Asking because I just sat through a family feud within earshot at a local coffee joint. Parents giving advice to son, who looked 30ish, all quite civil, full of the ‘can I speak for a minute’, ‘your minute is up’ and so on, with some ‘when we were your age’ and ‘you must/ will learn’ etc. Mum ended with ‘i don’t have to justify anything to you’.
My dad stopped once I got out of high school, but mum seems to chime in from time to time. I’m well into my middle age.
When should parents stop parenting and just let the kid fail/ thrive on their own? I just feel sometimes the parents are the problem, regardless of good intentions.
When the kid can stand on their own. Some never learn. Sometimes it’s the parents’ fault, sometimes the kid is missing something (some mental or physical or maybe psychological deficit).
When I was a kid, there came a time when I wanted as little to do with my folks as possible. I’d be out until just past dark (“when the streetlights come on” was the time we’d start heading home) and from a pretty young age. Like 9-10. We’d go for a mile or two, explore the world around us. Ride bikes to another neighborhood or (later) get on a county bus and go to another town. We didn’t have cell phones, let alone pocket computers like kids have now.
I see kids as old as 8-10 still needing to cling to mommy’s skirt or daddy’s jeans. That could never have been us. And when they’re not clinging to their parents, they’re playing Minecraft or Fortnite or Roblox on a hand-me-down phone that doesn’t call (and probably has its serial blocked for non-payment so it just works on WiFi) or a tablet. And I’m not generalizing. I know kids like this. Kids in my family are like this. I have no control over it. I’ve tried to tell them they should be out playing. They won’t hear it. Family doesn’t care. I’m the old man shouting at clouds. I imagine those kids will be living at home at 30 being told when to take a shower and when to go to bed. It’s not just this generation, either. I have a couple aunts and an uncle (young Boomers/elder GenX) who were the same way. Minus the electronics, naturally.
Parents: Raise your kids to be independent, or they’ll be your babies forever.
Some parents want their kids to be their babies. It’s a psychological thing, or an insecure about the (parents own) future thing.
It’s easy to say kids should be out playing, but where?
The place I grew up is unaffordable now to most even before adding the increased costs of children.
It’s easy to say kids should be out playing, but what’s on the internet is more compelling, and while it’s pretty suspicious, we don’t even have good data on whether it makes much difference.