Take a minute to read this short New York Sun editorial from Lenore Skenazy, a woman who let her 9-yr old son ride the subway home (HT: MY).  While 9 years old may sound too young for some parents out there (that's another debate), this article does bring up the ultimate parental conundrum of balancing a child's safety and guidance with their independence.

In today's world, it's not uncommon for kids to do all of their "playing" in a planned and supervised manner.  It's not uncommon for every kid in an entire little league to get a trophy. And it's not uncommon for parents to quickly blame the teacher when their child is having a tough time at school.  I'm not contending all of these things are 100% wrong all of the time, but they do mark a huge divide between the parenting styles of the previous generation - and they may be affecting the current generation of children in a negative way.

A few years back, Hara Estroff Marano wrote an article for Psychology Today, titled A Nation of Wimps. (a book is coming out soon).  It's a bit long, but worth a read if you have any interest in not raising a needy, whiny, wimpy kid.  I'm obviously being a bit harsh, but here are some excerpts I think are worth highlighting:

• "Over 40,000 U.S. schools no longer have recess."
• "We learn through experience and we learn through bad experiences. Through failure we learn how to cope."
• "There's decent historical evidence to suggest that societies that allow kids a few years of latitude and even moderate [rebellion] end up with healthier kids than societies that pretend such impulses don't exist."
• "Parental hovering is why so many teenagers are so ironic. It's a kind of detachment, a way of hiding in plain sight. They just don't want to be exposed to any more scrutiny."
• "The goal of parenting is to raise an independent human being."

This last one seems to be the most important to me. There will never be a master set of parenting rules that will work for all children in every situation across all cultures. But if all parents worked on raising independently-minded and independently-functioning human-beings, many of the other "goals" of parenting might work themselves out (i.e., raising caring, productive, respectful, hard-working, thoughtful, confident, humble, fair-minded human beings).  I'm certainly not saying successful parenting can be reduced to this one rule, nor am I saying you all should let your 9 year olds ride the rails alone, but hopefully you get my point.

Disclaimer:  I currently have no children and reserve the right to change any and all of my above opinions at any time in the future.   Please refer to my first post with any complaints.