Let Them Fly
Protecting your child is not the hardest job of a parent. The most difficult is knowing when to stop..
From the moment they are born, our instinct is clear: hold them, guide them, protect them, prevent the fall.
We tie their shoes, check their homework, drive them everywhere, fix their problems. For years, love looks like control. And in the beginning, it should.
But something changes over time.
They grow. They form opinions. They make choices we wouldn’t make. They want space. And that is where parenting becomes uncomfortable. Letting them fly means accepting that they might choose differently, they might struggle. They might fail. And we won’t always be there to catch them.
If we are honest, sometimes we hold on not because they need us, but because we need to feel needed. Their dependence gives us purpose, their proximity gives us comfort, and their success feels like validation.
But overprotection has a cost. When we remove every obstacle, we also remove the opportunity to build resilience. Confidence is not built through protection, it’s built through experience, and when we solve every problem, we quietly send the message: “You can’t handle this alone.”
Letting them fly does not mean disappearing. It means shifting from protector to supporter, from decision maker to advisor.
It means saying, “I trust you”, even if sometimes they stumble. Because our role is not to raise children who avoid failure. It is to raise adults who know how to recover from it.
Flying has some risks, but so does never leaving the ground.
