Parenting Pendulum: Have Parenting Styles Swung Too Far?

When my kids were small overparenting was all the rage. Parents competed with stories of out doing themselves to help their children. While our own parents might have made us a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, we went one better. We made the (organic) sandwich, cut off the crusts, sliced it into perfect triangles, put it on the special plate with the matching sippy cup and served it in front of favored cartoons. If our kids balked we even ate the sandwich for them.

But at some point the pen...