When a majority in a society notice an increase in tension, uncertainty, or malaise, they search for a reason. Americans are especially prone to implicating the improper behaviors of parents as the culprits. The term “overparenting” implies that parents are doing something wrong. These...

“Trying to control the future is like trying to take the master carpenter’s place / When you handle the master carpenter’s tools / Chances are you will cut yourself” — Tao te Ching Let’s face it. Even though it’s sensible to plan for our children’s future, we aren’t in complete control....

Partly because of overprotective parenting, children are deprived of free play today as they never have been before outside of the times and places of forced child labor. The consequences are disastrous. Here are some facts to consider: 1. Since about 1950, children’s opportunities for free play with other...

What’s a helicopter parent? Someone who hovers more than you do. Seriously, nobody tries to be a helicopter parent. But parenting is the toughest job in the world, so most of us obsess sometimes. The irony is that so many of the ways we over-do it as parents actually sabotage our child’s...

At the annual College Board conference this fall, the dean of admissions at Harvard, William Fitzsimmons, revived some parental panic. According to The New York Times, he told an assembled crowd that successful Harvard applicants are “good all-rounders — academically, extracurricularly, and personally.” This wasn’t the first time, and it...