Insightful Words by John Taylor Gotto, Again.

Thanks to "Butter Angie" for the passage from his new book...

When, as happens with some frequency, I'm asked by parents for a single suggestion for changing the relationship between them and their kids for the better, I don't hesitate to recommend this:
Don't think of them as kids. Childhood exists, but it's over long before we allow it to be. I'd start to worry if my kid were noticeably childish past the age of seven and if by twelve you aren't dealing with young men and women anxious to take their turn, disgusted with training wheels on anything, able to walkabout London, do hundred mile bike trips, and add enough value to the neighborhood that they have an independent income; if you don't see this, you're doing something seriously wrong.
Even at seven don't edit the truth out of things. If the family has an income kids need to know to the penny what it is and how its spent. Assume they are human beings with the same basic nature and aptitudes that you have; what you have superior in terms of experience and mature understanding should be exchanged for their natural resilience, quick intelligence, imagination, fresh insight, and eagerness to become self-directing.
Don't buy into the calculated illusion of extended childhood...And adolescence is a total fraud, a pure concoction of social engineers barely a century old.
--John Taylor Gatto in Weapons of Mass Instruction p. 137