With Each One Came More Lenience…

Anyone living today can see how much quicker children are losing their innocence. They are being subjected to things way earlier than they should and are being influenced in ways that affects their youth.

You can turn on the television, look at ads or just walk in your nearest mall and it feels certain lifestyles are being forced on us. What one may feel is okay for their kids may not be okay for the next family.

I’m like this, you can have your own personal beliefs and views but don’t force your ways on my family.

When we had our first child we were so very…I mean like for real all the way seriously strict. We shielded (protected her eyes and ears) her from things we felt were inappropriate and would ruin her childhood. We were careful with what she watched, with the people we hung around and where we took her.

It was the same way for our next two, our oldest and middle son. We wanted our babies to keep their innocence and not have a care in the world. They didn’t need to know about certain things at such a young age.

What urged me to write this post was a funny situation that happened the other night.

We decided to let our kids watch a movie that we normally would shy away from letting them watch. Now that the first three kiddos are older they can handle a lot more and we have been slowly allowing them to experience more.

We don’t want them to be so sheltered that they can’t handle life on their own. It has to come to a point where we allow them to venture into new areas (still supervised and monitored) to learn how much they can handle. We’ve even had some tough discussions lately about life and they have been shocked about how much is going on in the world.

Okay back to the movie, we let them watch a Marvels one with us. I won’t say which movie or give any details because I am all about the No Spoilers life lol. We thought our two youngest (age 3 and 5) would want to leave the room to go play in their rooms instead of watching it.

_{Let me add that the reason we allowed this movie was because their wasn’t too many violent scenes and the ones that did show violence weren’t as gruesome.}

The funny thing about our movie night was the two youngest stayed in front of the television the ENTIRE movie and our oldest three (ages 8, 10 and 11) spent most of the movie hiding and peeking out from the front closet. 😂

I kept asking my three year old

Honey, are you okay? You don’t have to watch this if you don’t want.

She replied,

Yea mama, I’m okay.

She said this in an irritated way as if she wanted me to be quiet so she could focus on the movie. 😏😅

As the movie went on my 11 year old noticed what was happening and said

See mom and dad, you sheltered us way longer than you did them and now we’re gonna be scared for life. 👀😯🤔

She realized that the first three kiddos got the worst of our strict sheltering and by the time our last two came we were more lenient and not as strict as before.

It’s true. As each kid came we realized as long as we teach them truths, prepare them for what’s needed it’s okay for them to view certain things. They know about movies and makeup and fiction…they get that it’s entertainment. We have allowed them to choose more instead of making the decision for them of how much they can handle.

Trust me, we are still careful and there are some things we still don’t approve of but we have given them more freedom than before. My two youngest were literally laughing at how scared the older ones were. My husband and I laughed too, especially after our daughter made that sheltering comment.

As new parents it’s scary, we just want to protect our babies as much as possible. But what we don’t want to do is raise cowards who are scared of their own shadows. We want to raise brave children who can handle certain things and situations that may not be so easy.

This has been one of those learning lessons of balance and time. Learning how to balance letting our kids grow and introduce them to things while still preserving their innocence and knowing when the right time is to release them more into learning about themselves and what they can handle.

We don’t regret protecting their innocence, this is something we would do over and over again. It’s just now we realize we could have allowed them a little earlier to experience a little more of what we thought they couldn’t handle.

Every experience they go through helps shape the adult they will become. We want our children to be comfortable to come to us with their concerns and problems and not resent us for sheltering them for too long.

I remember writing this post Slowly Releasing the Grip back in 2019. I shared how I was struggling with letting them go to experience life more on their own without me being right there next to them. I have always struggled with this and more so because things are getting worse as far as crime, kidnappings etc.

I have done better with this, with my husband’s help, and plan to continue allowing them to experience more freely in as safe as possible environments. I know I can’t protect them from everything but I sure have tried. 😁

Having that movie night made me realize we have definitely loosened the grip since having our first kiddos. Our little ones are relentless and it takes a bit more to scare them.

As for our older ones, they’ll be okay. Eventually towards the end of the movie they came to sit down and told us it wasn’t as scary as they thought it’d be. They really ended up liking it and are asking us to watch it again.

What’s so funny is our two youngest wanted to watch it again they very same night!!

AGAIN!!

🤣🤣🤣

All photos are my own. The cover photo are of my two youngest at the zoo enjoying watching the otters swim around and cuddle each other. Those two are the best of friends and it’s a joy to witness the love and care they have for one another. 🤗