The Art of Letting Go — Therapist Mike Hanson presents to East parents

On March 5, therapist Mike Hanson came to East to talk to parents about trusting their kids and letting go of parental anxieties. 

The goal of “The Art of Letting Go: Fostering Independence as Your Teen Progresses Through High School,” his hour-and-a-half presentation, was to inform parents on how to trust the process of trial and error  — which means trusting kids to make some decisions for themselves. 

According to Hanson, it’s important for kids to work on their own self-monitoring before college where parents can’t micromanage them. 

Hanson has held similar discussion groups and presentations at East four times in the last five years. 

PTA President and East parent Tiffany Connelly has attended them before, and feels that they’re important because parents need to be reminded that not everything is on them. 

She feels that Hanson does a good job with preaching to parents that their kids deserve the dignity to fail sometimes because, in the end, they’ll grow. 

“I think he has some really great words for parents — words of encouragement,” Connelly said. “I think parents are super eager to hear from him because I think that we all struggle with wanting out children to be successful, but also recognizing that those failures that they experience all help build their character.” 

According to Hanson and Connelly, the discussions are usually well received, and the kids don’t mind the message for their parents to get less involved. 

“[The students] probably feel like ‘okay yeah finally I’ve been telling you this,’” Connelly said. “I would guess that every child would be happy that their parents are attending and can year someone say that it’s okay to step away.” 

Hanson points parents in the direction of trust and honor. He thinks that kids’ problem solving should speak for themselves — easing parent anxieties. He is planning on coming back to East in the future to continue the conversation about parent involvement.