This summer I was on a group chat for a camp. The camp was seeking volunteers for a field trip, and the parents were vying for limited spots. When the list was finalized, one of the moms wrote “oh good - I already told my child I am attending, and they were so excited. I couldn’t say no to them.”

While the comment received some laughing emojis and thumbs up, it made me stop for a minute. Of course it’s lovely for that child to have their parent on a field trip – they get both the fun of an activity with friends and the comfort of knowing that mom is nearby, should they need her. But what would have happened if that mom was told she could not attend because there were not enough spots? I would hope that mom would support her child and help them manage their disappointment. And yet, too often, and more and more, I am seeing parents bulldoze the world to prevent or fix that disappointment. 

This is not just in my world. “Bulldozer Parenting” - which is also sometimes called “Snowplow Parenting” or “Lawnmower Parenting” - is a parenting style that seeks to remove all obstacles from a child’s path so they don’t experience pain, failure or discomfort. In the case of the parent who was going to attend that field trip no matter what, bulldozer parenting might mean bullying their way onto the trip, keeping their child off the trip entirely, taking their child on that field trip separately (maybe even taking other friends from camp, undermining the camp’s program), or even just showing up as a parent chaperone, uninvited.

“It’s just a field trip!” someone might say, “What’s the big deal?!” “The world is hard enough!” “I am going to give my kids a happy childhood!” And these things are all true. But if we think about childhood as our opportunity to teach our children the skills they need to function as healthy adults, learning how to acknowledge and manage feelings of upset, discomfort and disappointment is absolutely essential. It’s not our job as parents to knock hard things out of the way or to prevent upset feelings (nor is it our job to create challenges that will be upsetting or frustrating). Instead, when those situations naturally arise, instead of trying to fix the problem, it’s our job to support our kids in managing those hard feelings. 

Supporting kids in their upset is a deeply held core value of mine, and yet I acknowledge that this is really hard. When we see our child feeling disappointed or uncomfortable, it is our instinct to jump in and fix it. We can feel their upset in our kishkes. We may feel (consciously or unconsciously) afraid of how this disappointment or setback will impact their long term success or confidence. Just last week one of my kids shared a disappointment that felt truly unfair. I could feel my heart pounding and my blood pressure rising, I was ready to fire off an email to make the whole situation better. I was starting to spiral about how this decision might impact their self-confidence. And then I could see, almost like I was looking down on us, that my child’s body language shifted in a way to show that they were becoming more dependent on me and less capable of navigating this on their own. So instead, I took a deep breath, looked them in the eye and asked, “This sounds really hard. Do you want me to help you make a plan, or do you want empathy for how much this stinks?” 

I won’t lie. It was really really hard for me to watch my child navigate anger and disappointment and upset. There were tears. There was drama. I felt helpless and I felt frustrated. They wanted me to step in. And yet I know that they had to feel the feelings and figure out how to wind their way through those feelings so they can also be ready for the big things. Because when they can learn how to work through the feelings that come from not liking their camp counselor, or feeling disappointed about their role in the school play or not making the team, or feeling uncomfortable because none of their friends are in their class, they are learning the skills they will need to withstand feeling disappointment when they don’t get into the college they want or when they don’t like their first boss or when they feel uncomfortable as they walk across a campus where being Jewish feels unsafe.

Of course we need to prevent ourselves from going to the other extreme - there certainly are situations in which we should step in, as the adults in their lives, because something is harmful or will have a long-term impact that is irreversible. But as grown ups, it is our job to know a big thing from a small thing, and to step back and let our kids navigate those small (and medium) things. It’s painful. It’s challenging. It requires us to hold a boundary through their upset, which can so often trigger our own. But ultimately, it allows our children to grow into people who can weather the inevitable challenges that will come their way without breaking.