The Fifth Commandment reads, “Honor your father and mother so your days may be long.” The promise “that your days may be long” encompasses more than just you. Raise responsible, respectful children, and not only will they care for you in your old age, they'll extend that care to their society.

Your most lasting legacy, the one that really matters, is how your children will treat their fellows and the world you're leaving them.

Several years ago, I addressed a private school in northern California. I love speaking at this campus where the parents get my jokes and grasp the nuances of my message. I even love the bathroom decorations, beautiful tiles hand painted by the children, and sinks mounted so low that even the youngest can wash up with dignity. I was lecturing on a favorite topic, “Raising Strong Children in a Complex World.”

During the question-answer period, a smiling, stylish woman raised her hand.

"Ever since her friend got hurt in the big earthquake, my daughter can't sleep alone," she said. "How can I get her to be braver at night?"

"Does she sleep in your bed?" I asked.

"No."

"How do you know she's afraid? Does she call out to you?"

"She doesn't call out. She's not alone. She sleeps with the housekeeper in the housekeeper's bed."

In all my years of counseling, I'd never heard of such an arrangement. Impressed that the mother was willing to expose this setup in public, I probed a little further.

“Does the housekeeper mind?”

“No. It was a condition of hiring her.”

Mitzrayim means “narrow place,” or “blockages.” Most of the Hebrew slaves in Pharaoh's Egypt could not even imagine that they might successfully escape to freedom. Commentators on the Book of Exodus tell us that only 20 percent followed Moses. The rest stayed behind, enslaved by their fear of the unknown.

The world in which we are raising our children challenges them with many straits and narrow places. We want them to have faith that they can make it through and leave the familiarity and safety of home. If we overprotect them, we enslave them with our fears. If we give them the freedom to develop strength through overcoming difficulties, they'll be out in front with the courageous 20 percent.

WITHDRAW YOUR POWER IF YOU WANT YOUR CHILD TO GROW
The Jewish mystical Zimzum principle shows us a lovely spiritual model for slowly relinquishing control over our children. Zimzum means "contraction of divine energy." Originally, everything was G-d; He filled the entire universe. But in order for creations to exist, something has to withdraw. In order to make a place for the world, G-d had to withdraw a bit.

At first G-d stayed close by us, to provide help. When we were trapped by the Egyptians, G-d provided plagues; when we needed to escape quickly, G-d parted the Red Sea; when we were hungry in the desert, there was mama from heaven; when we were thirsty, G-d provided water from a rock. Later, as we matured and were able to manage on our own, G-d withdrew further and made fewer miracles.

Left to our own devices, we humans took lots of false steps. But we learned from our mistakes and became resilient, strong enough to endure for more than three thousand years.

Like G-d, new parents are miracle makers. When children are tiny babies, we vigilantly monitor everything that goes into their mouths and comes out their bottoms. We make sure they aren't hungry or thirsty, and we provide constant protection and care. But as our children mature, we need to withdraw from smoothing their path and satisfying all their wishes. By giving them a chance to survive some danger and letting them make some reckless or thoughtless choices, we teach them how to withstand the bumps and knocks of life. This is the only way children will mature into resilient, self reliant adults. By continuing to make miracles on demand, we are unwittingly slowing down the development of our children's strength.

FEAR AND FREEDOM, COMPASSION AND COWARDICE
Parents’ urge to overprotect their children is based on fear. Fear of strangers, the streets, the Internet, the mall. Fear of the child's not being invited to the right parties or accepted by the right schools. Fear about safety, disease, and drugs. In my parenting classes there are always lots of questions about fear and its flip side, freedom:

“At what age can the children stay home alone? I’m still getting baby sitters for my thirteen old.”

Few stories illustrate the level of fear we are passing along to our children as well as the one told by my twelve year old client Rebecca. Home alone on a weekday afternoon, Rebecca heard the doorbell ring and saw an unfamiliar man and woman at the door. Terror stricken at the sight of the strangers, she slithered across the floor for ten minutes, making herself as flat as possible so she could get to the phone to beep her mother without being seen through the window. By the time her mother called her back, she was exhausted.

“Mom said they were landscapers who had dropped by to give an estimate,” Rebecca recalled. “She hadn't told me they were coming because she thought she'd be home to let them in. But they came two hours early! I'll never forget how scared I was.”

Rebecca’s reaction was understandable in light of how often her parents had warned her about dangerous strangers. Rebecca was too panicked to think clearly. Overwhelmed by the vision of well publicized child abduction victims, we train our children to fear everyone outside our immediate circle and to expect the worst in any unusual situation.

If this seems harsh, consider Ruby Bridges. In 1960, when she was six years old, Ruby initiated desegregation in New Orleans by walking into her school building escorted by federal marshals while murderous, heckling mobs threatened her life. Her mother said that Ruby smiled at the hecklers and prayed for them every night before she went to sleep. When I took my daughters to meet Ms. Bridges at a book signing near our home, I was as excited as they were to meet the woman who had shown such courage as a young girl. Her courage had inspired me when I was a child, and she inspired me even more as an adult.

