Can anyone explain how NOT to coddle kids??

[chocolaterevels]

I have 2 tweens. One with anxiety. I'm trying to work out how to parent effectively so that they become capable, independent, resilient and successful adults.

I hear a lot that this generation is too mollycoddled. I had a traumatic childhood and don't want the same for them, so find I do protect them a lot and try to make life easier for them than I had it.

Any tips appreciated. How do I parent? What do I do?

My daughter can lean towards anxiety and with anxiety you have to push a little, but not too much. My dd has come along a lot since starting secondary as she has to catch a bus to school and do more for herself when there. I still struggle to get her to go into a shop and buy something by herself, though. Don’t do the things that you know they can do for themselves, but gently support to try new things.

I don’t know that it’s as much how you treat them as people say- I have two resilient children, two worriers that think about things a lot, get anxious etc. I am trying to make all of them do more, and loosen the strings a little, but just to let you know just in case!

Get them to become fully functioning members of the household. They can do their own laundry from start to finish, cook a family meal once a week, clean up after dinner every day. They should also make their own school lunches and be responsible for making sure they have necessary supplies for school - art day, PE, etc.

You could find some local charity you could all volunteer at. It's good for teens and tweens to see that others have lives that are different from theirs, takes them out of their self involved bubble.

All of this will take a massive amount of consistency and input from you and their father.

Age-appropriate independence.

Do you have a corner shop/supermarket nearby? You can send tweens to pick something up. Let them walk to school/take a bus in the final year of primary school if that's possible. Get them to call friends and make arrangements to see them at the weekend and in holidays.

Get them to ask the waiter for something in a restaurant so that they don't grow up into the kind of person who finds it cringingly embarrassing to have to interact with people they don't know.

Balanced diet.
Regular exercise.
Trying new things.
Getting them to do jobs for themselves.
Limit social media time.
Watch which websites they visit.
Get them to do things for others.

A lot of it comes down to genetics and personality really. It's much better to let them do things in their own time when they're ready IMO. Loads of support and encouragement are the best things you can do, small age appropriate steps, you can't 'make' a child be more mature or more resilient.

DS is autistic and couldn't have been more mollycoddled! He had loads of support and loads of encouragement and I was a complete helicopter SAHP. He's now 19 and living away from home and loving it, he's working as a software engineer and doing a degree. Knowing they have a safe, supportive base at home with family who love them is the best thing a YA can have IMO.

Don't do stuff for them they can easily do, unless it's by both of your agreement as a nice thing you are helping with.

Example: I no longer make my 14 and 17 year old lunch at the weekend. I do make hot meals every week night where they are busy with clubs and school work, but they have lots of time at the weekend. On the other hand, occasionally I make a big pan of soup or a load of sandwiches or whatever and obviously they are invited and welcome to eat it.

I make my 17 year old email his tutors and only follow up if he gets no response. My 14 year old is just learning to take this job on - I expect her to stay behind after the lesson to explain if she has an issue, but I do help out or step in for more complex issues.

I don't actively monitor homework anymore. If they don't do it, they get in trouble at school. It's their exams. They need to be invested in doing well for their sakes, not because I am pressuring or bribing them.

If my kids want crisps or sweets they are welcome to go to the shop. I don't usually have them in the house.

They have their own bank accounts and cards and are expected to show some maturity with spending.

Basically, step back a bit. It's not neglectful as long as they can rely on you to step forward when necessary. I am just giving them the message that I have faith that they can manage most things, but I can help out if they have tried first.

7 year old DD had the dentist this morning

Didn't want to go to school afterwards, and especially didn't want to go in mid-class as it was 'embarrassing'. She went in.

We had a few tears etc, but I explained that everyone has appointments and goes in to class mid way through.

It would have been very tempting to say yeah, just stay at home, but that's not showing resilience really

Tiny steps. Go to the shop with you, and you tell them the words to say. Next time they ask but you are there. Next time you wait outside. Time after that you wait around the corner. Smaller or bigger steps (and repeats) depending how anxious they are and how hard they find it.

Apply this to everything - catching a bus, cooking a meal, planning their time, packing their overnight bag etc.

