A Chameleon’s Lesson in Raising Kids

In the last issue I introduced a framework for how parenting shifts across four stages, and shared a story from the “protector years,” when kids are ages zero to five. If you are curious about the four stages you can read more about them here.

Today I want to pick up the second stage, the Teacher years, ages five to twelve, where the goal shifts from building security to building responsibility. This is where rituals and routines get established, where chores and hard work start to carry meaning, and where you begin explaining the “why” behind your family's rules instead of simply enforcing them.

As you likely learned from my last newsletter, my son Brett has always loved animals. For most of his younger years, if you had asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up, he would have told you he wanted to be a zoo keeper.

He was fascinated by all of it, the dinosaurs of the past and every species of mammal, reptile, insect, bird and amphibian in the present. Naturally, that love spilled into a desire for pets, and over the years we had several.

One of the most memorable pets was a chameleon he named Camo. She was an unusual creature, showing almost no visible emotion, and yet she seemed to have a real bond with Brett. She had no issue being handled by him, often perched on his arm or shoulder while he wandered around the house.

A Pet Is Easy. Caring for One Is Not

It is one thing to have a pet, it is another thing entirely to look after it.

Brett loved watching Camo and interacting with her. What got overlooked, more often than not, was cleaning her terrarium, making sure she had water, and feeding her on a regular basis. 

Her food source was live crickets, which is a genuinely fascinating thing to watch; you drop them into her cage and shortly after, she uses her long tongue to lash out and recoil with the cricket as the reward. When we first got Camo, Brett loved watching her eat, but the novelty soon wore off, and what remained was simply a responsibility.

This is where the teacher years tend to catch parents off guard. The fun part of a new responsibility, a new pet, a new chore, a new job around the house, rarely lasts more than a few weeks. What comes after the novelty fades is the actual test: does the routine hold once it stops being interesting? That question, repeated across a hundred small responsibilities over these years, is quietly shaping who your child is becoming.

It did not take long for Kelly and I to notice Camo was not being looked after the way she needed to be. We reminded Brett that this was a living creature, and that with the privilege of having a pet came the responsibility of treating her with care, in a way that actually reflected our family's values rather than just the fun parts of owning her.

When The Crickets Got Loose

One afternoon we noticed Brett had not fed Camo and he was already halfway out the door to go play with the local neighbourhood kids. We told him he was not going anywhere until he had cleaned her cage and given her food and water.

As you already know chameleons eat crickets which we would buy from a local pet store. We kept the crickets in a special storage container in our laundry room. Crickets are not a particularly enjoyable creature to manage, as they are smelly and at night loud, but they are a necessary part of owning a chameleon. 

Brett was in a hurry, and hurrying was exactly the wrong approach when handling crickets, and in his rush that day, he left the lid of the container open.

By that evening, the sound of crickets could be heard throughout the house.

For many days afterwards we could hear the chirping and it became a very real lesson in why we needed to be more careful and more caring with the animals we chose to bring into our home. 

It is a silly story on the surface, but underneath it is a clear example of cause and effect; when you do not do something the right way, there are consequences, and sometimes those consequences chirp at you from inside the walls of your home for weeks. (I am fairly confident a few of those crickets are still living in some dark corner of our former house to this day.)

Brett was not the only one to learn this particular lesson the hard way. Our daughter Meg had a hamster around the same age, and one day it went missing entirely, gone from its cage with no explanation. We searched, we gave up hope, and then several days later, in the middle of the night, it turned up on Meg's pillow, apparently trying to create a nest in her hair.

The blood curdling shriek that erupted from her is one I will never forget.  We ran to her room,  assuming she was either having a terrible night mare or was in some sort of danger. As it turns out the hamster, being nocturnal, had simply decided to return back to it’s caretaker in the middle of the night. 

The Ultimate Pet

Between Camo and the crickets and Meg's hamster staging its own disappearance, we learned a lot as parents about what it actually takes to raise kids who can care for something other than themselves. Those smaller, sometimes chaotic lessons became the foundation for what came next, our family dog, Indy.

Indy was a different kind of responsibility altogether. Food, water, and a clean space were the baseline, but a dog asks for something a hamster or a chameleon never will: real time and real attention. 

