The risk of failing to develop problem-solving skills and a sense of self-reliance.

Because modern children are under near constant adult supervision, when they have a problem, there is always a grownup there to ask for advice on what to do. Even on those rare occasions where a kid finds himself alone, both he and his parents remain connected via their respective cell phones; this dynamic continues, Lenore Skenazy relates in Free-Range Kids, even as children get older, which keeps “the parent-child relationship back where it was when the kids were very young and needed constant supervision”:

Modern childhood is like playing Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? with an unlimited number of lifelines. That’d be a boon if one were racking up cash on a game show, but it’s a bust for fostering children’s self-reliance.

If kids outsource all of their decision-making to parents and other authority figures, they’ll have difficulty learning to think for themselves; when they do make their own choices, they’ll be prone to second-guessing and self-doubt — even to a kind of “learned helplessness” where they don’t feel in control of their lives.

Children need limits and guidance, of course, but they also need to be able to form their own hypothesis, experiment with this or that decision, and assess the consequences of their behavior. Afterwards they’ll tweak their initial hypothesis, maybe fail again, and form yet another one. Some lessons can and should be learned by counsel and example, but others have to be grasped through trial and error. As James Russell Lowell put it, “One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.”

A little prick of the thorn now and again is a healthy thing; from the tiny bit of blood it draws springs an enduring sense of self-trust.

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