It Was Never About The Oatmeal Bowl
What looks like a small habit at home is often the beginning of how they'll show up in life. Let's talk about the line between helping and handing it over.
Looking back at my archive of emails, I see a theme: habits and happiness
It’s clearly not the only thing I talk about, but it pops up a lot. Some of these older emails have held up, so I’m bringing them back as a reminder to my OG readers and, hopefully, a helpful nudge for my newer SubStack friends.
First up, what a forgotten bowl of oatmeal taught me about parenting teens:
Even if you remember this email, stick around to the end because I want to share my thoughts on how this still applies as our kids get older and prepare to go off on their own—it may actually matter more than it used to.
Why is there still a gross bowl of oatmeal sitting on the kitchen bar at 7:15 pm?
Because at some point, my youngest decided breakfast dishes didn’t need to be cleaned up.
Strangely, snack and dinner plates seemed to find their way to the dishwasher, but those breakfast bowls developed different rules.
When a friend told me how she got her messiest child to pick up after themselves, I realized two things:
1— My youngest developed this annoying habit over time.
2— I had developed a habit of allowing it by cleaning the dish myself.
No kid wants to sweep up spilled cereal before going to school, but you don’t have a choice in Kiran’s home. The rules were clear. You picked up after yourself or risked being dragged away from a video game or, worse, called back when you were already halfway to school.
And that was the trick.
She made doing the task immediately more appealing than waiting. Not fun, but suddenly the better option.
The next day, I began the painful process of undoing a year of habit creation. I started small, made him put the dish in the sink, and worked up to putting it in the dishwasher. There was pushback for sure with not-so “under your breath” commentary and impressive eyerolls.
This really wasn’t about the dish. It was about how powerful habits are (which is why I keep coming back to them).
Habits are being created daily—for our kids and us.
👉 They are the foundation of positive and negative change.
👉 They are quick to develop and slow to break.
👉 They are the difference between doing what you want and settling for less.
REFLECTIVE UPDATE:
The original email was written back in 2022, before I got my hooks into the research around raising teens.
What I’ve learned is this: habit formation in younger kids is the foundation for successful launches into young adulthood.
I’ve written extensively about this topic as it relates to our lives on the other side of motherhood, and while the specifics evolve, the core idea doesn’t. I want to remind you that the hard work up front pays off later (for them and you).
Here’s what I want you to try, for a moment, don’t worry about how your kids feel or how they’ll live their lives in the future. Think ONLY about how YOU want to feel.
I see a lot of parents feeling frustrated or worried about their young adults (myself included), and much of it comes down to whether their kids have life skills and understand the importance of follow-through.
If you don’t want to worry about “will they hold a job or find a partner?” then work on habits and boundaries while they’re still at home.
This is where that oatmeal bowl starts to matter.
And if they’re already 18 or older, it’s not too late. Two weeks ago, I talked about boomerang kids (read here, watch here). The advice is simple. No need to overthink.
Start with how you want to feel and set expectations that support that. Then you have to hold your boundaries, which is arguably the hardest part because as moms, we wanna help out our kids as much as possible.
But it turns out knowing when to hold back is incredibly important.
And that’s the real work.
P.S. My YouTube channel is up and running! I hope you join me over there for expanded conversations and exploring older ideas to see how they apply to our next stage of motherhood (much like today’s Substack). ❤️