Great article, Fawn! I actually read it to my 13 year old and told her I'm not going to tell her she's smart anymore. She came crying that she's not smart because of a grade on a test. Aside from asking her what she thought the cause of her grade was, what was my first reaction? Of course, you are smart! Not falling into that trap anymore.

Thanks for posting it.

I thought it was a good article too, but unlike Liese reserve the right to compliment my daughter on her intelligence.

Articles on overparenting confuse me sometimes. It seems the balance between appropriate protection/precaution and just overdoing it is socially and situationally constructed. I mean, life is always going to have risks, and there are going to be some risks that we choose to protect our kids from-- how do we really know when we are going overboard and doing them a disservice? Aside from developing a general idea of what goes in our culture (or in the segment of it we choose to align with) where do we find our ideal?

This is something I wonder about a lot.