How To Prepare Our Kids Now to Be Grown and Flown (with guest Lisa Heffernan)
b'Kids don\'t usually seek to lose their dependence on us as parents- and why should they? Doesn\\u2019t a grilled cheese taste so much better when Mom makes it?\\n\\xa0So it\\u2019s up to us to teach our kids independence, and that means showing them how an ATM works sometime before they leave for college. How do we start the nest-leaving process early and often?\\nOur guest is Lisa Heffernan, co-creator of the parenting-older-kids website Grown and Flown. She and Lisa Heffernan are the co-authors of the new book Grown and Flown: How to Support Your Teen, Stay Close as a Family, and Raise Independent Adults.\\nLisa says yes, we should start preparing our kids now to survive without us\\u2014 but she\\u2019s not arguing for tough love as the only answer, whether our kids are three or twenty-three. \\u201cBeing involved in your kid\\u2019s life does NOT make you a helicopter parent,\\u201d Lisa says. "It makes you a loving, supportive parent.\\u201d\\xa0 \\nIt\\u2019s often harder, longer, and more complicated to make our kids do something than to just do it for them. But this week we\\u2019re going to find a moment, allow a bit of extra time, and walk our kids through a task they are eminently capable of doing for themselves. The pride they\\u2019ll feel\\u2014 even if the results are imperfect\\u2014 will be worth celebrating.\\xa0 \\nHere are links to some other writing on the topic that we discuss in this episode:\\xa0 \\nMelissa Deuter for Psychology Today: 5 Steps to Help Your Teen Leave the Nest\\nRachel Martin for Your Teen Mag: The Perfect Present: Fostering Teen Independence\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices'