Coming In For A Landing?


 image from Free Range Kids

A article making the rounds these days is Tim Elmore's  "Three Huge Mistakes We Make Leading Kids...And How To Correct Them."  The mistakes not the children.

It is a good reminder to let our children take risks, make mistakes and replace phony praise with genuine and merited encouragement.  Of course, chances are, if you read this blog, you have probably read The Blessing of A Skinned Knee, which is the gold standard of such parenting advice.

What I wonder is, it getting better?   Are more parents giving their children a little more freedom to make mistakes?  Are some of those helicopter parents coming in for a landing?  According to Free Range Kids letting your kids walk a couple of blocks in your own neighborhood may land you in jail.  This article on What Makes a Nightmare Sports Parent - And What Makes a Great One suggests that there is still a lot of work to be done.

One result of such parental management seems to be the children who call home 8-10 times a day from college asking questions like "should I have a hot dog or chili for lunch?" or "Should I do my Econ or History homework first?"  One also reads about parents helping (?) to negotiate a person's first salary and calling a company's HR dept to advocate for their offspring

Thoughts?




2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My thoughts probably shouldn't be published! My daughters classmate went to the nurses office today and got her mother to bring her home because she was tired due to daylight savings time. REally?! WHat school allows this nonsense, or better yet, what parent?!! Then she threw a tantrum when my sitter said she couldn't come over to my house to play with my twins after school?!!

Unknown said...

These are great articles! Thank you for sharing them. As what I've observed, parents today indeed give too much consideration to their kids. I think parents should not tolerate negative behaviors in their kids and should discipline them when necessary.

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