4 - Helping vs Enabling

Toye Oyelese

Welcome back to Navigating Uncertainty. I’m Dr. Toye Oyelese, and today, we’re jumping into the heart of one of the most confusing things for parents — the difference between helping and enabling. If you’ve been listening for a while, you might recall that in the last episode, I talked about how fear can actually guide us as parents, if we let it. But there’s a second fork in the road that trips up nearly every parent I know: when does helping actually help, and when does it—well, let’s say, actually hold our kids back?

Toye Oyelese

Let me start with a story that still sits at the back of my mind every time I watch a child learning something new. I came back to Canada in October 1987 — I know, it feels like forever ago! I’d spent my childhood in Montreal, then most of my life in Nigeria, and after medical school I figured I’d just slip right into things when I returned to Canada. Turns out, uh, not so much. None of my medical credentials from Nigeria meant anything to anyone. So, there I was: new country — except, not so new, since I was born here — almost no money, just a suitcase, and a sense that things should have been easier but weren’t.

Toye Oyelese

Those first few months… I still triple-check my own memory on some of these details! I worked as a security guard — badly. Lost the job. Couldn’t get hired as a dishwasher. Ate once a day. Cried in the tiny room I rented and wondered how close I was to living on the street. Now, you might think, as an adult, you could phone a friend or, I don’t know, call the system for help. But here’s the catch: nobody could walk this for me. My mother was thousands of miles away in Nigeria, and the system? Well, it had rules, but no shortcuts.

Toye Oyelese

Still, there was help — but the helpful things were resources, information, people who’d sit with me and tell me what had worked for them. The library was my goldmine. Licensing boards told me what I needed to do, not how to do it, and that was that. But if someone had tried to pass my exams for me, or fill out my applications, I wouldn’t have learned anything. I needed the challenge to be real and mine — and the help to be real and steady, but always outside the actual work. That’s the line we’re talking about today, and honestly, it’s the same line your child needs you to draw, even if they’re only tackling shoelaces or block towers instead of med school exams.

Toye Oyelese

It comes down to Erikson’s developmental stages. Our kids — yours, mine — are all on these quests, whether they know it or not. They’re looking to earn hope, will, and competence. Not because we hand it over, but because they work for it, get frustrated sometimes, and come out the other side realizing, “That was tough, but I did it.” The struggle belongs to them. The support comes from us. I always remind myself: the struggle is the child’s quest, not ours to complete — and that’s true whether we’re talking about learning to walk or surviving a lonely winter with barely enough money for bread.

Toye Oyelese

So, let’s get practical. Helping looks a lot like knowledge, resources, and being present — but not taking over. When your toddler is fighting with their shoes — left, right, upside-down, you know the scene — helping means you’ve shown them how it works, maybe yesterday or a few days before, and today you’re just there. Maybe they get stuck, and you nudge: “Remember, the bumpy part goes on the outside.” And then, you step back, let them wrestle with it. And eventually, after some grumbling, they succeed, and that little bit of will is theirs forever. They’ve earned it.

Toye Oyelese

Enabling, though... and I’m as guilty of this as anyone, especially on those mornings when you’re running late and nobody can find their shoes, let alone put them on. You just step in and do it — problem solved. But what did they learn? That when things are hard, someone swoops in. No practice, no sense of “I can do this.” That’s not building capability, that’s building dependency — and, believe me, it catches up with them later.

Toye Oyelese

Let’s take it one step older. Level 4, Erikson calls it — the age where your child’s working to earn competence. Let’s say it’s science project week. The deadline is looming. The panic is rising. You can help by offering your knowledge: “What’s the plan? Need a ride to the library? Do you want to talk through what you’re stuck on?” The project is their mountain to climb, but you’re handing out ropes, maybe some trail mix, not dragging them to the top.

Toye Oyelese

Or you can enable: you clear your schedule, sit with them, micromanage every detail, co-create the whole diorama of the solar system. When the glue dries, whose project is it? Yours, mostly. And the lesson they learn? When things are tough, I don’t have to stick with it; someone else will fix it for me.

Toye Oyelese

And this plays out in small ways, too. When my son was nine, he went through a streak of forgetting his lunch. The first time he called, I’ll admit, I was tempted to drop everything and bring it. But I realized if I always swooped in, he’d never learn how to solve the problem himself. So, after teaching him a system, I let the natural consequence play out. He spent a day hungry at school — not fun, but not catastrophic. That night, we talked. He figured out a system himself, and, after a few rocky weeks, he genuinely got it. That’s what sticks.

Toye Oyelese

Here’s something I always ask myself — maybe this’ll help you too: “Whose quest is this?” If it’s theirs, your job is to hand over knowledge, tools, create space, be there. If you’re actually doing the heavy lifting, chances are you’ve tipped from helping into enabling. If you’re acting because you’re the one who’s uncomfortable with their discomfort, that’s also a red flag. This isn’t about just letting kids sink or swim on their own. It’s about recognizing you’re the guide, not the hero.

Toye Oyelese

There’s one more piece that too many parenting books kind of skip over — the actual experience of struggle, and the humility that comes from teaching with context. Because here’s the truth: struggle is unavoidable. You can’t eliminate it, and honestly, you don’t want to. I mean, even preschoolers, if you watch them building a block tower, will feel all kinds of frustration as it topples over and over. But if you do the building for them, or distract them so they miss that moment of frustration, they’re learning to avoid the hard bit — not to manage it and try again.

Toye Oyelese

And then there’s how we frame what we teach. I have to share this story — it cracks me up now, but at the time, I was genuinely shocked at how the world worked. Back in Nigeria, when I was seven or eight, my parents started this Sunday tradition: bread and egg for breakfast. Only on Sundays, and it felt sacred. So, one week, I’m at a friend’s house, and his family is eating yams for breakfast. I laughed like a fool. “Everyone knows Sunday is bread and egg day!” I said. Turns out, not everyone does.

Toye Oyelese

That moment… I realized what we teach our kids becomes their “universal law” — at least until life shows them otherwise. If we teach “This is how WE do things,” they learn there are other ways. If we teach “This is how EVERYONE does it,” we risk raising kids who can’t handle difference, or who end up, well, arrogant, like seven-year-old me. So, I always try — don’t always succeed, but I try — to frame things with humility: “This is what WE do in our family. Other families might do it differently, and that’s fine.”

Toye Oyelese

If you can give your child not just skills, but also a sense that their way isn’t the only way, you’re giving them the tools to be balanced, tolerant people. The kind of adults who can enter a new space — a new culture, a new friendship, a new job — and respect that there’s more than one right way to do things. And, yeah, maybe avoid making fools of themselves at breakfast tables!

Toye Oyelese

So, to wrap up: remember, your real job as a parent is teaching, providing resources, and being present for the struggle — not completing the quest for your child. When you step back and let them wrestle — gently, with guidance, context, and humility — you shift the odds in favor of growth, not dependency. And that, more than any shortcut or rescue, is what sets them up for the long haul.

Toye Oyelese

I’m Dr. Toye Oyelese, and in our next episode, we’re gonna unpack the “Primary Responsibility” framework. It’s a big one – how your child learns to relate to themselves. Until then, thanks for listening and, as always, keep navigating.