Reply to Elementary forum makes me realize how little parents care about the right things

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I assumed this thread was going to be about how so many parents only seem to care about surface level status signaling with their kids, but not actually important things like teaching them right from wrong, how to navigate friendships, how to be emotionally resilient, how to be independent, etc.

I feel like a lot of parents are just interested in securing their kids a good social position and popularity via the right clothes and parties and sports/activities, and don't really put much effort into actually parenting.

I don't see the dichotomy OP is describing.[/quote]

OMG, exactly the same thought.

That said, I will say that as a parent, I struggle with my desire (shared with my partner) to create resilient children, which means they need to take risks and do dangerous things from time to time. There was an excellent New Yorker piece on this many years ago about the damage helicoptering has done to our children, and why kids need to experience thrills, fear, speed, danger (in appropriate ways - riding their bike down a huge hill, getting lost, climbing too high in a tree) to grow emotionally and develop tools to handle these emotions later in life. But of course I agree that our world is different now. I lean more toward enabling independence and teaching my kids to handle tricky situations (and then, yes, sometimes hovering out of sight to make sure they're able to do it the first time). I remember the first time I let them ride their bikes to a practice sneaking behind them in my car to make sure they stopped and looked before crossing, and got to their destination.

Let's also not forget the tools we have that make things safer - drivers today have many more tools to alert them to small children, we can track our children using phones/watches, and cell phones everywhere mean we can always be reached. I lived in Europe at 18 and only checked in with my parents once a week. Imagine that![/quote]

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