"HANGING back and allowing children to make mistakes is one of the greatest challenges of parenting."

I would agree with this, you (as the parent) know its a mistake and you want them not to suffer for something they could avoid but you can't teach what the mistake does.

That said, I am a big fan of having your kids make their mistakes and failures early and often. It is so easy to help your child avoid failing at some task, and yet doing so robs them of the value of not failing. Or more succinctly Success is measured in failures. If you try to do something and fail at it several times and then succeed, that success is that much sweeter than trying something and exceeding without ever failing. Thus success without failure is hollow.

So like the example of watching and encouraging your kid to walk, responding to failure with compassion and support is just as important.

Well argued and the right time to make the case for the harm that comes from helicopter parenting, with good evidence.

This made me laugh though: "If there’s a predator loose in the neighborhood, your daughter doesn’t get to go to the mall.". Is that because I'm from somewhere that spells it neighbourhood instead of from the US or just because I understand statistics? Do the kinds of people reading an NYT article about raising successful children actually think that "predator on the loose" is a real thing outside of very rare events?

A readable account of Carol Dweck's research (mentioned in the interesting submitted article) is a Stanford alumni magazine article

http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?articl...

that was shared here on HN a while ago.

My children have been successful with the main thing that I do is to put them to bed at night we talk for about 20-30 minutes about their day, we diagnose any problems that day and come up with solutions they can try. I did this with the kids for many years now they are both old enough and mostly do this on their own.

My daughter (14) has straight A grades at her High School.

My son is at High School but on a 2 year college campus where he takes college classes instead of regular high school classes (he is 16 the website is middlecollege.guhsd.net)

I think the article should also include the theory of "The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do" developed by Judith Rich Harris

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nurture_Assumption

• The assumption that child-rearing practices are responsible for how children develop is a myth of modern western culture. • Most socialization research ignores the effect of genetics and peer groups on personality and behavior. • Research into the results of different pa renting styles may confuse cause and effect; do parents spank difficult kids or do kids become diffi cult because they are spanked? • Human beings naturally form groups. They are social animals and excellent imitators. • Children learn by identifying with a peer group and imitating its members. • Peer groups are more influential than parents in determining children's behavior. • Among his or her peers, a child's goal is child success – not adult success. Negative peer influence may, for instance, undermine programs intended to fi ght juvenile delinquency. • The ability of parents to determine how children turn out is decidedly limited. • The family can become the peer group that affects a child, but that‘s rare. • Perhaps the most that parents can do to infl uence children's decisions and behavior is to choose a community or school where the peer group refl ects parental values.

The goal of a child is not adult success, but rather childhood success. Status in a peer group is a lynchpin factor in that success. Children do not seek to emulate their parents; instead, they want to be like their peers. This is why children consider the prospect of being held back in school as frightening. They lose membership in the group they know and must take the status of being misfi ts in a group they do not know.

Group forces may be responsible for the failure of certain programs intended to combat juvenile crime or to improve educational outcomes. It isn’t unusual, for example, for African-American boys to consider academic success as un-African-American – or even to scorn too-studious peers for “acting white.” Research shows that children are more likely to smoke if their friends smoke – but whether their parents smoke makes little difference. Some teen peer groups value criminal behavior, toughness and a willingness to take risks. Recidivism is particularly high among juvenile delinquents who are sent to programs where they live with other youthful offenders. This is to be expected, given the power of group norms. Small wonder, then, that the neighborhood where a child grows up can have a powerful determining infl uence on how it develops. A Danish study found that children adopted by criminals were only likely to become criminals themselves under one circumstance: growing up in a high-crime neighborhood.

To influence behavior and development, social programs should address groups rather than individual children or their parents. Groups transmit language, culture and values to children. It is noteworthy that historically black colleges produce the majority of prominent black intellectuals, and that girls seem to do better in science and math in all- girl schools than in co-ed schools. In a school with an all-black or all-female population, academic achievement is not defined as nonblack or unfeminine. Group norms do not discourage excellence.

Clearly, parents have a limited ability to influence children’s development. Socialization researchers have not demonstrated that such factors as birth order, spanking or parental education are responsible for how children develop. Genes and environment matter. However, in the long run, it is not the parental environment, but the peer group environment that really counts.

Parents can affect the development of children most directly through the influence they exercise over establishing a child’s peer group. Parents pick the neighborhood where the family will live, and often choose their children’s schools. All things considered, it is obviously better to select a neighborhood and a school where peer pressures are likelier to push your child in a good direction. Seek a school where students consider academic achievement desirable and admirable – and where members of the child’s ethnic group do not value academic failure. If possible, choose a vicinity where juvenile crime is rare or nonexistent. Of course, almost every neighborhood has its share of delinquency, and kids who are bent on defi ning themselves as delinquents will somehow manage to fi nd peers. However, degrees of delinquency differ from neighborhood to neighborhood, so it is important to recognize that choosing a neighborhood is a decisive step toward choosing a peer group.

Parents can help children do better within their groups, and this is crucial. Selecting a child’s name can be key. Parents who pick bizarre names can sentence children to ridicule and perhaps even victimization. If your child has skin problems, go to a dermatologist. If the child has crooked teeth, get them straightened. If the child has an obesity problem, address it. Group status matters deeply to children, and their self-esteem grows from group acceptance. Of course, group status also matters to adults. Many child-rearing and child-development fashions have spread only because groups defined them as desirable.

In the natural order of things, dominance happens. Parents are supposed to be the dominant members of families. They aren’t entertainers or playmates. Their job is to be in charge. In many societies, older siblings also have a dominant and caretaking role. Consider that the arrival of a young brother or sister displaces the older sibling as a center of attention. The middle-class American insistence on treating children equally means that the older sibling does not receive the perquisite that could soften the blow of this displacement – a degree of authority and responsibility. Sibling rivalry does not seem to happen in societies that allow older siblings to take their “rightful” place as bosses of younger siblings. Indeed, children tend to develop close alliances in such societies. Brotherhood and sisterhood really mean something.

The nurture assumption has been responsible for plenty of parental anxiety and distress. When children turn out badly, the nurture assumption says that it is the parents’ fault. But no evidence supports the nurture assumption. It’s a myth. So, parents should stop worrying and do the best job they can. However, this job includes recognizing their limits, and acknowledging the power and importance of peer groups. Children live and learn in groups. They adopt group norms. They try hard to be good members of their groups, to achieve status and recognition by the group’s standards. They learn, through the group, to be members of society. So, the most important contribution that parents can make to a child’s development may very well be the influence they wield in making certain groups available – or unavailable – for the child to join.

the only thing articles and books on how to raise children are useful for is inspiring others to write articles and books on how to raise children.