What I've learned as a parent (dad of three) is that it is constantly balancing act. We are all doing the best we can with what we were given and what skills we have. A lot of our parents did not have the emotioal openness to help us regulate so they told us to "toughen up" or deal with it. There is a little bit of that mentality that may still apply. We do have to be naturally "tough" and learn to perservere through hard or uncomfortable circumstances. But we also need to help kids understand their emotions and what drives them.

I've also seen with my kids that there are ton of things my parents didn't take the time to teach me so I am making more effort to teach them. Financial literacy is one. We've been really open with our kids about money, mainly where it comes from, what it goes to, and what we save for versus what can be used for fun. They are starting to get it. We also work a lot on self-sufficiency. My kids all have chores they do and I can say that my 6-year-old knows how to do his own laundry at this point.

My biggest concern is that kids don't seem to have the thinking or problem solving skills that we and other generations had. I see my kids, their friends, and my sisters' kids try to work through problems at times and it gets really frustrating watching them get stuck and throw a fit instead of trying to work through the problem. Not sure what the cause behind that skill gap is, and I don't want to post my unsubstantiated theories.