My favorite memories with my kids are not when we are on a cruise or at some theme park. They aren’t at the zoo or at some giant festival. My favorite memories with my kids are when we are sitting around having game nights or celebrating holidays together. The scary thing? Theirs are too!

I always felt bad that I couldn’t afford to take my kids on exotic vacation. My bosses would talk about how they were taking their kids to Florida or Europe or Hawaii and here I was taking my kids to free days at the zoo. I sat and worried about how my kids would feel as if they were slighted….as if me not making $100,000 a year and taking them all over the world would be what made them feel “less than.”

But then I took some time to observe the kids who WERE doing those things. They would come back having no regard for anyone but themselves, talking about chocolate croissants or candy stores, but having never really taken in the beauty and splendor of what they had seen. They had no idea how lucky they were to have these things and they took everything that they had for granted. It was their right to have these things, not something their parents worked for. I realized that maybe I wasn’t slighting them…maybe I was giving them a gift, in essence.

As parents, we often contribute so much time to this need, this drive to have to not let our kids see us struggle. We want them to have better lives than we did and we want them to think that they came flawlessly. Now I always stress that I’m not a doctor or a professional in any way and this is just life experience…but my life experience is that we are doing them a disservice. By our children never seeing the struggles, they never learn to overcome. We’re not giving them a gift, we’re giving them an obstacle.

Take a moment and clear your mind of preconceived notions. Now imagine a child who has not seen struggle. Imagine that this child has been given the best of everything from video games and cell phones to going to the movies any time they please and getting whatever fancy dinners they want. The child has always been given the right to do as they please in their home and taught that they don’t have to work for anything. Now put them into the real world. Their boss does not let them skip work because they didn’t feel like getting up and he certainly doesn’t allow them to do no work and still get paid. Their landlord does not care if they really needed the newest video game that was out so they don’t have rent money. The utility company doesn’t care if they needed dinner out every night because they didn’t want to cook and the cell phone company certainly doesn’t care that they wanted to play games on their phone instead of work. You taught them all of that every time you pushed to never let them see you struggle. You taught them all of that every time you gave in.

Now maybe you’re a parent that intends to bail little Billy or Sally out every time that they can’t pay their rent or utility bills because they’re not doing what they’re supposed to do as adults. Maybe you intend on making excuses for the rest of your life about why they “can’t” take care of themselves and why you still need to. And that’s totally fine. You have the right to do whatever you see fit.

But what happens when you’re gone?

Leaving them a trust fund only works if they won’t burn through the money and if you’ve never given them a lesson in how to budget, how to earn, and how to live life within your means, they will just squander it. (Obviously if you’re a millionaire, this conversation is likely moot).

It’s important for kids to see struggle so they understand how to manage it. If little Billy understands that we can’t go out to dinner this week because we had an unexpected car repair pop up, he learns how to prioritize needs over wants. If little Sally understands that we can’t send her on an optional class trip to Costa Rica because we want to take a family camping trip instead, it teaches her that she can’t be the center of the universe. Honestly, there have been times when my kids have gotten the chili dogs because we’re on a budget speech and they understand food costs now.

The point is that sheltering kids so they don’t understand what struggle looks like only teaches them that there are no struggles, and hinders them as they get older. Take a moment to consider that the next time you hide your struggles from your kids. They learn by watching you…so give them a great example of what it’s like to overcome.