Family

2024-09-28 update: I still remember how stressed my dad was the morning he drove me to college 37 years ago. He must have been experiencing the same insane mix of pride, joy, loneliness, and sadness I described in this post. The day I posted this, an interesting article – titled “Lighthouse Parents Have More Confident Kids: Sometimes, the best thing a parent can do is nothing at all” – appeared in The Atlantic by Russell Shaw. It covers similar material to Dr. Wendy Mogel’s The Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Timeless Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children. Shaw wrote, “I’ve spent the past 30 years working in schools… Too often, I watch parents overfunctioning – depriving their kids of the confidence that comes from struggling and persevering… We’re biologically wired to prevent our children’s suffering, and it can be excruciating to watch them struggle. A parent’s first instinct is often to remove obstacles from their child’s path, obstacles that feel overwhelming to them but are easily navigable by us. …When parents seek to control outcomes for their kids, they are trading short-term wins for long-term thriving – they’re trading the promise of a college bumper sticker for a happy, well-adjusted 35-year-old.” I barely slept last night. Instead, I stressed over a parenting situation I won’t describe here. While not sleeping, my brain reminded me of two events that helped me solve the mystery of why I felt so terrible. ...