Its hard work, but suddenly you realise you can text ‘please buy some milk on the way home, cook supper and put a wash on’ to your teen… and they do!

I agree with @Tess150 . I don't have any tips. I've never forced much tbh and will have always done too much in mnet eyes.

Parenting teens has been tough, lovely, rewarding and heartbreaking at times in equal measure. Somehow we seem to have emerged through the other side unscathed and my kids are ok, nice kids, kind, hardworking and fairly decent people.

None of it by any sort of particular design.

Validate the fuck out of all their feelings. Vocally, demonstrably, non-shaming, listening, appreciating every reaction they have. Never tell them they shouldn't feel like something, either implicitly by eye rolling or rushing them through their emotions, or explicitly like saying "belt up, it's only a scratch" type stuff.

Then, when you've heard why they are upset, don't solve their problems. Ask "So what do you think you're going to do about x?"

Expect a lot of them, acknowledge it will be scary, believe in them, believe them sometimes when they say they can't do something. Always reframe it as you can't do it yet, or you can't do it now.

I like to help my tween calibrate her feelings and I do tell her if she's being ridiculous. My feeling is they're still watching and learning and if you completely lean in and agree everything is awful it doesn't help them develop a framework of what truly is awful and what isn't.

I think a lot of anxiety is caused by withdrawing from situations. Practice in situations helps. So I don't let the DC opt out of things they've agreed to do.

I also am very firm and brisk when things need to be done they need to be done and there is no point in making it worse by getting in a state. So things like dentists, operations etc.

The main way of not mollycoddling your kids, IMHO, is to expect them to take age -appropriate amounts of responsibility and independence.

A friend of mine mollycoddled her kids.
For example when they were in secondary school, she used to clean their football boots. I pointed my kids in the direction of the of the scrubbing brush and bucket.

Another example, same friend used to drive them to and from the bus stop which was 10 minutes walk away. It would have been good
For them to walk. They are very unfit. My kids would not have dreamt of asking, unless it was torrential rain.

My kids were expected to help with meal preparation and washing up and other small jobs about the house. They made their own sandwiches at some point during the primary school years. My friend was overjoyed when one of her kids spent a few minutes helping her dust. She would make sandwiches for them and put them on the fridge if she went out, even when they were 16.

Our kids are now students. My friend's kids are rude to their parents because they have been brought up to treat them like slaves. They are also fairly dysfunctional adults because they have never had to stand on their own two feet. Not surprisingly my friend's kids have decided to live at home. They have no friend at uni and don't participate in any clubs. Thjey have never had any kind of job,

My kids are also students have a close and respectful relationship with me . They grew up being expected to take responsibility for themselves and played a small role in the running of the houselhold. They are living away from home (although they could commute). They have joined clubs, made friends and both have been in paid employment since they were 16.

My BF works in teenage mental health her number one tip to us all is massively limit access to screens.

She says it is so apparent that the children who are most anxious are those that spent a large percentage of their teens and younger on phones especially social media of any type.

After that she hugely recommends:.
Sport especially team sport. Regular exercise and healthy food. Food that fucks about with your blood sugars fuck with your brain.

Getting them outside of their comfort zone in small steps.

Let them out on their own in increments. First to the local shop a few times, then walking to school alone or with friends, then to the park and walking to nearby friends houses. Then to the shopping mall, or ice skating or whatever. Then into their city centre, then travelling with friends to the next city. Etc etc

Get them responsible in the house. Cooking, washing own clothes etc to build their confidence in being self reliant.

Encourage lots of sport and exercise.
Don’t do everything for them.
Limit screens.
Work with them to work through fears, get to the bottom of what is causing the worry, and decide together how you (will!) get past this.
Decent food. Learning to cook is a great skill, as PP said.

Encourage them to order in coffee shops and restaurants etc.
Give them age-appropriate chores to complete at home, not just for pocket money.
Pack their own school bags etc once appropriate

Mine are both young adults now, but always have been very confident. They played team sports for many years and went through cubs and scouts which took them far from home without us on many occasions for days at a time doing various activities.
They also for example, always ordered their own meals in restaurants, exchanged their own books at the library etc.

