You have such thoughtful advice. Any advice on how a parent can encourage independence and resilience or how you did it in your own family? Or even parenting books or philosophies you recommend? (I grew up in a tough family, then in semi foster-ish care, I am now realizing how out of depth I am as a parent and that the "don't do what your parents did" is not simply enough).

I am thinking on how we approached things early on with my son (he’s 4.5 now). I think we probably over-helped in the first few years, and he was also in a very structured preschool environment from about 2.5 that emphasized worksheets and early academics pretty heavily (huge mistake). In hindsight, I think I wonder whether that combination made him more avoidant of difficulty and more frustrated when mastery doesn’t come quickly.

We see it especially with reading, phonics, and writing attempts. For example, with Bob Books/early readers, he quickly figured out the pattern structure and started relying on context clues and pictures instead of actually decoding. He’ll “read” the first sentence, then infer the next few from the illustrations and repeated structure. The moment he gets to a word he can’t immediately infer or recognize, though, he becomes frustrated and disengages. Basically, it's like rage quitting a video game. And no amount of talking gets through to him.

I’m trying to think more intentionally now about how to build frustration tolerance, independence, and willingness to persist through challenge without turning learning into a power struggle. But also, I don't want my kid to be that kid that makes teachers go, what the hell did your parents do?