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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]In addition to the suggestions here, ask yourself what you really want for your child.  For me, I want my child to grow into a confident, competent, resilient, responsible, kind adult.  Doing things for her, clearing her path of obstacles, etc., will not help her develop real confidence--which is not just the confidence that you can do things, but also the confidence that you can solve problems and handle setbacks and adversity.  They need to learn that they can make mistakes, they can fail at something, they can have their hearts broken, and they can get back up and keep going, and maybe find something even better down the road, and I think it's better to learn those things when the stakes are lower.

It's hard in the moment, but ultimately it comes down to the fact that you have to have faith in your children.  That doesn't mean being totally hands-off--I try to be a sounding board, to help her talk through problems, ask questions, make suggestions, but she has to own her own life.  She's always got a safe place to land, but I have to let her figure out how to fly on her own.

The best analogy for me is the story of a person who found a butterfly in the process of emerging from a chrysalis.  The butterfly was struggling to get out of a small opening.  Thinking to help the butterfly, the person took a small pair of scissors and, with a few snips, made the hole larger.  The butterfly quickly emerged.  But it looked funny--it had a swollen body and shriveled wings.  The butterfly never flew.  It turns out that the struggle to squeeze out of the cocoon was necessary to push the fluid out of its body and to strengthen its wings.  Without the struggle, the butterfly could not fly.  [/quote]

This is a good post. In parenting my kids I've tried to find the middle ground between benign neglect and over-involvement. Failure is a great motivator and great teacher. Think of your own life and the lessons you learned from failure. Your kids need to learn those lessons too.

And it's not just resilience that you need to learn, it's adaptability. It's being able to cope and be satisfied with less than ideal conditions. I was reminded of this by the article I think OP was referring to

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/style/snowplow-parenting-scandal.html

where they refer to kids who have to leave a top college because

[quote]"they don’t have the minimal kinds of adult skills that one needs to be in college.”

One came home because there was a rat in the dorm room. Some didn’t like their roommates. Others said it was too much work, and they had never learned independent study skills.[b] One didn’t like to eat food with sauce. Her whole life, her parents had helped her avoid sauce, calling friends before going to their houses for dinner. At college, she didn’t know how to cope with the cafeteria options — covered in sauce.[/b][/quote]

I can remember 2 different times that mothers called me after I invited their kid over for dinner, to tell me their kid "wouldn't eat sauce." I wondered what happened to those anti-sauce kids - now I know.[/quote]

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