Real protection means teaching children to manage risks on their own, not shielding them from every hazard. If pressed to stand up for what they have been taught to believe, I fear that most of the children we are raising wouldn't behave like Ruby Bridges.

Freud said that the goal of psychoanalysis was modest: to convert neurotic misery into ordinary unhappiness. Judaism teaches that all people should be on a lifelong quest to build middot (literally, “measures,” or good character traits). One of those traits is the ability to tolerate emotional distress. But most of the parents I speak with believe that their children should be spared “ordinary unhappiness” and should be protected from feeling sad, angry, afraid, frustrated, or disappointed. According to Orthodox psychologist and parent educator Miriam Adahan, children need an opportunity to learn about the “wave pattern” of emotions. If parents rush in to rescue them from distress, children don't get an opportunity to learn that they can suffer and recover on their own.

TURNING DOWN THE WORRY: THE TWENTY MINUTES RULE
The fears that cause our overprotective parenting style seep out every day in the form of worries. Is there any way to turn down the worry so we can give our children more of the freedom they need to grow?
The first step is to try, as much as possible, to put common sense and faith before emotion. The parents I listen to worry a lot. They are highly creative in coming up with things to worry about and loyal to the worries once they've birthed them. Some real life examples:

“What if sending Eva to a developmental preschool isn't really preparing her for an academic kindergarten?”

“What if Alexa and Julie become best friends and leave Claire out?”

“What if Josh can't handle both Hebrew School and homework on Wednesdays?”

Well, what if one of those things did happen? You would size up the problem and make some changes. It is all part of tzar gidul banim, the pain of raising children. You can use common sense (we've overcome challenges before and we'll overcome this one) and bitachon (trust in G-d), and you can relax a little. The spiritual discipline of bitachon requires us to make our best efforts on behalf of our children, use our best judgment, and leave the rest in G-d’s hands.

Judaism requires us to be happy. We are supposed to enjoy performing mitzvot. If we've been fruitful and multiplied, we've fulfilled a commandment. To contaminate the job of parenting with worry violates the joyous spirit of the mitzvah. I once heard a Jewish educator say that parents should spend twenty minutes a day thinking about their child's education. This is both a lower and an upper limit! This wise woman was asking parents to reflect and be thoughtful, but not to obsess. If you are spending more than twenty minutes a day worrying about your child, you are not performing the mitzvah of raising children in the proper spirit. Judaism requires us not only to be fruitful and multiply, but to enjoy the ride.

How to know if you're spending too much time worrying about your children? If you notice that even during seemingly perfect moments you're thinking about potential troubles ahead, you’re worrying too much. Another sign: your children seem overly cautious or anxious. A group of second graders I know recently went on a horseback ride. One little girl wouldn't put on a helmet since her mother told her never to wear anyone else's hat because she might get lice. Another complained that the flies on the horses might bite.

Some parents seem to have a worry vacuum that must be filled as soon as it starts to get empty. I learned about this phenomenon early in life, because my grandmother was a professional. Grammy could set herself up with a good worry and turn it this way and that in her mind for great spans of time. The moment the worrisome situation resolved itself, she would search around for a new one to replace it. She was blessed with three generations to worry about. When her daughter and grandchildren were fine, she would start in on the baby great grandchildren. If they appeared to be properly nourished and appropriately dressed for the weather, she would worry about the cat. If she judged the cat robust and content, she would worry about the health of the plants or the neighbor's children. If we teased her about her constant worrying, she would smile indulgently and then set right back in again.

I've since decided that Grammy was a prophylactic worrier. The idea that you can prevent a bad event by worrying about it turns up in Jewish folktales, like the one about the chimney sweep Yossel, who, in exchange for a salary of one ruble a week, was appointed the official Worrier of Chelm. One resident of Chelin complained, “If Yossel gets a nice salary of one ruble a week, what has he got to worry about?”

Grammy was carrying on the grand old tradition. It's not obvious, but one of the problems with this perspective is its lack of humility. It’s arrogant to think we are in charge of everything. That’s why, when some traditional Jews speak about something that will happen in the future, they always append “G-d willing” to the end of the sentence. This serves as a reminder that we aren't fully in control of our destiny.

SEPARATING LEGITIMATE CONCERNS FROM NEUROTIC OVERPROTECTION
Of course, there are aspects of modern life that parents are justified in worrying about. Among the families I work with, the fears center around the big three: crime, safety, and the media (TV, music, film, and the Internet). These worries stand out in bold relief against the rosy memories of their own childhoods. Our safety in the neighborhood was a given.

Consider the possibility that your overprotection, as much as the real world, is clouding your children's summers. While there are dangers, bad influences, and risks you must protect them from, you should think very carefully about how much protection they actually need.

Reprinted with the permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, from THE BLESSING OF A SKINNED KNEE by Wendy Mogel. Copyright ©2001 by Wendy Mogel, Ph.D.