OK, I’m reading your book and I’m on the section, “Keeping Your Cool Means Creating Space.” I have to be honest with you, it is difficult to read. I want to help create what you call “self-directed adults” by giving my kids space, but I also think it’s my job to protect them as much as I can. This is such a scary world and I worry that they will get hurt.

I guess my question is this: How do you balance protecting your kids from life’s dangers and yet exposing them to life’s lessons?

This is the central question that governs the balance of space and place. It is my responsibility to my kids to grant them both. That means I have to respect the area over their life that is totally theirs. That means I also have to let them know what area of their life is not up to them, where their space ends. I call this “place.” This means discerning when to let them taste the full brunt of their decisions and when to soften the blow, or when to disallow them the possibility of making certain, more life-changing, decisions. This is finding the balance of protection and exposure. The tricky part is that there is no “correct” answer. The key is to continually ask the question with each new situation, with each kid, at every age.

As far as exposing them to life’s lessons, I believe mistakes are the path to wisdom for those willing to be decisive. Being decisive means taking charge of your own life, and that means making both good and bad decisions. Both are educational and both get your life moving. So, I like for my children to make mistakes that teach them without hurting too much. Like spending too much of their allowance on a frivolous item. Or leaving their belongings out at night, only to find them stolen the next day. Or yelling at me or my wife and discovering that we have feelings that can get hurt and they have consequences to face. Or learning that correcting their friends in public makes them very unpopular. These are experiences that penetrate their development and indelibly shape their future decisions.

Finding the balance between these two forces, and knowing that you won’t do it perfectly, is the key I think you’re looking for in raising your children. 

Stay Cool, 

Hal