Bill Belew has raised 2 bi-cultural kids, now 34 and 30. And he and his wife are now parenting a 3rd, Mia, who is 8.

Parents Time Out – Duct Tape

Helicopter versus duct tape parenting. Which do you think is better?

Helicopter parenting is when moms and dads hover over their children to make sure that everything goes according to plan … according to the mom and dad’s plan that is. But not necessarily the way the kid wants things to happen.

Kids want to learn. And they learn best from mistakes – but not the kind of mistakes that harm them permanently.

Moms and dads try to make every decision for their children to ensure the child makes the ‘right’ decision.

The end result, however, is that kids grow up, um, don’t grow up. The kids don’t mature into self-reliant big people. The kids don’t learn how to make decisions for themselves.

The kids go off to college and can’t even pick out their clothes, or decide what to eat for lunch, or choose their friend or … or… or …

What is the alternative?

It’s called duct tape parenting. <= click to read.

Let kids make their own decisions.

Let them eat the same meals until they grow tired of it … if that’s what they want.

Let kids mismatch their clothes … if that’s what they like.

Don’t let the kids do something unsafe. That doesn’t make sense.

And don’t turn into a totally permissive mom and dad thinking ‘everything is okay.’ It’s not.

Give kids reasonable = safe guidelines. Make sure they are warm on cold days. Make sure they don’t eat so much sweet stuff that they rot their teeth out. Be sensible.

And when things go wrong … get out the duct tape. Most anything a kid might do on their own can be fixed.

Talk to Bill and others about their experiences raising bi-cultural Japanese-American kids.