Many fears in the world cause some superstitious parents to over protect their children. Independence is gained at a young age but, being over-nurtured or coddled, can cause some kids to lack in that characteristic. Parents may think that smothering their child is the best thing they could do but, it benefit both the parent and the child to let each other have some breathing room. Coddling leads to no self-reliance, and never learning from one’s own mistakes.

Coddled children have been known to be spoiled and expect everyone else in the world to wait on them hand-and-foot. However, the world is not always such a sweet place, leaving people who were coddled from a young age particularly unprepared for reality. The person becomes dependent on the parent and won’t completely search for their own life after everything has been handed to them and they haven’t had to do things for themselves.

Of course, a parent wants to pick up and comfort their crying baby, but sometimes they’ve just got to let it cry in it’s cradle and learn to self-soothe. Without learning this, the child will get older and will learn to cry to get what they want. Like a child demanding a toy from the store, and in an effort to calm the screaming demon some would waste away their paycheck and hand over the reigns to a 5 year old just to get them to be quiet. This is where the parents need to take charge and not praise the kid for screaming because that is exactly what they will learn to do. At school, if a child gets a bad grade, they have learned that throwing a fit or having mommy call the teacher will get them what they want. Unfortunately, that is not how it works in the real world.

At an even older age, teenagers face many types of problems and opportunities to make mistakes. Humans are taught to self-correct when they make mistakes, but there can be no real correction until a mistake is actually made. With parents leaving no breathing room for small mistakes the child will never learn from any faults they may make.

A little parental guidance is helpful, but people shouldn’t rely on their parents’ opinions to make their own choices. People need to learn to be independent and think for themselves. It benefits everyone in the end because they will be able to self-soothe and be strong enough to handle difficulties on their own.

It is a delicate balance of supporting a child and allowing them to be their own person. Failure is not an inherently bad thing, and can be a positive thing with the right kind of support.