I’m not an expert parent, but…
I’m doing some research on parenting Web sites, and that led me to this article on babble.com, a national parenting site, on exactly how detailed we should be in our parenting.
We’re planning a major makeover for our MonroeParent.com Web site and its companion print product, Monroe Parent. That’s what led me to look around other parenting sites.
The article mentioned above, by Katie Allison Granju, explores whether today’s parents have become too involved in every detail of their childrens’ lives.
She started the article talking about how our mothers lived in a world that “had become so narrowly focused on one facet of their lives — homemaking — that all the joy had been sucked right out of them.”
She goes on to wonder whether today’s mothers aren’t living in a world that is just as stressful, but for different reasons.
“We may no longer be “professional homemakers,” but whether we stay home with our kids, or work outside the home, we’ve turned parenting into its own, highly stressful, endlessly demanding, often joyless undertaking. In fact, a recent study by research group Public Agenda found that seventy-six percent of American parents describe raising kids today as “much harder” than it was during their own childhoods.
But are we making it a lot harder than it has to be? I think so.”
I agree.
One of the most important skills that parents needed in yesteryear and still need today is knowing when it’s okay to leave children alone to learn for themselves, to experience life on their own terms, to make mistakes and learn lessons the hard way.
Love them. Support them. Give them every opportunity you can. But let them live their own lives.
But then it’s easy for me to give parenting advice. It’s been seven years since my youngest son graduated from high school.
Footnote: Worse that parents who overmanage their kids are parents who don’t care enough to provide the support, encourgement, education, discipline, etc., that kids need.