Ben Greenfield argues that parents should allow their children to have mentors beyond the parents themselves. He emphasizes balancing parental involvement with exposing kids to outside mentors, and reassures parents that delegating mentorship is not a sign of guilt or laziness but can be valuable for a child’s development.
It took a little while for me as a dad to realize there's a lot of value in letting go and allowing your kids, you know, ego set aside to be trained by other people and to have mentors. I think that you have to strike a balance between that and, I think, the habit that a lot of parents get into, which is sending your kids off to school and you assuming that everything that they need to learn in life has been done and it's all checked off and everything's perfect. For me, it's been really important to understand that kids need a mentor other than their parents, and there's actually a lot of value in that. And parents don't have to feel guilty or lazy or feel as though, you know, their child's being influenced by someone else. By setting up mentors like that to walk them through the process.
The Solution to Aging Might Be Closer Than Anyone Realizes - With Ben Goertzel
