World's worst mums

Sarah shared with us on how she had missed the bus stop recently cos she had fallen asleep on the bus. This revelation led to a  full lecture of all the dangers should she fall asleep on the bus, on what she should do the next time the incident repeats and how to ensure she protects herself, plus ensuring it never happens again. Though I think she scared herself enough to have said that she had made sure she never sleeps again since the incident.

I ended up wondering whether we had done enough to prepare her before we had let her out into the big bad world. The only reason why she had to take the public bus was because she had enrichment classes that ended late and she would have missed the school bus. I took the time to pick her up from school one day and walked her through the paces in taking a bus, with one bus transfer. It was one lesson, packed with all the advices and admonitions I could think of. How to cross the road, how to press the bell to get the bus to stop and so on... I think somehow I had forgotten to say anything about not falling asleep on the bus...

I know many other parents would still not have let their Pri 5 child be on the bus alone just yet. One of my cousins would not allow her kids to take the lift by themselves in a public place, what more take the public bus. I felt that I do need to let the girls be more independent and felt that Sarah was ready to learn though I had to convince the dad that it would be ok. I had taken the bus when I was in Pri 5 too and on a much longer journey. I felt Sarah was ready. Tasnym is definitely not considering how she treats the bus like a playground when she goes on it! Thinking about that, it does say a lot about how such privileges like having a car makes the kids super suaku when it comes to normal everyday experiences like taking the bus or the train!

I think that somehow allowing Sarah to learn how to take the bus allowed her lessons beyond any lextures I could give. Me lecturing her on the dangers of falling asleep on the bus would have been less effective compared to her experiencing that on her own. She needs to learn from her own experiences and mistakes although of course, I would not want the experiences to be anything too adverse.

It  reminds me of a show I watched on the home and health channel called the World's worst mums about mothers who are too overprotective over their kids, and I am talking about being super over protective. These are mums who would not even allow their children to cut up their own food and treats  them like babies. In the show, the mums were taught how to let go as their overprotectiveness inhibited their children's development.  I do agree it does, and do feel that when we are overprotective and hinder the child's experiences, it inhibits their real learning on how to keep themselves safe as we are always there to do it for them.