You need to increase their freedom, responsibility etc gradually.

It starts with being expected to do certain things for themselves like making sandwiches on a weekend for lunch or fetching you a drink (younger than your kids) leaving them for short periods or sending them to the shop for groceries. Mine took themselves to school from 9. Get them helping with certain chores and clearing up after themselves.

As I said it not going to happen all at once but think of it as a transition that takes until 16/17 years old by when you should be able to leave them for a week with a set sum of money and they can fully take care of themselves including planning buying and cooking food. They cope with university so much better then.

It's not a given all dc can do the same at a certain age but you do need to encourage, push a little using carrots and sticks and so on

Jonathan Haidts book the Anxious Generation covers this really well. I've got no practical advice as my DC are much younger but it's a really interesting thread. Also Abigail Shriers Bad Therapy is good.

Give them opportunities to make mistakes.

For example.... my 13yo attempted to make her first roast dinner this weekend. She didn't put the oven on high enough, so meat wasn't cooked to schedule. But it was easily sorted... just ended up with rather crispy roast potatoes.
And she learnt a lot more than if I had swooped in and taken over. I'm pretty confident that any future cooking she will be double checking her oven temps.

I think part of it is putting them in situations/encouraging them to try situations where they are gently out of their comfort zone. If they are already anxious then this needs to be subtle and only a nudge outside their comfort zone and slowly they will build confidence.

In another area of life, they might be able to be a bit more out of their comfort zone straight away.

Also have two tweens, one anxious one not. Look up the SPACE programme for anxiety by Eli Lebowitz. I was very sceptical but helped a lot. Main takeaways for me:

• don't get recruited into their anxiety (for example going around checking the doors and windows are locked together, allowing them into your bed at night, not going out at night because they don't want you to etc). No special treatment.

• talk about how excited you were before their birth, how much you love them, are proud of them etc.

• tell them how much you believe in them and know that they can do whatever it is they feel they cannot do, you have 100% faith in them always

• encourage them to be as independent as possible for their age. Start small with leaving them at home or walking to school and build up the duration. I don't make pack lunches, I check them. They pack their own bags, clean their room, do their own laundry, put it away, go to the shop on their own, take themselves to a friend's house for an arranged playdate, sort recycling, dry their own hair with the hairdryer etc etc.

• there are consequences for their actions ie. If they block the sink/toilet they plunge it, if they forget to do their homework they get a detention, if they knew they were going to be sick but made no attempt to get to the toilet they clean it up.

• I remind them of times when they were adamant they couldn't do something and they did, it worked out fine, the worse case scenario didn't evenuate.

It took my parents 8 years of fertility treatment to have me and as a result I was wrapped up in cotton wool and almost everything was done for me. I felt if I didn't do these things I wasn't showing them how much I love them. Actually I was hindering them and making them feel unsure if they could cope without us. There are plenty other ways of showing them how much we love and care about them.

My top tip is not to pay any attention to people who go on social media to huff and puff that kids today have it too easy, everything done for them, bunch of snowflakes, no backbone, in my day we crawled on broken glass and it was the making of us, etc etc.

They don't know your DCs. You are the best and only judge of how much independence to give them, and when. Trust your instincts.

Have a read through Anxious Children in an Anxious World, by Dr Mary O'Kane.

It’s been benign neglect by me. My children aged 13 and 9 have been able to make their own breakfast from 3 years old .
I ask them to pack their own sports kit and holiday bags now, ( we previously did it together and checked) .
DS 9 knows to get dressed in his sports kit on the weekend as I will be drinking tea in bed and expect him to be ready at the appointed hour . They know to put their sports things in the right place so they can find stuff .
DS has been getting a train for 75 mins on his own since aged 11 3/4. We wrote a list to check off the stations, told the guard the first time he travelled alone, sent him texts every 20 mins the first time . We weaned back the support to a text on departure and arrival now.
We ask them to go into shops and cafes and speak to the staff member . It’s all good practice . Kids can do far more that you think if you let them try. Mistakes do happen but they learn, eg DS put a jar of Nutella in the microwave and the metal foil sparked. He won’t do it again !