By India McCarty
Dr. Jonathan Haidt encourages parents to “let [their kids] grow up” and “take risks,” even if the prospect might seem daunting.
“We all feel anxious about letting our kids out, letting them out of our control, letting them out of our view,” Haidt, author of the bestselling book The Anxious Generation, told Parents. “But we have to do what’s best for the kids, not what’s best for our own feelings. And we have to overcome our anxiety if we want to give our kids a chance of overcoming their anxiety.”
He encouraged parents to “let [kids] grow up, take small risks by themselves without us there, to discover that they can do it,” giving the example of sending your child into the grocery store by themselves to get some milk.
“Just start small, and you will be anxious that first time, but your kid is going to be jumping up and down with excitement that you gave them this chance to do something,” he continued. “We all need to feel useful, and our kids have to feel useful, so let them do useful things. That’s how they’ll grow up.”
Haidt shared he’s been doing the same thing with his kids, an 18-year-old son and 15-year-old daughter, “letting them navigate, letting them do errands.”
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“Now my kids, they go all over the city on city bikes. They’re confident. So I’ve just been focusing on getting them to fly and then they’ll find their way in the world,” he said.
In an interview with SheKnows, Haidt spoke about ridding parents of the idea that they need to “helicopter” over their kids, calling it a “paranoia” that society has pressured parents into believing they need to uphold.
“But the fact that we got into this because of the collective action pressures tells us that’s the way to get out, also,” he shared.
Haidt also recently spoke to PEOPLE about the success of The Anxious Generation, which has changed millions of parents’ views on how and when they should implement technology in their kids’ lives.
“I knew the book would be successful because whenever I mentioned I was writing it, parents said, ‘We need this tomorrow, can I see a draft?’” he explained. “But the speed with which parents are organizing, the speed with which schools are going phone-free. I can’t even keep track of it.”
While it can be nerve-wracking to let your kids go out on their own for the first time, Haidt’s research shows the importance of giving children space to be independent and experience the world on their own.
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