Linking to an article about “lawnmower parents” triggered an interesting discussion on my Facebook page. Some were defensive about “rescuing” or failing to “rescue” children. Others pointed out that some children genuinely need more guidance than others due to disabilities and disadvantages that may not even be visible.

As a private and public school teacher, I saw how it worked both ways. Most parents are doing the best they can, and doing fine, I think, but I saw this over-correction now and again all the years I was teaching. I saw it among privileged kids in the prep school where I first taught, and I saw it among local elite teaching in a public school, especially athletes, whose parents and school officials placed the ability to play above every other consideration. Perfectly capable students would not contact me, but sent their parents in to ask for favors. Parents would defend a students who had deliberately abused the system. Parents did their students’ work for them. Other students had no advocacy at all.

The article defends support for students with genuine needs, which may be entirely invisible. For example, friends thought it was ridiculous that a young woman was afraid to take the bus downtown alone. When I found out she’d been in the foster system all her life, it made sense to me. She may have aged out of the system, but she likely had little support at any point of her life. My brother-in-law is schizophrenic and could not complete his paperwork even though he was halfway through high school at the time. Such young people need guidance and support more than most, and often longer than might seem necessary to the casual observer.

On another note, one reader described arriving at college and finding herself incapable. “I did not have parents [who over-protected me] but I still had the reaction described after my first difficult college class at 18: ‘Begin planning for the inevitable destruction of their college career/future; Assume they failed because they’re stupid; Collapse in on themselves and give up completely and stop trying.’ ” She could not handle the experience and left college after her freshman year.

Many very bright and capable students arrive at college without the skills they need to thrive, and this may have little to do with parenting. My brother began college without the academic skills necessary to manage the major he was pursuing. As a teacher, he was determined to challenge his students in ways that allowed them to do well later on. My own experience was almost the reverse. I was extremely well prepared for my major and when I began teaching I was determined that my students would feel the same confidence I enjoyed in college. Resilience in both my brother’s and my own case was based less on our self-confidence than on genuine, earned capability.

I had the added disadvantage of being female. And women are given confusing signals about behavior. To be successful in any endeavor demands skill and a modicum of self-confidence. Some situations demand diplomacy and tact, while others demands assertiveness. Women receive a mash of conflicting messages pretty much from the moment they were born. No one ever lifted Sojourner Truth over any mud puddle, but she was expected to project the same retiring and gentle femininity as a white woman expected to spend all her days tatting lace without distressing the menfolk.

The recent flap over Serena Williams behavior during a tennis tournament and the response of a referee is a case in point. In the opinion of many observers, Williams was clearly being targeted, and the penalties were out of line compared to responses to male players exhibiting the same behavior.

Of course, what do I know?

I know that when we protect too much in the classroom, when our response to children facing difficult challenge is always to make the work “easier” we teach them that they are incapable. Telling a class day after day that work is easy (whether this is true or not) leads them to assume that the scarier reality of struggle means they are “stupid” instead of simply learning.

My goal in the classroom is to make difficult concepts as managable as possible. I do not pretnd that what I am asking from students in “easy.” It is not easy, it is very hard. My job is to make the work managable, to break it down, support growth, and promote self-confidence through acheivment of earned skill. Students must have the skills they need to be confident in school. They should be encouraged to do more than is entirely comfortable. They should be inspired to sustain their purpose and goals even in the face of fear. They need to be taught that they can overcome obstacles and that struggle is someone everyone deals with every day.

Many activities human beings actively pursue are very hard and very scary—many sports, bungee jumping, mountain climbing—yet somehow that high does not transfer well to education. There is a rush of adrenalin from pursuing a complex idea that we cannot quite wrap our mind around, just as there is when pursuing a sport. Maybe that mental rush is something we would all do well to pursue.

Do better because you can.