Walks, hikes, and more bike rides than I could possibly count; with Indy loving to run, while chasing our bike through the forest trails. 

Caring for Indy became one of the most consistent, shared responsibilities our family carried together, and some of our favorite memories from those years are simply the four of us, plus one very happy dog, out exploring nature.

Indy has since passed away, and his loss was deeply felt. But even in that, I can see the gift he left behind. For years, he quietly taught our kids that love is more than a feeling; it's an action and it is something you express by showing up, day after day, long after the novelty has faded.

Training for the Relationships That Matter Most

Looking back, I don't think the point of any of it, Camo, the hamster, even Indy, was really the animals themselves. Each one was a rung on a ladder, starting small and with low stakes, building toward something far more significant.

A chameleon teaches a child that a living creature depends on them. A dog teaches a child that real love requires real time, not just good intentions. And eventually, if the lessons take, those same rhythms and routines become the foundation for the two relationships that will matter more than any other: finding your life partner, and the children you bring into the world.

You cannot show up faithfully for a spouse or a child if you have never practiced showing up faithfully for anything smaller first. The habits my wife and I were trying to build into our kids during those years; feeding something before you feed yourself, tending to a responsibility even when it has stopped being fun, noticing when something you love needs you and responding without being asked twice, were never really about pets. They were rehearsals for the relationships that would eventually define their adult lives.

Why the Ordinary Stuff Matters

Somewhere along the way, Kelly and I realized that the years our kids were growing up weren't just about teaching them skills or good manners. They were really about shaping character. Every responsibility, every conversation, and every small daily habit became an opportunity to help them become the kind of people worthy of showing up in meaningful relationships.

This is really the whole project of the teacher years. It is not one big lesson delivered at the right moment. It is dozens of small, often unremarkable routines, repeated often enough that they stop feeling like rules and start becoming identity. A pet that needs feeding. A room that needs tidying. A chore chart on the fridge that nobody loves but everybody follows. None of it looks significant in the moment, but strung together over years, it is actually the scaffolding that character gets built on.

It would have been easy to just take over Camo's care ourselves, or find her a new home when Brett lost interest. It would have solved the immediate problem, and it would have taught him nothing. 

Instead we let the natural consequence of a laundry room full of escaped crickets do some of the teaching for us, then followed it with a real conversation about why it mattered, not just what he had done wrong.

What I'd Tell a Younger Version of Myself

In life, the little things become the big things. If we don't learn to be faithful with small responsibilities, we'll struggle when larger ones are entrusted to us.

Character is never formed in defining moments; instead it is forged through countless ordinary ones, through the small deposits we make every day. It's the compound effect of consistency, guided by a clear understanding of why those small things matter.

If I could go back and coach myself through those years again, I would see those seemingly insignificant responsibilities differently. They were never just chores. They were opportunities to practice becoming the kind of person who can be trusted with greater things.

I would also tell myself not to rescue too quickly. Every time Kelly and I stepped in and finished a job our kids were supposed to do, we saved them a few minutes of frustration and cost them a life lesson they needed. 

The years between five and twelve are exactly the season to let a responsibility go undone long enough for your child to feel the natural weight of it, while the consequences are still small enough to be more funny than serious. A week of loose crickets is an inconvenience but the habits you build, or fail to build, in these years will follow your kids for a lifetime. 

Just as important is helping them understand “why” the responsibility matters. In our case, a living creature depended on him. Caring for it wasn't just another chore; it was learning that when something is entrusted to you, its wellbeing becomes your responsibility. It was also an opportunity to discover that rushing through a job almost always creates more work than taking the time to do it well the first time.

I've found that children can understand far more of the why than we often give them credit for. And when they understand the purpose behind the responsibility, they're no longer just completing a task; they're comprehending its importance.  

What I Want to Leave You With

So this week, take a few minutes to reflect:

What responsibility have you been quietly finishing for your child that they are actually capable of owning themselves?

Where in your family could a small, real consequence teach a lesson better than another reminder or lecture ever could?

What is one small responsibility today that could quietly be preparing your child for the relationships that will matter most in their adult life?

If this resonated with you, I'd encourage you to share it with another parent walking who is either working through these years or about to.

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