Current events, personal events, getting older has been leading me to this nugget of truth. Outrage and protest is an important FIRST action. It comes with a lot of energy, a lot of conviction, a lot of emotion. And not much gets done if we keep trying to fix our problems with outrage and protest.

PROTEST: I can protest and be outraged that my tween won't get up. I can lecture, I can nag, I can yell - all protest moves. Usually, the tween will endure our nagging, yelling and outrage for the special service of being woken up by us. (Think about it, if we had someone that would BE SURE we are up so we don't miss work, well, why not hit snooze? Why not tent our head under our comforter and read for a delicious extra 20 minutes. We are offering our free waking up service to the tween, the price they pay is our anger, which always dissolves.) The protest alerts us to the problem BUT does not SOLVE the problem (so frustrating!).

ACTION: I can stop being willing to serve the tween in a way that is unnecessary. I can state this to the tween in a respectful low-key way, "I'm sorry, I've been treating you with disrespect. I have faith you can handle waking up in the morning to the alarm clock." I can give the tween a grace period of a week where the alarm clock goes off and I am willing to come up and turn the light on at an agreed upon time. I can help tween problem solve, IF they are interested. I can train tween to use public transport. I can research with the tween the school policy for being tardy. I can let the tweens life unfold and SEE how the tween feels about being tardy. I can watch how the tween responds to having to use allowance to uber herself to school.

The protest guided me to new action, the new action showed me something new about my tween AND gave me a much needed break from being angry and protesting.

Lather, rinse, repeat!