Have you heard the expression: “A parent is only as happy as her unhappiest child?” That sentiment has rung true for parents many times, as unfortunate as that is. A child suffering from a failed attempt at something he cared about, a social rebuff that caused hurt feelings, facing a challenge that generated fear of failure…yes, parents feel their children’s pain many times, and very intensely.

But sometimes a parent’s identification with his/her child is over the top. Sometimes parents become overly involved in their kids’ fights and feel the need to rescue them. Parents need to become aware that in this process we can inadvertently increase our child’s stress and pain.

As a generation, I believe we baby-boomers are great parents. We’re engaged, involved, attentive and informed. We acknowledge the importance of self-esteem, we support our kids’ involvement in extra curricular activities from an early age, we value education and help our kids develop their unique skills…but we sometimes let those good intentions run amok. Strengths become weaknesses when taken to the extreme… parents need to remember that.

I recently had a middle school principal tell me he has “a parent problem. When did it happen that parents won’t let go?” he wondered aloud. “When did our generation decide that we have to fight our children’s battles for them? Why can’t parents today let go?”

He has put his finger on the issue, because it is a question of when to let go.

Resilience is a quality parents will tell you they want to help teach their kids. Yet parents who rush in to help their kids win every battle and make every team are denying their kids the ability to develop resilience. No parent likes to see his child in pain and that may be the heart of the problem.

Michael Thompson, Ph. D., in his book The Pressured Child points out that what drives this over-protection of teens is that parents are uncomfortable when they feel helpless. There are times kids face challenges that create unwanted outcomes that parents can’t change, and the resulting sense of helplessness sometimes makes parents so uncomfortable they take action - even if it makes things worse. Rushing in to protect and defend a teenager who is denied a place on the team or a coveted position can actually dis-empower a child, communicating that he isn’t good enough to defend himself or compete effectively. It’s actually a selfish and self-centered move on the parent’s part. Thompson states “…A child can always feel when the parent is treating her own sense of helplessness rather than addressing the child’s pain.” So we do have a “parent problem,” and despite best intentions, one that can cause our children undue and undeserved pain.

Teaching our children resilience requires restraint at times. Kids learn from trial and error… they will survive a failure and get up to try again another day if they learn that failure is tolerated in their family. Tasting failure prepares them with a realistic and flexible attitude, and teaches lessons that, for some, may be as important as tasting success.

Parents of teenagers can find an appropriate and helpful stance by viewing themselves as mentors, or coaches, providing assistance and supporting kids’ efforts while not taking over for them. Taking failed efforts in stride, modeling behavior that demonstrates an honest effort is worthwhile regardless of the outcome – these are the important lessons parents much teach teenagers.

It’s about empowerment, valuable life lessons, resilience, and unconditional love.

I’d love to hear your stories. Can you tell us about a time your child failed and learned something valuable in the process? Was this difficult for you? How did you handle it? Looking back on it, would you handle things differently? It’s easy to post a comment on this blog; I do moderate the comments which is a necessity in this spam-filled world, but as soon as I view it I’ll put it right up to keep this conversation going.

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