<p>Actually, my self-motivated, self-directed, independent daughter was far more active in outside activities and a more focused and dedicated student than my couch-potato son. I did a lot more for my son mainly because all too often it was less of a hassle to do the stuff than to nudge and nag repeatedly waiting for him to make a move. That really didn’t change until after he had dropped out of college and was on the verge of getting kicked out of the house if he didn’t line up a job.</p>
<p>I used to give my daughter extra tasks to do in the hopes that I could thereby discourage her from doing many things that I preferred she didn’t do. It never worked. Part of the reason is that my daughter is better at all of the detail stuff than I am. She pretty much takes care of tasks like phoning for an appointment as soon as the thought occurs to her that she needs to do it. (For me it goes on a to-do list and it may take days or weeks before I get around to it…)</p>
<p>It may be partly a personality dynamic – some people take initiative, others seem to prefer to let others do things for them. Spouses and parents step in when they either perceive the task as something beyond the capability of the other person, or they simply believe that it is easier for them to do it themselves because the kid or the spouse will take too long to do it, or mess things up somehow. Part of the process of letting a family member do something for themselves is letting them do it their own way in their own time – no critique or commentary – and so there’s a cycle of negative reinforcement that can keep a person in “helpless” mode. I experienced that growing up with my neat-freak mom – she’d nag me to clean up my room and then complain because I didn’t clean well enough and come in and re-make the bed, re-clean the room, etc. So I just didn’t bother – she was going to yell at me and clean up either way. I never learned as a kid that I had the ability to set my own standards for room-cleaning. I gave my own kids a lot more control over their space --I just had a basic rule about food in their room – and I only laundered items that made it into the hampers in the hallway, not whatever was laying on their floors. So they figured that stuff out. </p>