Dear Ms. Mabel,

My husband and I are struggling with the amount of “help” we should be providing our young adult children, especially our daughter. On one hand, we believe that as long as they are in school (college) we should make their lives relatively easy to manage but we both also worked our way through college and survived. Where do we find the balance?

Parental Predicament,

Portland, TN

Truth be told, just when you think you’ve got this parenting thing figured out, they hit a new life stage, don’t they? Then BAM! You’re right back in the fray of figuring it out as you go.

First, I think it’s worth noting that you are giving serious thought to this. It’s easy to spoil our kids, especially when they’re good kids doing good things. I don’t see a darn thing wrong with spoiling them a little, either. Shoot, we want them to have a better life than us, right?

The tricky part, like you said, is where to draw the line.

To me, I reckon as a general rule in any stage of raising children, the parenting needs to start where their capabilities end. So, just like you wouldn’t require a 6-year-old to wash his own clothes but it’s perfectly reasonable to ask them to put away his clean laundry, that same formula can be applied to any age

Maybe with college-aged kids, if you have the means, you’d carry the insurance on her car but she’s responsible for the gas. You give her money for the grocery but it's on her if she wants Chick-fil-A. Another way of looking at it would be, you supply her “needs” and leave the things she “wants” for her to figure out. I firmly believe college kids should have a job; they do NOT need too much time on their hands. Too much mischief and debauchery is possible, if you know what I mean, idle hands and stuff.

I don’t really want to get into the debate of whether kids should be on their own after 18 but I will say this: I think learning to do without is a life skill. You can’t grasp the difference between needs and wants unless you have to make that choice. Running the roads seems less important when you can’t use Momma’s fuel points anymore and a daily coffee run takes a backseat to paying for lunch if you’re hungry.

In short, I’d let them struggle a little bit. Just enough that they learn to prioritize and develop their own values, at least.

Good luck! I wish I could say this is the last of it but next you get to sit back while they make the same parenting mistakes you did…