There is an interesting discussion taking place at BusinessWeek.com this week, they are actually debating whether having kids is worth the cost. In this group of articles at Business Week they refer to “the rise of the economically useless and emotionally priceless child.” Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families & Work Institute, offers perspective on this and is quoted: “As children have become less of an economic issue and people have fewer children and wait longer to have them, children have become precious, not in an economic sense but in an emotional sense.”

I would agree. They are “precious” and “priceless.”

But, with this attitude, we parents need to be very careful. It’s far too easy to allow this attitude to actually do a disservice to the very kids we love so dearly. We must monitor ourselves to not over-do it both in terms of material and emotional indulgences.

As you are heading into the holiday season and considering your upcoming gift purchases, consider this: numerous studies link material focus and indulgence with depression—and both are increasing in certain quarters. Yet parents continue to indulge their children’s endless wants and desires. Why? Dan Kindlon in Too Much of a Good Thing notes that an alarming trend in parenting today is the blurring of the line between “parent” and “friend.” Parents are reluctant to deny their teens the items in demand for fear of losing their child’s love, or making the child feel left out in her peer group.

Today we refer to “helicopter parents,” a term that describes parents who hover too closely. This cultural phenomenon may result from what initially are good intentions to protect our kids in a society that feels challenging and frightening, to assist children to develop and compete in a culture short on enough opportunity for everyone, and to defend and support kids who are not developmentally equipped to make their own way. But children of helicopter parents learn that they don’t have with it takes to succeed. Rather than becoming empowered they become more reliant.

Experts talk about “adolescent development,” and we like to inform parents about what expectations of their teenagers are appropriate based on the developmental maturity of their child. This is important for parents to keep in mind.

I like to ask parents consider the concept of “parental development,” and consider that it becomes increasingly important for parents to develop the ability to not indulge our desire to shower our “precious” teens with an abundance of unnecessary extras. As parents develop in our experience and maturity we should be able to see that over-indulgence often works against the very goals we hope to achieve with our children. (And if you read my free report Parenting Teenagers: The Agony and The Ecstasy you’ll see this confirmed.)

“Emotionally priceless” comes with a cost. Consider what a healthy balance will look like in your home both in terms of your holiday gift-giving and as you learn to give your teens more responsibility and freedom.

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