Tim Harford is an amazing storyteller, and his podcast called Cautionary Tales is full of half-hour story arches that teaches lessons, like fairy tales to adults!
Episode 20 speaks to the idea of masterly inactivity being the opposite of micro-managing, and it rang a bell for me from the basic logic laws that all doctors follow: First, do no harm. *For some people this is easier than others. It's sometimes taught to students "just sit on your hands". It is easy for some people to want to jump into action, in an emergency, and when you child is struggling with something. If it is not truly an emergency, it is important to know that, more often than not, things will resolve themselves. In those cases, doing something might mean doing something harmful.
Take for example that someone has fainted. I have seen it over and over an instinct to act, sitting the person up, and thus stopping the natural reestablishment of the circulation that would happen if they had been left supine, and sometimes resulting in seizure like body tremors from the brain's lack of oxygen circulation. Even in health care's hands, some nurses don't lay them flat, but use a stretcher to lower their head in a positional called Trendelenberg. This, unfortunately, decreases the ability of the heart to pump because it shunts blood away from the atrial chambers. Just leave things alone!
I think it's important as a parent, especially with teens, but at any age, to practice masterly inactivity. When they are young, you help them establish the limits of their own body by respecting their individuality, and it sets up the boundaries they need to understand the need to grant and receive consent. When they are teens, you allow the parts of them unlike yourself to be put forward and what they want to do with it. I don't mean ignore those who have no sense of their own boundaries. You need to step in when that boisterous relative wants to kiss everyone on the mouth, or hug your shy kid when they clearly don't want it. There is a difference between politeness in greeting and non-consentual physical contact.
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