If you are a parent, please read this. I am also a parent, granted he’s only two and a half, but I get how important a child is. I love him more than words can describe. I will do anything for him, but I also know that part of doing good by him is teaching him to handle his own business.

I feel like my parents maintained the perfect balance. I’m from a working class home and my parents believed that if I were to be successful I needed to learn to take care of myself and not rely on others including them. If I had a problem with school officials, they told me how to handle the conversation and had me go try handling it on my own. Only if I was being treated disrespectfully or unjustly did they step in. It was nerve wracking but I did it and I think I earned respect for the way I handled things. I made mistakes along the way (like renting an apartment next door to the third worst project in Cleveland), but I survived and I learned from my mistakes. Because I learned to do my own legwork, I can successfully navigate anything. I know how to use resources around me to fill in the knowledge gaps I have. I know how to survive.

Do your kids a favor and teach them to take care of themselves. Let them fail and make mistakes (as long as there are not lifelong consequences). Coach them through how to have adult conversations, how to negotiate, how to respectfully talk with authority figures, and how to stand up for what they want and believe in an acceptable way. At some point you will not be around any longer and unfortunately none of us know when that day will be. It could be tomorrow. If you don’t teach your adult children to handle their lives on their own, what will happen if you’re not there?

How helicopter parents are ruining college students – The Washington Post.

~Matt