The Daily Dad

Help, But Don’t Make Them Helpless

Feb 12, 2020

02:13

Snipd AI

How parents can strike a balance between helping their children and enabling them. Teaching kids to make decisions, modeling good behavior, and taking responsibility. A leader should do anything but not everything. Being a great dad means doing anything for their family, but also knowing they can't do everything.

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Quick takeaways

Helping our children does not mean doing everything for them, but rather teaching them how to do things and encouraging them to make their own decisions.

Being a great parent involves finding a balance between being involved and recognizing the limits of our capabilities, allowing our children to learn and grow by taking on responsibilities and facing consequences.

Deep dives

Parenting: Help, but don't make them helpless

As parents, there is a constant struggle to find the balance between helping our children and letting them figure things out on their own. There are numerous responsibilities we have as parents, from dressing them and feeding them to guiding them in their academic and personal lives. However, it is essential to draw a line and avoid making our children helpless. Plutarch's principle of being a leader who does anything, but not everything can guide us in our parenting journey. We should aim to teach our children how to do things rather than doing everything for them. This involves encouraging them to make their own decisions, modeling the right behaviors, and taking responsibility for their actions.

Finding the Balance: Help Without Helplessness

2min

There is so much to do. Your kids have to be dressed. They have to eat. They have go to school. They have to do well in school. They’ll need jobs. They’ll need to figure out finding a home, finding a spouse, navigating the difficulties of the world.

There is so much to do...and they are so bad at all of it. So where does a parent draw the line? How do you know where to help, what to handle for them, what to tell them doesn’t matter and they don’t have to worry about?

Of course, there are no rules. No one can give you a perfect list: Pay for their college, but not their car. Cook them food but don’t do their homework for them. Clean the kitchen but not their room.

So maybe instead we should look for a good principle to follow instead. Perhaps this one from Plutarch would work: "A leader should do anything,” he said, “but not everything."

Our job is to help our kids but not make them helpless. We want to teach them how to do things, not necessarily do them for them. That means encouraging them to make their own decisions, that means modeling the right behavior, that means showing them that the only person to blame in life is ourselves (and no one else).

A great leader is never above rolling up their sleeves. Like a great dad, they’ll do anything for their family or their organization. But they also know they can’t do everything. It’s not good for them or for anyone else.

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