If you have kids or transport some in your car, at some point you had to buckle one of them into the car. Eventually they’ll get to the age where they want to do it themselves.
At this point, you’re stuck with either doing it for them while they scream and yell at you saying “I wanna do it! I wanna do it!” or sitting there in the car for 10 minutes while you wait for them to buckle each piece. With any luck they’ll give up and let you finally help them.
Assuming you let them do it themselves, a day will come where you hop in the car and count on them to do their part. You’ll start driving to your destination, and at some point turn around and find out that THEY NEVER BUCKLED THEMSELVES UP!
Face it, this has happened to you. You’ll probably feel like a failure at this point. Or you’ll blame your kid and tell them “if you’re not going to do it then I’ll do it for you every time.” Or you could take the scared straight approach – “if we were in an accident you would have went through the windshield”. (That’s especially effective at our house since it happened to my wife when she was younger and has the scars to prove it. If only she pulled out the pictures.)
The point is that you will make mistakes with your kids. Along the way, you’ll assume that you’ve screwed them up for good. Hopefully you didn’t (you probably didn’t), but only time will tell.
(Of course, we’re perfect parents, which means that nothing described in the post above has happened to us personally.)
