"Let kids be kids" is the most destructive sentence in modern parenting. Two reasons:

1. It assumes that being a kid means being useless. For most of history, boys apprenticed, trained, built, and served alongside men. Francis Austen, Jane Austen's brother, went to sea at thirteen and eventually became an admiral. He was also doing real work with real consequences. Boys the same age today are barely trusted to turn on the oven.

2. It gives fathers an excuse to avoid the hard work of training. Honing a boy's strength and drive takes effort. Usually daily effort. It is easier to hand him a screen and call it "letting him be a kid." But ease is not love and comfort is not kindness.

A boy with no expectations becomes a man with no purpose.