There is an important thing that happens when we plant a young tree. Sometimes it needs a little help.

The trunk may not yet be strong enough to stand against the Kansas wind. The root system has not had enough time to establish itself. So we may stake it for a while, giving it enough support to keep it upright while the roots begin doing the work they were designed to do.

But the stake was never meant to become permanent.

Leave it there too long and something that began as support can eventually become a problem. The tree needs movement. It needs resistance. It needs the opportunity to respond to wind and develop strength of its own. At some point, continuing to hold it upright can actually interfere with the very thing we were trying to accomplish.

As our daughter’s wedding is quickly approaching, I have been forced to think about that a lot lately as a dad.

When our children are young, they require an enormous amount from us. They need boundaries, protection, direction, correction, encouragement, and sometimes simply someone willing to make the decision because they are not yet capable of making it themselves.

That responsibility is real, and I believe parents should obviously take it seriously.

But something I am still learning is that the role does not stay the same forever. Our children grow, but sometimes our way of loving them does not grow at the same pace.

We can continue offering answers when what they really need is the opportunity to wrestle with the question. We can continue protecting them from consequences when consequences may actually be one of life’s better teachers. We can mistake our influence for responsibility and our involvement for love.

And those lines can become especially difficult to see because our intentions are often good. We want to help.

We have lived longer. We have made mistakes they have not made yet. We can sometimes see trouble coming before they recognize it themselves. Every instinct in us says that if we know something might hurt them, we should step in and prevent it.

There are certainly times when we should. But what we have to understand is that not every difficult road is ours to block. Not every decision belongs to us simply because we have an opinion about it. And not every mistake is evidence that our children need us to take control again.

This is where parenting has become much more complicated for me than I ever expected. I used to think one of the measures of being a good parent would be how much my children continued to need me.

I am beginning to wonder today whether I had that backward.

Perhaps part of our responsibility is to raise people who eventually need less direction from us, not more. People who can think, discern, make decisions, endure consequences, change course, apologize, begin again, and build lives that are genuinely their own.

If that is true, then independence should not automatically feel like rejection. It may actually be evidence that something worked. That does not make the transition any easier.

Being needed can become deeply connected to our sense of purpose. For years, someone asks for your permission, your advice, your help, your protection, and your approval. Then slowly, almost without announcing itself, life changes.

They begin making decisions without calling first. They develop convictions that are their own. They build relationships you are no longer at the center of. They choose things differently than you would choose them.

And somewhere in that transition, a parent has to decide whether love means continuing to hold tighter or learning to loosen the grip. That question challenges me to this day.

Because sometimes what I call concern may actually contain a little fear. Sometimes what I call guidance may contain a desire for control. And sometimes my difficulty accepting someone else’s decision may have less to do with whether the decision is wrong and more to do with the uncomfortable realization that it is no longer mine to make.

There is humility required in that. Believe it or not, the people we raise are not extensions of us. They are people.

Our responsibility is not to create smaller versions of ourselves. It is to help cultivate character, wisdom, courage, compassion, faith, resilience, and enough confidence that eventually those things can function without our constant supervision.

And that brings me back to that young tree. The purpose of support was never to make the tree dependent upon the stake. The purpose was to give the roots enough time to establish.

And roots do much of their best work where nobody can see them.

That may be true of parenting too. We spend years planting things.

Words spoken around the dinner table. Standards we tried to live by. Lessons they probably appeared not to hear. Apologies they watched us make. Ways they saw us treat people. Faith demonstrated imperfectly. Love given on days when none of us were particularly easy to love.

Then eventually we have to trust the roots. We may not always see what is happening beneath the surface. We may disagree with a branch or two. We may wish the tree were leaning a little differently.

But healthy roots were never intended to keep something small. They exist so it can stand. I am beginning to believe there comes a season in parenting when one of the greatest expressions of love is confidence.

Not indifference. Not absence. Not pretending we no longer care. But confidence.

The quiet assurance that says, I have given you what I could. I am still here. I will always love you. But I also believe you are capable of carrying your own life.

There will probably always be a part of us that wants to reach for the stake again when the wind starts blowing. But there is wisdom in learning when not to.

Practice to Cultivate

Think about someone you love whose life has begun requiring less direction from you.

Pay attention to the moments when you feel the strongest urge to step in. Then ask yourself what is really driving that urge.

Is my help truly needed, or am I uncomfortable watching someone I love develop strength without me?

There is a season for supporting, but there is also a season for trusting what has taken root.

‘Well Rooted’ is written by Jeremy Elliott. Elliott owns a lawncare business and lives in the Great Bend area.