Kyle is Struggling…

At three years old, Kyle had never put on his own shoes. He always had help—shoes can be tricky. At four, he had never put together a puzzle all by himself—he’d get frustrated, so Mom or Dad or the babysitter gave him a hand every time. At five, he’d never poured himself a glass of anything or a bowl of cereal…

He still rode with training wheels even when nearing the end of his sixth year. He wasn’t scared, but his parents were afraid he’d fall and get hurt. At seven, Kyle had homework most nights, but had never completed so much as a worksheet without the careful eye of his parents watching every stroke of his number two pencil, just to make sure he was getting it right.

At eight, he was still unable to make his bed, and by nine he was entirely unwilling, so his parents gave up trying to get him to…Twelve-year-old Kyle was still deemed incapable of taking out the trash…At thirteen, his parents cleaned his room for him because they grew tired of reminding him over and over…And at fifteen, his mom got him a paper route, which she did for him most school days so he could sleep longer…

By the time Kyle was an adult, he’d never done a load of laundry, never learned about home finance, never used a map and never scrambled himself an egg. Kyle was, in fact, still a child.