Managing Parental Fears When Rearing an Adolescent

When deciding how to parent an adolescent, one can often feel caught between two contending fears.

The fear of holding on and holding healthy growth back by being too protective.

The fear of letting go and letting possible harm happen by being too permissive.

At issue is freedom. Parents must continually decide if the young person has sufficient experience, judgment, and sense of responsibility, and enough readiness, to manage a more complicated and risky amount of choice. Parenting requires taking risks with your child’s life. What is scarier than that? This is why parenting is partly a fearful responsibility.

For example, at a bicycle-riding age, how far from home is the fifth-grader permitted to travel independently? It’s very common for parents who grew up without much geograph