Parents teach your kids to be independent

Don't speed over to your child's school or college whenever something goes wrong. Don't insert yourself into the most minute activities in your children's lives. Aim to empower your children to do things on their own. As your child gets older, you should be more in the background. If you do for your child for too long, they never learn to do for themselves. Show your children that you believe they are capable of handling situations themselves.

It's OK to take bring a left item to school the first time your child forgets something, but not if it becomes a habit. Children need to suffer consequences to learn from the experience. If you always end up picking up pieces, you can't expect your kid to learn the valuable lesson that they can do it themselves. Learn from failure -- failure's a great thing when you learn how to recover yourself.

Ask open-ended questions to help your children figure their problems out