Struggle

I so badly want to help my kids avoid the bad (or hard) parts about life, but know that to be successful, productive members of society, they need to struggle, to figure some things out on their own, to succeed or fail independently.  I feel as though I do a pretty good job of doing this with Alyssa and Jackson (maybe I just think I do though), but I'm coming to the conclusion that this is going to be a challenge for me with Matthew. I've been watching him struggle from the beginning, and it hurts my heart to not be able to help him.  So when I can help him, I want to!  But I'm realizing that I may be doing him a disservice, or even hindering his forward progress, by helping him in certain instances.  I expect that striking a balance between helping him and pushing him will be an ongoing challenge for quite sometime.