To Be or Not to Be Your Child’s Friend

Published: November 1, 2007, 1:20 pm

My college-age daughter had an interesting debate with her roommates a bit ago about whether or not parents should be their child's friend. This seems to be a fairly common topic lately as parenting experts appear everywhere from bookshelves to radio waves to our neighborhoods. My observation is that being your child's friend is quite taboo these days as we are learning from the mistakes of the 60's and 70's. Back then, the popular philosophy was that children should be free to discover who they are without limitations enforced by adults. Build self-esteem! Encourage free expression! In my opinion, this created a generation of children way too focused on themselves and parents who were far too wimpy and thus never fully played their role of guiding, setting limits and enforcing earned consequences. So, imagine my consternation when my daughter said that she was the lone person who sided with parents being friends with their children.

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