I think my mom had a similar approach to yours. She told me, "I decided when you were very little that if I told you to do something or not do something, and you said "Why?", I had to have a reason. If I didn't, I would have to back down and let you do it."
Because I could tell she wasn't exerting her will over me for the sake of exerting it, I never got into the habit of rebelling, and during my teens she was my biggest support and hugely important to me. Also, because she almost never invoked "because I'm the mommy, that's why," I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt on the rare occasions when she would tell me to do something and not be open for discussing it, figuring she probably had a good reason.
From my own interactions with Kiddo, I project that you are doing an excellent job. He is such a nice kid young person (it feels a little odd to refer to him as a "kid" when he's at that in-between stage, where sometimes when I look at him I see the boy he was and sometimes I get a flash of the young man he's becoming).
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-07-31 05:17 pm (UTC)Because I could tell she wasn't exerting her will over me for the sake of exerting it, I never got into the habit of rebelling, and during my teens she was my biggest support and hugely important to me. Also, because she almost never invoked "because I'm the mommy, that's why," I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt on the rare occasions when she would tell me to do something and not be open for discussing it, figuring she probably had a good reason.
From my own interactions with Kiddo, I project that you are doing an excellent job. He is such a nice
kidyoung person (it feels a little odd to refer to him as a "kid" when he's at that in-between stage, where sometimes when I look at him I see the boy he was and sometimes I get a flash of the young man he's becoming).