by Kathy Sena
I’m doing something today that I have never done before: Letting Matt, age 14, go to the doctor by himself. Without his mommy by his side.
No, he’s not sick. If he was, I’d be right there, dropping everything and taking him to the doc.
But it’s a beautiful day, the office is about a mile away, and he can ride his bike. He just needs to get blood work done for a routine physical for high school sports. (Gulp — He’ll be a freshman in September.)
I’m on a work deadline today and I have painters here doing some work. Not a good time to leave. So I called the doc’s office and they said I could send a note and Matt could come by himself.
Would you do this? Am I a bad mom? Or is this the right amount of freedom to let an incoming high school freshman have? Matt’s a responsible kid, for 14. But still… He’s 14.
Tell us: What do you think?
Interesting discussion. Yep, Lenore would wonder why I even asked this question. That said, I don’t completely agree with her approach. But I do agree that we each need to know our own kids.
Karen: That woman was Lenore Skenazy, and she writes the Free Range Kids blog: http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/
She would certainly approve of Kathy’s decision while at the same time wondering why we all are so nervous about letting a high schooler go to the doctor by himself.
KUDOS to you for letting the leash out. My boys are also 13 and 15, and it is hard to know what to let them do sometimes. But you have to capitalize on the opportunities for them to do things on their own. Hope they make good decisions but hope that they make some bad ones (not life-threatening of course!) and learn from them. The more practiced they are, the less likely they’ll be like all of those other kids whose parents protected them from everything… you know, the ones that go off to college and don’t know how to handle themselves. Those kids are set up to fail. You are setting your son up to succeed most of the time, and learn quickly from his failures.
He should be proud of himself for handling it well. And I think this will certainly build a trusting relationship between the two of you, at a fragile time in his life.
(P.S. Remember the woman in NYC who, a few years ago, let her son take the subway home? He was 10 or 11, I think, and she really took a lot of heat for that decision. I think it’s brilliant, provided the child has been given prior opportunities – increasing in complexity – to show he can do it.)
Jennifer, thx for the comment and the support! This was just for the blood work for the physical. I had already taken him for the physical itself and I was there for that. But yes, at a certain point the doc kicked me out of the room so he could do the physical exam. And I’m sure they talked about teen guy stuff — and that’s a good thing! Matt’s going to high school in Sept. Mom can’t be in the room for everything!
Nope, not a bad mom at all. At 14, it’s probably imp. for your son and doctor to have a little alone time together, to discuss some things he might not feel comfortable discussing if you were in the room. Besides, you called in advance and are totally available if they need to talk to you about anything. I’d say you made a good call.