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Ask Amy: Contractor might renovate client’s life

Amy Dickinson, Tribune Content Agency on

I was one of those kids.

I was taken backpacking at three years old. I learned to ski when I was two. When I inevitably fell behind, my parents said they wanted me to learn independence and stamina and that they would "just go on ahead.”

By the time I was 14 I'd been left on the Knife Edge of Mt. Katahdin in Maine, rescued by the snow patrol in Italy, and found by strangers who CARRIED ME ON THEIR SHOULDERS up Mount Washington – to name just three episodes.

This behavior is traumatic for those children and if they are pushed beyond their limits in this way consistently it will only get worse.

It's one thing to “not spoil” or to “not give in” to a child.

It's another thing to ignore actual distress.

 

– JA

Dear JA: Some readers responded that the parental behavior described in the question from “Trying to be Accommodating” amounts to abuse, and I agree.

In my response, I suggested ways for “Trying” to respond to the parents, urging them to lessen the length and challenge of this year’s annual hike, but I didn’t focus on the troubling parenting choices, and I should have.

Thank you for your response. Mount Katahdin is described as a “very strenuous” 8- to 12-hour hike. I could hardly bear to even watch a video of a hiker on the mountain’s famed Knife Edge (described as “deadly”); I cannot imagine being left there alone.

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