How much can your teens do for themselves without your help?
They probably don’t come to you for help getting dressed, or looking up a walkthrough to get past that really difficult part in their video game. But what about breakfast?
TikToker and mom Leah Ova says she recently encountered a teen, the child of a visitor, who couldn’t handle fixing himself a bagel in the morning, and needed his mom to step in.
An Able-Bodied Teen, A Bagel, And A Very Helpful Parent
From what Ova describes, the teenager was presumably physically capable of handling a bagel and using a knife or other utensil to apply butter or other toppings to it. There’s no indication he was lacking the life experience to know that the toppings are typically applied to the flat, cut side of the bagel, or that he was otherwise missing any important knowledge about bagel consumption.
Nonetheless, according to her, the teenager seemed to think he had two choices: ask his mom to prepare a bagel for him or go hungry.
Now, we don’t know whether this kid was uncomfortable in someone else’s kitchen and would have helped himself more at home, or if anxiety or other hidden struggles come into play, but we do know that at this point, his mom reportedly asked for advice.
“I’m Doing Something Wrong”
According to Ova, the unnamed friend observed the difference between her child, who is almost 15, and Ova’s kids, the eldest of whom is a year younger, and said, “I’m doing something wrong.”
She proceeded to ask Ova what she does to raise kids who are so independent, so capable, that they can grab snacks, make their own food, and even schmear a bagel.
In the TkToker’s observation, her friend isn’t the only one whose kids are suffering this affliction. She describes guests of her kids who are invited to help themselves to an apple and express utter shock that their hostess doesn’t plan to cut the fruit up for them. She says:
“They’re like, ‘Are you not gonna cut my apple?’ and I’m like, ‘Do you not know how to eat an apple when it’s not cut?’ and honestly I think there are literally ten-year-olds that don’t know.”
So, What’s Her Cure?
According to Ova, the problem may be that parents are just doing too much. “This is me giving you permission to do less,” she says.
Her conclusion is that parents are just doing everything for their kids, and the kids are learning that they can’t do anything for themselves. They don’t know how to eat a bagel or an apple without help because they’ve been taught by example that they cannot do these things without someone stepping in to assist.
“You need to be a lazier parent,” she asserts, adding, “Just be like, ‘Honey, I’m literally having a coffee right now, you can get it yourself.'”
She’s Not Advocating Absence Or Neglect
Ova pre-empts any potential protests that she’s denying her kids (or their guests) food or leaving them to truly fend for themselves. She says that her family orders pizza when kids come over and that there’s always food available, whether it’s french fries, fried Oreos, or the aforementioned apples and bagels.
She just isn’t jumping in to do any more prep work and serving than she deems necessary for her kids’ ages and ability levels. She’s stepping back and letting them learn to meet some of their own needs, and in the process, they’re learning skills that they’ll appreciate when they’re on their own — or when their mom is visiting and too busy to drop everything and put a bagel on a plate for them.
Watch her video below:
“High Attentiveness, Low Interference”
Ova describes this as “high attentiveness, low interference” parenting, which she further explains means being available if your kids need you, but not jumping to intervene when they are capable of doing a thing themselves.
She’s right: there is some evidence that parents intervening too much and being too involved has negative effects on kids’ development. A 2021 Stanford Study focused primarily on parental intervention at the kindergarten age and investigated how kids’ handling of emotions, behaviors, and attention was affected by parents’ involvement levels.
The short of it is that it’s tricky, and every human being has different needs, but walking that fine line is crucial to the development of kids who have their emotional and physical needs met, but are also capable of doing things independently. According to the Stanford Report:
“The children of parents who more often stepped in to provide instructions, corrections or suggestions or to ask questions – despite the children being appropriately on task – displayed more difficulty regulating their behavior and emotions at other times. These children also performed worse on tasks that measured delayed gratification and other executive functions, skills associated with impulse control and the ability to shift between competing demands for their attention.”
One important note: researchers did find that this did not apply to situations where parents stepped in when the child was off-task or gave signs of needing assistance or intervention.
