We can only hold our children close so long. We must let them go slowly, one step at a time, allowing them to build identity and self-esteem, confidence and competence. We must take off the training wheels at some point and let them go, even though we know that they'll fall and skin a knee. But how can we let them go safely in a world filled with fear and danger?
Holding Tight/Letting Go is the necessary and natural push-pull dynamic that must play out between every parent and child from birth through death. It's the ambivalence that we experience, torn between keeping our children safe and encouraging their independence. It's the dilemma that we all face knowing that we let our children go into a world filled with internet predators and school shootings, toxins and addictions and crime
Holding Tight/Letting Go is your resource for healthy parenting in the twenty-first century. This is the story of how identity emerges in the context of relationships, from birth through death, from Facebook to Twitter, and beyond.
When should I say no? When should I push him to try something new? Should I let him have a phone? Should I monitor his social media? What does "privacy" mean when there is none? Holding Tight-Letting Go tackles these and the hundreds of similar questions that fill every parent's thoughts and fuel every parent's nightmares.
Holding Tight/Letting Go is more. It speaks to each of us about who we are and how we make relationships as parents, as adults, and as children ourselves. How we hold our partners and our own parents tight and how we must eventually, inevitably, let them go, as well.
Holding Tight/Letting Go speaks to each of us as human beings trying to understand self in these times of terror and technology.
