The season finale of the TV show “24″, got me thinking about a big parenting question for me.
For those of you who don’t watch the show, here’s a brief summary:
The US President’s daughter hired someone to kill the man who had killed her brother (the President’s son). While the daughter had second thoughts and tried not to go through with it, it ended up happening anyway. Her involvement was discovered and she was forced to tell her mother, the President. The first Husband told the President that she was to destroy the evidence and protect her family after they had already sacrificed enough to her “job”.
What got me thinking was the President’s decision. The President decided that it was her duty to uphold the law and while she would do everything she could to help her daughter through it, her daughter would need to suffer the consequences of her actions. While I hope never to be placed in that situation, I thought about what I would do in the President’s shoes.
As parents we always hope that our children would grow up to know right from wrong and to make good decisions that do not cause harm to themselves or others. However, our children have their own personalities and their own minds. We cannot make their decisions for them, we cannot live their lives for them and unfortunately, we cannot protect them forever.
I think that each situation is different, but where does the line end between enabling and protecting?
If you were placed in a situation where your child was going to have to accept responsibility for their actions, what would you do? Would you say, “I’m sorry, but you need to be responsible for your actions?” Or would you say, “It’s ok, honey, we’ll figure this out together.”
