Seven years ago, when my 12 year old was 5, and we sent her to a summer camp. One day she came back in the afternoon with wet clothes, and we were upset and I sent angry email to the camp lead counselor (adult who is in charge). At the beginning of last school year (fall 2021), at the middle school, they had similar incident, in which kids wait in the rain for the bus, I recall there was a heated discussion thread on the FB private group (on Ladue Community Connect: more precisely the Aug 26, 2021 post). When I grew up I was taught in a culture to avoid rained on, and more importantly don’t wear the wet clothes for an extended period of time, as it will be bad for one’s health. On the other hand, until recently I started to appreciate that got rained on is not necessary bad. Something like described in this tweet.
Yesterday morning, it rained, and we told our 12 year old to bring umbrella. She was reluctant, and later told me she doesn’t know how to open and close umbrella. I let her practice a few times. She took it.
Dressing warm or put on jacket is more a struggle. Sometimes I was successful, other times I decided it’s not the fight I wanted to pick that day. Like this morning. It was about 40 degrees fahrenheit, and she was the only kid with a T-shirt. She probably put her jacket in the backpack. I waved to her, and did not ask her to put it on. I wish her well today. Hope she doesn’t get cold (I heard getting cold is not necessarily from lack of clothes 🙂
PS: I posted it on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. With a hashtag #preteen (daily struggle etc). And I got warning from the Twitter: “We put a warning on one or more recent Tweets because they might have sensitive content. If you think this warning is a mistake, you can appeal.” || I deleted the tweet.