500 Fridays Newsletter - 2.5 min read Season: The Cold Days (4 of 12)

Family Controversy

In our family, girls are allowed to get their ears pierced at age 12 and not a moment sooner.

Are we crazy? Possibly.
Are we an outlier? Likely.
Do we have a reason? Definitely.

How much thought have you put into the appropriate age for a girl to have her ears pierced? If your answer is not much, then you're in the majority.

For most families, there is no thought at all, which is totally fine.

I am sure that for many families it happens when their little girl asks about it the first time. Then she goes with her mom to have them pierced by a professional and it's done.

In our family, the ear-piercing age was set aside as something "special."

There are times that power-decade parents need to draw some lines in the sand. They may seem arbitrary, but they serve the greater good.

Between you and me, I don't believe that a girl having her ears pierced is that big of a deal, honestly. But we chose to reserve if for later in life. Why?

Because we wanted to create some simple and instructive situations that would help us craft character into our kids.

The Magical Motto

We could have chosen ear piercing, sleepovers, or summer camp. The emphasis we needed to teach early though, was ...

We believed that if we could infuse that into the hearts and minds of our young kids it would pay off. Of course, they didn't like it or appreciate it at the time and yes it was uncomfortable.

I will tell you that my wife and I got significant pushback from both of our girls over the years for this decision we made. When I say we made I truthfully mean I made.

To my wife, this choice of waiting till age 12 for an ear piercing was arbitrary. She didn't think it was that big of a deal but she did agree with the principle we wanted to uphold in our home.

Yes, I wondered if we were doing the right thing. Today, over 20 years later, I know it was 100% worth it.

Life is full of special things and experiences:

Sex
Trips
Presents
Vacations
Friendships
Celebrations

The challenge is having the patience to wait for them until the proper time.

We wanted to create situations in which our children experienced waiting for an extended time. Not your every day waiting for help or waiting their turn.

Wait for a long time. Waiting for something special. Here was the thinking behind our approach:

• Patience isn't natural or easy for anyone. It is acquired through repetition and requires years of practice.
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• The ability to be patient (or to say it another way, delay gratification) is one of the greatest multipliers of success in an adult's life.
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• If you can begin to teach a 7-year-old patience, they might begin to display it more at age 17 and be reasonably equipped by age 27.

Creating opportunities to teach your kids patience AND that special things are worth waiting for is one of the greatest parenting investments you can make.

They need to experience it in the situations you create and they need to hear it repeated often so that they mentally embrace it as well.

And let's not pretend that patience and delayed gratification get any easier as adults, right? So have some grace on your kids but hold the line often enough that they will experience and understand that special things are worth waiting for.

See you next Friday,
Finley

500 Fridays ... book coming soon ​ Stories & Strategies To Help Parents of 3-13 Year Olds Make A Decade Count