I am not a particularly Pollyann-ish kind of person (does that expression date me? of course it does!) but I confess I do find one tiny sliver of positivity in the current mess we are all living in. With so much less of my son's life being scheduled, with programs accessed by booting up a computer at the last minute rather than the usual routine: packing for the day, finding a jacket and hat, waiting for WheelTrans, travelling to and fro, dealing with weather-related and other delays, and so on, there is time for stuff to just happen. Or, more importantly, not happen, but in a more natural way, without interventions.
Despite my best intentions, and my attempt to polish my "mean mom" reputation, the reality is that I never really did let my son just miss a day's activities because he wasn't ready in time, or go hungry all day because he failed to make or take his lunch: the consequences for me were more than I was willing to put up with. But now the world has delivered a whole new world of natural consequences. Didn't get dressed? Be (perhaps) embarrassed on your zoom meeting when you friends see you in your pyjamas. Didn't plan your outing for the day? Guess you'll waste valuable time figuring that out when your helper arrives rather than doing what you actually want to do. Didn't think ahead about lunch or supper for tomorrow? Forage in the kitchen like the rest of us. Admittedly, I have to pretty much tackle my husband, The Great Enabler, in order to execute on this, but I'm giving this a good old try.
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