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Last week, I brought happy-hour Sonic drinks to my friend’s empty sixth-grade classroom. She’d decked it out as only excited teachers can, with pillowed reading corners complete with fairy lights, innovative seating, and wave bottles she’d made herself, with glitter inside.

We chatted, and I laughed about her curiously-labeled drawer of Bummer Pencils. A bummer pencil, she explained, is one she’s picked up off the floor or from a desk, maybe half-chewed or with no eraser. She saves those–I’m assuming she disinfects them?–for the time when a sixth-grader raises their hand with the news they have no pencil.

“Bummer,” she says. And points a finger to the drawer.

If it’s empty?

Bummer.

When My Overfunctioning as a Parent Becomes Your Weakness

What I liked about this? I’ve openly admitted my tendency toward overfunctioning as a parent. (Don’t miss When Help Makes Them Helpless: Why Not to Pick Up Your Kids’ Socks.)

This may look like me slotting dirty bowls in the dishwasher after my kids were apparently incapable of doing so after last night’s snacks before bed. It may look like me picking up a towel, or running a Chromebook to school.

When maybe I should be saying some compassionate version of, “Bummer. Here are your options.”

That’s the clear downfall of a snowplow parent–the kinds who bulldoze every obstacle out of the way for my kids.

I’ve written in Permanent Markers: Spiritual Life Skills to Write on Your Kids’ Hearts (shameless plug! It’s less than $5 on Amazon this week!) that resilience and problem-solving prepare our kids to be strong, resourceful adults…rather than entitled ones.

Kids who expect that the world should generally step in for irresponsibility are in for a rude awakening. We want to raise kids who seize responsibility for their own capacity to change–and just maybe, step up to a great and hard calling of God on their lives down the road.

Because You Can’t See What Muscle Your Child May Need

I watched this same sixth-grade teacher-friend progress through the nightmare of her husband’s stage-four kidney cancer a little over two years ago. From diagnosis to the day she became a widow—and single mother of three—took just over 100 days.

One night, as I transferred the children to their grandparents and we lamented the agony of their reality, her
mother remarked she could still see my friend running around in footie pajamas as a child.

My thought is this: We never know what resilience our kids might need in the future for which today must prepare them.

Those baby steps start here, in kid-sized ways. And overfunctioning as a parent can short-circuit that.

No, not by being hard-nosed or insensitive or ignoring the whole story of their lives. (Sometimes we might withhold the pencil that breaks the camel’s back, right?)

But by helping kids realize, You do have the tools to respond to your own life! 

Maybe by saying, Tonight you don’t get a sleepover because your room still isn’t clean. Or, Let’s problem-solve together about your options.

5 Ways to Stop Overfunctioning as a Parent

When considering if you’re overfunctioning as a parent, consider your kids’ personal level of development, personal character needs…you get the idea.

And keep in mind–tone affects much of how our kids receive us calling them to the next level. Rather than emotional coldness, we can encourage our kids, “I’ve seen you can do this. I’m excited about you growing to the next level here.”

Or, “I know you’re angry. But I’m not just concerned about your happiness right now. I want you to be an adult who can conquer the world.”

Ask your kids to do the next level of help, chores, or taking personal responsibility.

Do your kids need to

• Make their beds and clean up their floors before school?
• Introduce themselves to someone new, or to a guest?
• Start doing their own laundry?
• Could they be helping clean up after dinner?
• Stand in the return line at the store, or process their own Amazon returns?
• Learn to manage a clothing allowance, get a debit card, or shop online or in a store for the best value on something they need?
• Cook the main dish for dinner on Saturdays, with you available for help?
• Take initiative to do home tasks outside of their assigned chores?
• Find a way to help a neighbor, or at church?
• Pay for that library book or device charger they lost? (…Bummer.)
• Make their own lunch or breakfast?

Rather than give them the answer, ask questions.

When my husband, as a child, would ask his dad what a word meant, my husband would be asked to look it up and come back and tell his dad the definition. That’s what you might call teaching a man to fish.

Instead of overfunctioning as a parent, is there a way you could encourage your kids how to find out how to do something, rather than handing them the answer?

(Trust me. Your kids can Google with the best of them.)

Maybe they need to

• Approach their own teacher, coach, counselor, or administrator.
• Call to set up some of their own appointments.
• Research how to do something they need to accomplish.
• Think of their own consequence for disobeying, providing you approve the consequence.
• Think about what is true, helpful, or worthy of gratitude in a situation (after you’ve empathized).

Reconsider whether to let them quit (the class, the team, the friendship, the personal goal).

Check out Should I let my kid quit? Questions to ask.

Don’t shield them from consequences by overfunctioning as a parent.

• If they’ve alienated friends, help them brainstorm how to repair the gap, rather than just inviting a different friend over.
• If they’ve forgotten school or sports gear or their lunch more than once, it may be time to let them go without. (You may need to contact a teacher or coach to let them know your plan.)
• If they haven’t completed chores and homework, maybe that means no screens.
• If they receive a poor grade, let them be the one to work out a plan with the teacher.
• Follow through with forewarned penalties.
• Generally, if your child is able-bodied, do not clean up their rooms or pick up their dishes or towels or all other kid-junk.

Help them work through failure in healthy ways.

Read more at Bouncing Back: Helping Your Child Open the Gift of Failure.

Here’s to a few less Bummer Pencils in our kids’ futures.

As a chronic over-doer, I’d love your practical ideas on how to stop overfunctioning as a parent!

Comment below.

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