“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.” — Mahatma Gandhi
When we were raising teenagers, each kid got three free passes — to make idiotic, illegal, borderline-immoral, ill-informed, impulsive mistakes (e.g. vandalizing the schools boys room with hundreds of packets of squirted ketchup). After three, it was deemed a pattern and something more serious followed (i.e., Military school).
You cannot imagine the pressure relief this created.
When they got caught doing something bone-headed, they met first with a hug. Correction came later. Bad decisions are part of normal adolescent development — there’s research** suggesting that when teenage boys gather, their collective IQ drops ten points per boy added to the group. I watched that play out in real time. Repeatedly.
I use the same approach in my life. It’s the answer I keep coming back to when I can’t figure out how to share a planet with eight billion other people without losing my mind — or my spine. Show up open. Give people room to be human. But three strikes tells me it’s time to stop working around a problem and start dealing with it.
Grace without limits isn’t grace. It’s avoidance.
It sounds simple. It isn’t.
The Three Strikes Rule has carried me through a lot of messy situations.
Maybe it’ll carry you too.
**The “Group Status” Effect- social hierarchies can cause a dramatic drop in cognitive scores: Social validation can thwart executive functioning in the adolescent brain.
Wellbeing Ideas
Parenting Classes you didn’t know you Needed
I found parenting to be non-intuitive and took classes at Parent Encouragement Program (PEP), and it changed my life. Based on Alfred Alder’s theory of belonging and now virtual, I can’t recommend highly enough. Consider a class or gift to a struggling parent on Redefining Discipline or Building Executive Functioning in Kids. https://pepparent.org/
Stuck in front of a computer?
Check out the wild forest in Denmark Live Stream
Toddlers Go on Errands. Alone.
Toddlers in Japan – a Netflix series “Old Enough” in which Japanese toddlers between the ages of 2 and 5 are sent on simple errands entirely without supervision, often navigating busy roads and transport systems. Some cultures are extremely safe and encourage extreme independence in kids.
On Meaning
Jungian therapist James Hollis is my favorite nonfiction author. I like him because he refuses to comfort us, he makes Carl Jung accessible, and he named what many of us felt– the Middle Passage. I would recommend his many talks on You tube and as a podcast guest.
Stay Well, Eileen
