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In her book, A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting, Hara Estroff Marano asks why so many young people today have such trouble coping when they are put in an environment where they have to function on their own. One reason, Marano answers, is the prevalence of "helicopter parenting" — parents who hover and make a lot of noise rescuing children when a difficulty arises. Parents today, she observes, go to great lengths to take the discomfort and disappointment out of childhood, while pressuring their children to succeed. This combination of parental hyper concern and micro scrutiny have the unintended effect of making kids more fragile — they are unable to deal with stress because they didn't learn coping skills growing up. Marano offers these suggestions to parents...
Let children play. Starting when they are young, provide unstructured time for exploration and play.
Eat dinner together. Start at an early age with everyone sitting at the same table eating the same food, with nothing else going on but conversation in which every family member gets to participate.
Teach how to tolerate discomfort. Help children develop frustration tolerance skills and ability to cope with uncertainty.
Learn how and what to praise. How you give praise to a child is important. Reward the process and the effort — not the talent or the product.
Encourage your child to problem-solve. Teach and model brainstorming for new ideas and creative problem solving.
Give kids increasing responsibilities. Try to stop managing their lives for them.
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