Over tended

In one episode of Little House On The Prarie, they showed Almanzo, Laura Ingalls Wilder's husband, in a wheel chair and paralyzed. He was sitting with Charles Ingalls at his storm demolished house, when they both noticed a little green living plant. With shocked faces, Almanzo quotes that the plants he was trying to care for wouldn't grow and it was because he was tending to them too much. He had realized the reason he was also not recovering was because he hadn't a reason to since he had Laura and his sister Eliza Jane looking after him. Many times in life this is us, especially with children. You know, the typical "did you do your school yet? Have your chores been done?" Too often we pester our children with "reminders" and don't get me wrong, they do need reminding sometimes but that's the thing...only sometimes. Many times our kids will procrastinate or simply not do something because we are asking too many times about it. I am saying this from personal experience. My parents constantly remind me to do something and after a while I start not wanting to do it usually because I now resent it. One example would be school. I get asked too many times, "how is school?" "are you almost finished?" "you should be finished by now." Sometimes these are motivations to push us forward and sometimes people care and want to check in but when it gets said too often we begin to feel crushed by the weight of the words. It takes our energy away and although motivation is there to do it, we begin to resent it and don't want to do it anymore...and then we're seen as lazy, sadly we're just easily misinterpreted. I am planning on creating a blog designed to give parents and adults the insight into these very misinterpreted situations. It really needs to be made clear because when people say "you are lazy and have no motivation" it really hits deep and takes away your energy.