How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success

Kids are twenty times more likely to be killed by relatives than strangers13—but vigilante fearmongerers acting as Bad Samaritans are ready to indict a mother just trying to do her best under trying circumstances, a mother whose kid has suffered no actual harm. These vigilantes are a real threat to worry about. And their numbers may be sizeable.

“If from the time you’re born all your options are dictated for you and all your decisions are made for you, and then you’re cast out into the world to go to college, it’s like a country under colonial rule that falls apart when it gains its independence. They get to college and have no idea why they’re there or what they ought to be doing there. T

“Bullying is a problem in schools everywhere,” Ole tells me.28 “It has always been a problem and probably always will be. But true bullying—intentionally disempowering or isolating individuals and systematically demeaning and hurting them over a period of time—has not increased. It is no more common now than it was when I began my career twenty-fiv

What we do brag about is our kids’ perfectness even as simultaneously we evince so little actual faith in their ability to do the work of living life on their own, the way every prior generation of humans somehow has. Instead of a belief in them, we have great faith that our skills, plans, and dreams are the right tools for constructing their lives

Others say this leads to a false sense of what it takes to excel, and a belief in entitlement to recognition and promotion that will dog them in the workplace years later.

Somers and Settle sought to differentiate the helpful parental behaviors from the harmful types. “Positive results accrue when the hovering is age appropriate; when parents and student engage in a dialogue; when the student is empowered to act; and when parents intercede only if the student needs additional help.” They called this “Positive Parenta

Our definition of neglect has stretched to prevent parents from determining when their children are ready for even a modest amount of autonomy, and sacrifices developmentally appropriate skill building to fears of the unknown. While we might write off the Japanese as crazy, our American insistence on children being observed and accompanied at all t