How to give yourself permission to be a "back off" parent.

You’ve seen them around.

Frazzled mothers (usually, or nannies) ferrying kids between violin and swimming and Mandarin (it’s the language of the future, people). You know some parents do their child’s homework. Some parents make play-dates for 13-year-olds. You’ve seen little faces on a sunny Thursday afternoon at the school gate turn from joyful to stressed when they remember they have piano practice this afternoon.

You’ve thought “why doesn’t she just let him be, he’s just not that kind of kid, let him play”. You’ve thought, ‘Am I like her?’. You know children are on medication, you know mums are too. You know everybody seems stressed and anxious.

Julie Lythcott-Haims, the former Stanford Dean of Freshman students says we all know that something is not right with modern parenting – particularly in affluent socio-economic groups.

“Do you really need me to say any of this to you?” says Lythcott-Haims, who spent 10 years ushering first-year students into prestigious Stanford University in the U.S.

“You know it. We all know it. We hear about 20 somethings and 30 somethings failing to launch. We see our children withering under the pressure of the check-listed childhood. We remember our own freer childhoods lived not that long ago. This overly protected, overly directed, overly hand-holding way of parenting is harmful to all.”

She said this way of parenting makes children “brittle and old”.

When she was the Dean of Freshman students at Stanford Lythcott-Haims was on the look-out for the first years arriving on campus from the “margins” the who had “harder family narratives” believing they would be the ones needing her guidance and support the most.

“Imagine how surprised I was to discover among my more affluent, well-connected students – each year a growing number – who seemed to lack the ability to make their way independently in the world as, frankly, 18-22 year-olds used to be able to do and, most crucially, desired to do. Something was odd and it took most of my ten years [at Stanford] to work it out.”

Lythcott-Haims, a mother of two, did work a few things out and she wrote a book about it, How to Raise an Adult. She worked out that students starting out at Stanford were far more interesting to look at on paper than to talk to in person.

“They could tell you what they’ve done, but not so much why they’ve done it. They could tell you what they’ve achieved but not what mattered to them.”

She worked out that the omni-present, over-involvement of parents in their children’s lives resulted in kids growing up to be chronological adults but utterly stunted and dependent on parents to do the heavy lifting in life. Just as bad, she says, is that kids don’t get to do their own “lovely, light, ethereal dreaming.”

They had reached adulthood yet weren’t adults. Their childhoods hadn’t prepared them for it. They came to university and would call parents when they needed to change a flat tyre. Parents would call them every morning to wake them for class. Parents wouldn’t leave on drop-off and would call up professors to argue with them over their adult child’s grades.

Lythcott-Haims says childhoods need to be different for children to grow into adulthood. Numerous studies provide evidence that over-protection and over-direction harms kids, depriving them from being able to build life skills and leads to much higher rates of anxiety and depression. Yet affluent parents (who would be reading all these studies, reading all the parenting books) still schedule and improve and involve and finesse. They make sure their child is given every opportunity to do better. And then they repeat the next day.

While parents pave their child’s path with the best intentions and are constantly looking over their shoulder at the “galloping herds” of committed parents coming up behind them, “we’re like a trainer at the Westminster dog show, running alongside them coaxing them with clucking praise.”

“The message that worms it way into [children’s] minds: ‘Psst I don’t think you can do this without me. You’re not good enough for this life as you are’.”

She points to the teenager who commits suicide and their obituary includes their SAT (HSC) score. She mentions the constant communication between parents and children. She talks about fear driving parental decisions.

Lythcott-Haims doesn’t mock the over-involved parent, she wants them to have some space to be who they are too. She has been asked too many times by parents, “When did childhood get so stressful?”

“I’m not a parenting expert but I believe in humans and I have to tell you we are smothering the life, the very sense of self out of our kids, our precious kids. Our job as parents is to put ourselves out of a job. We gave them life, but that life is to be lived.”

Back-off tips from Lythcott-Haims.

1. Let (make) your kids do jobs around the house.

2. Watch your language. Don’t say “We are doing our HSC.” Being that intertwined is unhealthy.

3. Have a close look at the interactions with adults in your child’s life. If you ‘re arguing with teachers and coaches and referees a lot, take a step back.

4. Don’t do their homework.

This article originally appeared on Debrief Daily.