We’re depriving our kids of the chance to do the work of life for themselves.

But we should open our eyes to the many ways in which hypervigilance keeps them penned in from the more liberated life they deserve to live and that in turn would prepare them for adulthood.

When you intervene on behalf of your child, your child becomes the victim. You're expressing the message 'You're incapable, you're not sturdy enough to resolve this yourself, you need me to come in and take care of this for you.'" You are, in essence, disempowering your child.

Young adults come to resent the people who did the thinking for them.

There is something that's a great deal more important than parental approval: learning to do without it. That's what it means to become an adult.