The adult takeover of childhood: how parents are harming their children

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This story, originally published in Psychology Today, highlights the need for parents to step back and not over-manage their children’s lives, to allow them to build resilience.

Over the past two-plus decades, it has become clear that mothers and fathers, especially those in the middle class and above, are helping children do things that kids are entirely capable of doing on their own. Solve peer conflicts. Do homework. Even accompany grown kids to job interviews! Parental overinvolvement in children's lives, many cultural observers believe, plays a large role in the mental health crisis affecting both parents and young people today.

Increasingly, parents have become irrationally fearful of letting their children out of their sight, contends Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids and co-founder of Let Grow.. We’ve been brainwashed, she says, to believe that any time our kids aren’t with us, they're in danger of “being kidnapped by a guy in a white van looking for his puppy.”

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Understanding Big Feelings: How to Stay in Control

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