Low Stakes Parenting

I just finished reading Ready or Not, Here Life Comes by Mel Levine, MD. It's a book on what parents can do to prepare kids for work-life readiness; unpreparedness, according to Levine, is becoming a national crisis.

I learned a lot from this book: like most reads, some reinforced what I already knew; some gave me insight into issues I had not yet considered. One thing it did for me is make me not worry so much about my kids' failures or less-than-perfect successes. In fact, he made me see that setbacks can be more easily handled now and should occur on enough of a regular basis to engender resiliency as long as self-esteem stays intact.

Using this newfound information and a slightly laidback approach (compared to my parenting peers), I may call my style a low stakes parenting.

It seems odd to me that some can't differentiate between low stakes and high stakes parenting but I think it may be essential to preparing kids for the real world. Examples to follow...