Curling parents

Management Blog (Stefan Stern): My column this week on the mixed-age workforce provoked a warm and positive response. This is one of those topics that everyone seems to have a view on.

On Wednesday I picked up a new phrase - new to me, anyway - that shows how highly developed intergenerational sensitivities can be these days. I was talking to Michal Kalinowski, chief executive of Universum, the Stockholm-based employer brand consultancy. He told me that, in Sweden, they have a colourful phrase to describe the sort of intense, highly protective kind of parenting some people go in for.

"Helicopter parents" I knew about: the ones that hover permanently just above the heads of their offspring, always on the look-out for danger. But in Sweden they call these people "curling parents". To understand just how wonderful this phrase is, tune in sometime soon to the Winter Olympics taking place in Vancouver. In the sport of curling, team-mates brush away furiously at the ice, helping their team-mate's "stone" to hit the target. That's what over-fussy parents can do: worry away too much, looking to clear every obstacle from their child's path.

Self-esteem is important for young people, but you can have too much of a good thing. Resilience comes from overcoming challenges. If we want the next generation to develop true grit, we will have to get out of their way, eventually.

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