Sometimes as a parent you need to cover big issues. Other times, you really don’t.
This was the case the other day when I had a conversation with my 13 year old son about how to close a door quietly.
This was after several mornings of early awakenings by doors being closed loudly, multiple times. More effectively waking the rest of the household than an alarm clock.
It’s probably particularly acute as I can still very clearly hear my mum’s voice in my head saying “come back and close the door quietly”, said whenever there was even a hint of a slam when I was growing up. She had to use this often with the 20 odd years of teenagers in the house!
So my son and I talked through the options…
1. Not closing the door all the way (although as he pointed out this risked disturbing us anyway),
2. Staying in his room until a reasonable time (I may be regretting this one in a few years),
3. Actually using the handle to quietly close the door (accompanied by a demonstration).
There is a fourth option of taping the snib closed but I’m saving that…
It’s early days, so hard to tell if the lesson has stuck, but my husband reminded me that I’d had to teach him this when we first started living together. So it could be seen as a skill for life …
or it could just be me…
Tough Mother 