> Throwing them into the deep end when they’re 16 or 18 is too late.
I saw this a lot in college. Kids that didn’t have any freedom or autonomy while living at home went wild in college. They had no idea how to self-regulate. A lot of them failed out. Those who didn’t had some rough years. Sheltering kids for too long seems to do more harm than good. At least if they run into issues while still children, their parents can be there to help them through it so they can better navigate on their own once they move out.
It is a common tactic among abusive parents to convince their child without them, they'd be unable to survive in the wider world. Any mistakes will become irrefutable proof thereof, and any attempts to break this control and do things on their own will be treated as ingratitude, often prompting the abuser to instantly abandon all parental duties to "teach a lesson".
I don't disagree, but in this context I don't think those are the same parents that are yeeting their kids off to board at university as soon as they are of age.
As one of those kids, you could’ve just stopped at “I don’t think”, because you’re not thinking critically if you think we don’t exist.
I wasn’t allowed to have a personal device or unsupervised internet access until I graduated.
My parents forced me to go to a school with a summer work program. I was yeeted to university by my wing clipping abusers THREE DAYS AFTER GRADUATION.
Rural, miles from the nearest town of 1200 so I didn’t have access to the resources needed to change any aspect of this.
I was deeply hampered by this, and despite being one of the salutatorians of my graduating class (we had ties due to AP), I crashed out of that university after a semester.
Uh huh. And some kids haven't got their head straight after puberty at 16, and still need (or would have needed) the training wheels. Blaming it on their parents would seem unfair.
Society works on averages. Most people being ready little adults at 16 doesn't mean everyone is.
Edit: yeah, look at the downvotes. How are you all doing with that self-regulation?
I think you're responding to an argument I didn't make. And I feel necessary to point it out because it looks like other people may be reading it like that, too.
(a) Quote from TFA is about using internet. GP talks about "didn’t have any freedom or autonomy" which I don't take quite as literally as you do, because they also mention "I saw this a lot in college". So it would have been quite regular level of (over)controlling, instead of locking them in and not letting them leave the house except for school.
(b) I am not advocating anything as a solution. I am pointing out that the simple cause and effect presented by GP might be more complicated.
I think the point I’m trying to make, albeit very bluntly is people often make the banal point that kids these days are too sheltered because they turned out fine. But they’re actually just observing survivorship bias.
The person you replied to didn't mention their own life at all, and they were talking about a good number of data points. That's not "just survivorship bias". The data of college kids is biased in some ways but it's not useless.
I'm sure a study can follow kids or look in records, but that takes serious time, so I can understand looking at oneself and everyone you know and coming to a conclusion that way. Do you know if such a study had been done and the results or conclusions are publicly available somewhere?
12 is the magic number when things start going to shit. I'm sorry for what happened to you but maybe you should start a counselling service for clueless parents and tell them what should they do and what they shouldn't to correctly shelter the children. Because sheltering is an art. I think about it all the time. I always wish some one would take a bit of money but tell me how to guide or not guide my child to be independent in the rough world and to take decisions independently
This is a comforting fiction. I've seen it go both ways where children with freedom develop pornography or drug habits and sheltered kids turn out well-adjusted and regulated.
I thought it was a typo but I see you've replied elsewhere that these really are the two options
> I've seen it go both ways where children with freedom [turn bad] and sheltered kids turn [good]
So you've seen it one way, as in, each approach leading to one specific outcome? "Both ways" would be sheltered leading to different outcomes in different cases, or unsheltered leading to different outcomes in different cases
I don't feel like I've been sheltered. My parents literally proposed that I drink some alcohol and encouraged that I go out partying at some point. Both things still don't interest me. (At least they didn't tell me to smoke, lol. But alcohol seems to be considered normal and potentially even healthy in small doses so they thought I should try it.) Online, I later learned that their opinion was that I'll just not look up things which I don't want to see, and in my case that has been true. I'm sorry to tell you I never had a porn addiction
Someone else pointed out that such anecdotes are survivorship bias: you might not see the people that didn't turn out alright. In my case that's certainly true, I'm not sure that I know anyone who didn't turn out okay. We take different paths through life but if you can provide for yourself and dependents, and are happy most of the time, I'd count that as success (also dependent on age: I'm not counting that my 90yo grandpa is currently often unhappy due to bad health)
A failure of management can still lead to a successful business for a variety of reasons, ranging from an in-demand product and lucky timing to great employees. Bad parenting with a great child or a great school might, too, lead to positive outcomes
I'd call an approach suboptimal or bad depending on how likely it is to lead to bad outcomes, given what the parents know about the child at the time of course (sheltering or other special approaches may be needed in some cases, depending on behavior or health circumstances). It doesn't have to turn out bad in every single case, or even a majority, there just has to be consensus about the evidence and the parents must have been able to know of it. It would have to be really bad (like complete neglect) before I'd call it a failure though
That’s usually coupled with a lot of anxiety. Some level anxiety could be useful, as it can make a person look responsible. This can come at a heavy cost though, which they may not let others see, and might not even realize themselves until later in life.
Because they don't. In order to do anything successfully you need practice. You're just depriving the kid of practicing the single most important skill - autonomy.
I saw this a lot in college. Kids that didn’t have any freedom or autonomy while living at home went wild in college. They had no idea how to self-regulate. A lot of them failed out. Those who didn’t had some rough years. Sheltering kids for too long seems to do more harm than good. At least if they run into issues while still children, their parents can be there to help them through it so they can better navigate on their own once they move out.