I was self-driven by the book's description, enabled by unobtrusive parenting and a stable home life. But I also turned out really well by several objective metrics, and many of my peers in similar circumstances didn't.
As I think about how to parent, where you're supplying steady inputs into the system with many other inputs, I'm beginning to think we undervalue positive parenting contributions but overvalue its detrimental effects when the end result is unsatisfactory. We have vague ideas about what helps and what hurts, but every person is quite different, an any number of inputs, from genetics and inbuilt predispositions, to one random event or encounter or interaction can perturb one's mind and personality in complex ways. And all of these feed into the outcome: some judgmental, haphazard aggregate of metrics by which we -- and society -- judges new young adult's success.
This book seems to strike a tone of unobtrusive enablement much like what I received and avoids descending into the nihilistic spiral that I ponder a lot, but understandable most commercial works avoid.
I was self-driven by the book's description, enabled by unobtrusive parenting and a stable home life. But I also turned out really well by several objective metrics, and many of my peers in similar circumstances didn't.
In the 60's and 70's when I grew up, free-range kids were the norm. I turned out good, but some of my peers did not. I've felt for some time that for those that do well with free-range parenting, they turn out real well, but for those that don't they turn out really bad. The swings from good to bad with that method are really big.
With the current style of helicopter/over-scheduling parents, I feel the range of good-bad is much smaller. That is, the bad parts are more hidden and maybe even pushed off until sometime in adulthood; the good parts aren't very good, but because the bad parts seem minimized, it seen as an overall win.
As for the bad parts I'm talking about from my childhood, they included death much more frequently from random things. I knew kids that died from accidents ranging from getting hit by cars, to drowning at the reservoir that no one was supposed to swim at, etc. My son is 17 now, and I have never heard of anyone from his school dying. As for other bad parts, I didn't even mention some darker stuff, having to do with sex and drugs. Most of what I experienced, I should really say survived, just doesn't happen anymore. And I'm not talking about kids getting drunk or high at parties. Yes, that still happens in high schools in the US.
This book seems to strike a tone of unobtrusive enablement much like what I received
I think this works because of the unobtrusive part. Obtrusive enablement, or the protection from natural consequences, can stunt growth just as much as over-parenting.
You definitely want to protect your kids from mistakes that can end with them in jail or dead, but letting them skin their knees or suffer the consequences of being rude to peers allows them to feel the weight of their autonomy.
As I think about how to parent, where you're supplying steady inputs into the system with many other inputs, I'm beginning to think we undervalue positive parenting contributions but overvalue its detrimental effects when the end result is unsatisfactory. We have vague ideas about what helps and what hurts, but every person is quite different, an any number of inputs, from genetics and inbuilt predispositions, to one random event or encounter or interaction can perturb one's mind and personality in complex ways. And all of these feed into the outcome: some judgmental, haphazard aggregate of metrics by which we -- and society -- judges new young adult's success.
This book seems to strike a tone of unobtrusive enablement much like what I received and avoids descending into the nihilistic spiral that I ponder a lot, but understandable most commercial works avoid.