her blinker was on a black car that was waiting at a stop sign pulled out in front of her.   Laila took her blinker off and now was going forward, when a gold car thinking Laila was still turning, pulled out and hit Laila on the front side bumper of my Yelo Car.  It was slow motion, crazy.  No one was hurt, both cars were going quite slow...just my car was hurt with $2500 in damage.  (Now the insurance companies have to fight it out )

Laila and the other teen age driver both screamed a swear word...and then just sat in silence.  I screamed..."brake brake..i can't believe this" as I heard my car being crunched.   Laila was impressed that no swear words escaped my lips.  I don't even think like that....

But Lessons learned....... I took Laila's free agency away insisting that she drive farther down the street to turn in...and when she obeyed and did that we got in a crash.  Had I left her to her own agency none of this would have happened.

So many times in my kids lives I want to take their agency away because I think I know better.  I want to tell them who to be friends with, where to work, where to go to school, how to drive, what classes to take etc... but all these choices really need to be in their own hands...just as they were in mine.  

As parents it's easy for us to see the mistakes out kids are going to make, even before they make them.  But the growth comes in the making of the mistake, the regrouping and learning from it and trying better the next time.

Now... who's to say had Laila turned in where she wanted to we wouldn't have gotten in an accident?? ...and then I would be saying, she should have listened to me....but that's not what happened.... and still her free agency should trump my bossiness.

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