Dear Kid Whisperer,

My 10-year-old acts like he can’t do anything. Yesterday he said, “I can’t open this,” handed me a box of cookies that a 5-year-old could open and walked away and started watching TV. I know I’m messing up. What do I do?

Answer: The problem with kids is that they start out as infants.

Infants can’t do anything for themselves, so parents must do things for them, like feeding them.

If parents don’t do things like this for the infant, the infant will die.

So, parents form a healthy habit of doing things for infants so that their infants don’t die.

This is good.

This habit becomes a problem when parents never break this habit (and habits can be hard to break), and they do things for their 3- and 9- and 17-year-olds that can be done by these non-infant children.

This is bad.

This is bad because when we do things for our kids that could be done by our kids, we hurt our kids, as we make it so that our kids learn that acting and being helpless gets things done without any effort. If we never cease and desist on our infant-parenting good habit, it becomes a bad habit. When we have this bad habit, our kids develop the following equation in their minds:

Acting helpless = Stuff gets done for me without any effort on my part

When we have a country full of kids who know how to have things done for them by acting like useless bumps in the carpet, we have a problem. If you doubt that this is true, ask any teacher you know.

The best and easiest way for kids to demonstrate that they are helpless is to simply say, as your kid did, “I can’t.” Here’s how I have dealt with “I can’t” for the last nearly quarter century of working with kids.

Kid (handing me a bag of candy that could be opened by an infant): I can’t open it you open it and then manipulate my jaw in such a way that I will masticate this candy do it now.

Kid Whisperer: Yikes. You can’t open this box, or you are struggling with opening this box?

Kid: What?

Kid Whisperer: Well, I mean, you seem to be saying that it’s impossible for you to open this box of candy, because you said that you “can’t” open it. If this is true, I think you’re out of luck, because I don’t solve problems for kids.

Kid: Whatever. Just do it already.

Kid Whisperer: Yikes. (Kid Whisperer walks away)

Kid can either give up (Oh, no! Less high-fructose corn syrup!), figure out how to solve the problem (so he gains confidence and a sense of efficacy), or come back for help. If so…

Kid: Okay. I’M STRUGGLING with opening this box of candy.

Kid Whisperer: Cool! I’m more than happy to help you with your struggles, as long as you are thinking and working harder than me. We accomplish all important things through struggle. Do you want to know one way that people have been successful opening boxes?

Kid: Yes.

Kid Whisperer: They use scissors to open it. Might that work for you?

Kid: Yes.

Kid Whisperer: Good luck!

Kid: Thanks.

Kid opens box with scissors. Kid eats candy. Kid realizes that solving problems gets him a feeling of efficacy, a feeling of confidence, and candy.

Only solve problems for kids for the same reason you solved the problems for them when they were infants: to keep them alive or to save them from serious injury. If your kid’s problem is that a car is speeding toward them or a bookcase is about to fall on them, solve those problems for your kid.

Other than that, ignore pleas for help when they say they can’t do something (“You can’t __________, or you are struggling with ______________?”)

Once they say that they’re struggling, scaffold for them: Give them the absolute minimum amount of support necessary for them to struggle successfully. It may be very little help, as with the box of candy. Or it may require a lot of help: Even a toddler can open a peanut butter jar if the adult puts his hands over the toddler’s as they work together to open the jar. Be ready to quit helping the moment they quit trying.

Consistently using this strategy teaches perhaps the most important lesson in life: Success comes through struggle.

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