The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives

by William Stixrud

BILL ONCE WORKED with a child whose mother was a humorist. Sitting in Bill’s office one day, she remarked, “A lot of what we call raising children should really be referred to as lowering parents.” It’s a clever way to acknowledge that what we recommend isn’t easy. In fact, much is plain hard. It takes courage to trust a child to make decisions, to trust in a child’s brain development, to ignore the pressures that cause us to protect our kids from themselves, or to be overly involved in their lives. It takes courage to face our fears about the future. It also takes humility to accept that we don’t often know what’s in our kids’ best interest. It takes a change in mindset to focus on ourselves—our own emotions and attitudes—as an extremely important element of our child-rearing. As hard as all of this is, the harder route by far is trying to control what we really can’t. And when you are able to do what we’ve recommended in this book, the result will be liberating and effective. Everything we have covered—from the science of the brain to the logic of taking alternate routes—is meant to help you instill in your children the models they will carry into their adult lives, the adult relationship they will have with you, and their sense of themselves. As has often been said, people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Think of how you want to make your child feel. Loved. Trusted. Supported. Capable. And ...