BECOME AN EFFECTIVE PERSON BY LEARNING COMMON SENSE
A mother complained to behavioral consultant Scott Ervin that her academically talented teen daughter seems to have no common sense.
She couldn’t understand how a kid couldn’t apply her book smarts to real-world activities.
Ervin basically told the mother that the teen needed to experience the real world without her parents.
Ervin discussed the interaction in a column published May 24, 2025, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
What Ervin is saying is that common sense is not learned in a book. It is learned by trial and error.
He’s also saying that common sense cannot be taught by parents, teachers or anyone else. The student has to acquire it independently.
This interaction calls to mind the concept of “helicopter” parents, who hover over their children’s lives well into adulthood. In the guise of being “helpful,” these parents end up taking an outsized role in all of their child’s decisions.
Also, the interaction brings to the fore the idea that parents have to let go of their children by a certain age.
Many children grow up in overly restrictive households, with way too many rules imposed upon them.
They have no way to get out to learn common sense. Their “sense” is dictated to them.
Children need space to make mistakes. Mistakes are the learning tools for common sense.
No parent wants a child to make a fatal mistake, or a mistake they will pay for the rest of their lives. Still, they need some freedom to learn on their own.
Parents may not want their children interacting with certain other children, or certain other adults.
But, those interactions often turn into positive learning experiences. They could broaden the child’s mind, perhaps beyond the point mom and dad want it broadened.
Parents want children to be obedient, not defiant. However, some defiance can be healthy for a child. It can teach them that some of what they are being taught may not be in their own best interest, even if it is in mom and dad’s best interest.
As author and leadership expert Andy Andrews has said, good parenting is not raising good kids. It is developing good adults. Being a good adult may mean, in some cases, not being like your parents, as the Dr. Rick commercials muse.
The process of growing and maturing must be a healthy combination of good parenting, a healthy bit of independence and exposure to good and bad experiences.
Some things that parents view as mistakes can benefit the child over time. Some of what parents view as “accomplishments” can be meaningless, or even detrimental, to the child over time.
As Ervin advises, give the child his or her own space and time to learn common sense on their own. They will become better adults for it.
Peter