The way parents grew up is ripping learning opportunities of children

Included myself in a overly loud conversation between two mums the other day, one was ranting on how she thinks her high schooler son thinks it is all rainbows and skittles moving out on his own at the age of 14.

Fair enough, a 14 year old is an adolescent. I would argue that my mum was out on her own since 12, serving an entire family on their living needs.

Her point being, EVERYTHING is provided at home, why would he want to go out and do everything on his own when he could be in the comfort of his home and be chauffeured around.

My observation being, that’s EXACTLY why he should.

There’s too much comfort for any learnings to be done, to find out what he likes or dislike, from getting ingredients to prep a meal, to learning about hygiene habits changing bedsheets and cleaning the toilet. From learning how to deal with water leakage and changing light bulbs at home, to commuting everywhere on his own.

Comfort deprives us the opportunity to face our own “adversities” and the learnings that comes along with learning to be independent. Deprives us the environment to realize we spent more than it should cost on marketing, to face the ramifications of breaking an appliance and to learn the ways of dealing with a nasty neighbor.

My belief is there is too much protection in place to baby proof kids lives by parents who have “figured things out by themselves”, and yet not all good intentions turn out to be great for our children.

Given that parents do want their children to live a good life, even a better one than theirs if they have gone through some rough patches, life seemed to be served on a silver platter by parents; unwilling to recognize that it is the exact journey that nourished, that built and chiseled them into the person that they are today and it is similarly important for a child to figure things out on his own too.

No wonder the collective society has an issue with millennials, casting a cloud of entitlement over their heads. Then don’t make it too comfortable and overly protect in the first place, and I believe this to be a collective effort of the society, and not just parents.

By not treating kids to a participation award for being the 10th place in a competition allows real life to play out in real time. A kid will either feel defeated and not engage in that matter any further, or he will learn from taste of not winning and work harder for the next opportunity.

Either way, it is a win isn’t it? Given the goal of parents is for their children to achieve happiness in life, by practicing how real life works, and by nudging them a little when things goes off course helps calibrate towards facing challenges in life. Support them in finding out what they love and what are their gifts in life and support them in achieving those things. Perhaps we put too much emphasis on being successful and what is defined as success is way too narrow for the vast range of identities that exists. And perhaps parents are trying to groom a child into the exact form they hope to see.

What I see, is the desire of parents wanting to provide the best, do the best parents can, and on a certain level, to make up for the missing parts parents wished they had growing up, a rude underlying way of self fulfilment masked with parental love.

I see there is room for parents to treat children, especially teenagers in this context, more as individuals, that children aren’t “belonging” to parents, children aren’t just holding roles as their parents’ child, that they are growing into their own identities.

We could all use some practice on learning about each others’ boundaries. And we could practice respecting how our kids learn best, and the preferences and choices in life be made in alignment with them exploring potentials and working towards happiness. True freedom can’t be letting everything loose, it comes with boundaries, with constant monitoring by the side, and if parents are in it with their children, i believe parental instincts do exist and parents will know exactly when to step in if things are going south.