Teaching Responsibility, Even When It's Hard

Two of our children have cell phones,one because she's a driver now and the other because he's in public school and getting busier as he gets older and needs a way to stay in communication with us.

From day one when they received their phones we warned them to always keep a protective OtterBox case on them in case they ever dropped them. My husband and I had seen shattered phone screens and it made us wince in pain each time we saw one.

They listened, for a little while. But as time went on they got comfortable with their phones and chose to change their cases to more cool/pretty/decorated ones that aren't even close to being protective. While I wanted to be the protective mom I've always been and MAKE them keep their OtterBoxes on their phones, I knew they were getting older and needed to learn responsibility as well as understanding that there are consequences for the choices we make, whether good or bad. Not that choosing a different phone case can be categorized as either 'good' or 'bad', but choosing to listen to the wisdom of your parents or choosing to do your own thing usually results in consequences we're not always happy with. We had told them repeatedly that if they chose to not keep the protective Otterbox on their phone and something happened to it because of it that we would NOT be replacing their phone.

I'm guessing you can see where this story is headed.

Last week, our son's phone fell to the hardwood floor and the screen shattered. As luck would have it, his warranty was up last month. He can upgrade his phone for free... but not until December of this year. And considering it shattered at the bottom of the screen where the keypad is, making it nearly impossible for him to type, I don't think he's too happy about waiting nearly a year to have this problem resolved.

So, we went searching to see what options he has. We found this iPhone screen replacement kiton Amazon and it seems to have the highest reviews from buyers, so when our son decides he's had enough of his busted, nearly-unusable phone screen and finds a way to earn the money needed to buy this replacement kit, we will help him get his phone back into like-new condition.

You may be thinking that this sounds a bit harsh, making our 14-year-old son pay to repair his phone when it was clearly an accident that it busted. However, I feel like this is what's wrong with so many young people in our society today. Everything was either given to them or done for them and they don't know what it means to take responsibility and work for what you want or need. Our son will soon turn 15. Another year and he'll be driving. Another couple of years after that he'll be graduating high school and making decisions that will affect the rest of his life. If we don't help him learn lessons like this now, then when? It's our job as parents to help our kids learn these hard lessons now, while they're still under our protective care. They're human. They're going to make mistakes. If we truly love them we won't jump in to save them every time but will instead give them advice, pray for them, help them (as opposed to doing it for them), and let them learn these lessons that will prove to be invaluable to them when they're older.

Oh, and by the way, the Otterbox has been back on his phone ever since it fell to the floor. *sigh*