Coddling and loving are not synonymous

Life is no bed of roses. Teach your kids to deal with the thorns on their own.

Folks, it took me a long, long time and a lot of inconveniences to figure this out. Just trying to save other loving parents from the same thing. When your kids are babies, it's OK to coddle them, just a bit, I think. It makes them feel loved, safe and happy. But as they grow older, if you don't cut the apron strings a little at a time, you will both pay for it. Coddling that extends into adulthood is not love, plus, it's a huge mistake.

It's natural for parents to want to shelter their children from the storms of life. I've done it myself on way too many occasions. Why is that so bad? Well, because making mistakes and taking the falls on their own is what makes them strong enough to stand on their own two feet, that's why. By sparing your teen and young adult children from the consequences of their actions, you also take away the valuable life lessons they will need to survive when you're gone.

And as depressing as it sounds, you will be gone eventually. When you are, who is going to help them if they haven't learned to help themselves? And well before that, you may get to an age where you need your kids to take care of you. Have you given them the strength they need to do that?

When you coddle adult children by catching their every fall, buying them all the things they can't afford and just generally treating them like they can't handle their own lives, guess what happens? They live up to that. They start believing that they can't “do” life on their own.

It's your job to see that your child matures into someone people like to be around. Someone who takes care of their own responsibilities and doesn't leave others to do it for them. Coddling them too long does just the opposite. It creates an adult that others have to take care of. This parenting thing is fun, for sure. But it's also serious business. Turning a child into a responsible adult is hard work.

And yes, it's equally hard to watch your kids fall and fail. But it's important to let it happen. In fact, it's probably the most important thing you can do for them, that is, insisting that they clean up their own messes and fight their own battles.

So, don't be so quick to “help” them when things go wrong. Respect their struggles, give them sound advice, feel for them, comfort them, but resist the temptation to help them too much. Because handing your kids everything they need, picking them up every time they fall and financing their recovery from the consequences of their mistakes is no way to teach them how to survive in the real world.

But what if it's too late? What if you've just realized that you've been doing this all along and it needs to stop? Well, you back off, slowly and gradually. You let them fail here and there. You insist that they take care of their own responsibilities and refuse to do it for them from that point on. In other words, you show them that you truly love and respect them as the adults they are.

Because coddling and loving are antonyms, not synonyms. Showing true love to your children requires saying no occasionally.

And that's all I have to say about that.