How to Raise Independent Kids: Parenting Lessons from a Funeral Director

How do you raise independent kids? By giving them the chance to stand on their own feet while they’re still under your roof. Independence grows when children learn to take responsibility, solve problems, and make mistakes without a parent rushing in to fix everything. I’ve gained that perspective in part by years of working with death, because when you sit with grieving families, you see exactly how children, even adult children, step into their new identity without their parent.

My work as a funeral director and death doula has shaped how I parent. I have spent my entire adult life working around death. I have done hair and makeup on bodies with my pregnant belly leaning against them.  I suffered through the funeral of a 6-month-old who died of SIDS a month before I gave birth.  I’ve heard a father tell his 5-year-old daughter that her uncle was just sleeping, right after she had watched him sealed in a vault and buried. I’ve seen an adult son so dependent on his mother that he couldn’t make decisions about her funeral because she wasn’t there to talk it through with him.

I’ve also seen families come through the death of a matriarch or patriarch stronger and more connected to each other. Grounded in gratitude and preparation.

All these experiences have shaped how I raise my kids. The hope has never been to shield them from reality, but to prepare them for it: capable, resourceful, and resilient.  Because if our lives progress in the natural order, then one day they’ll have to live without me. 

Parenting with mortality in mind may sound heavy, but it’s actually empowering.  We don’t get to choose when we leave this world, but we can choose how to prepare the people we love for that reality. 

Children who are always rescued, always cushioned, grow up without knowing how to manage if the rescuer isn’t there, and without the faith in themselves that they can figure it out.  

How to raise independent kids

Responsibility started early in our house. Laundry, cooking, and contributing to the household is expected. Yes, shirts have been shrunk and meals have been questionable, but it’s all learning. 

Around our dinner table, conversations about death are part of life. That openness brings a kind of freedom: fear is spoken about honesty, because in truth there is strength.

Being constantly reminded that tomorrow isn’t promised changes how you parent today. It demands presence. It means resisting the urge to swoop in when a lunch is forgotten because being hungry makes you remember it the next time.

None of this means parenting without fear. From the moment my first son was born, nightmares about the ways he could die crept in.  That’s another side effect of this work: I know intimately how children can die.

My youngest spends a lot of time around the neighbourhood on his bike or scooter.  I often fear the worst, but my coping strategy is to meet fear with trust, love and gratitude. How to raise an independent kid is to recognize every moment together as a precious gift that isn’t guaranteed.  

Don’t get the impression that I’m a saint who is always zen-like and patient with my children.  I’m a human having a human experience.  But here’s a perspective I’ve adopted on certain things:  I would miss the way my son leaves his dirty socks on the couch if he weren’t around to do that anymore.

My kids aren’t safeguarded against grief.  If my death came tomorrow, my sons would be devastated.  But I trust they would recover and carry forward the lessons and love that has shaped them.

The greatest gift a parent can give their child is not protection from the world, but the confidence to face it without you. And saying the D words: Death, Dying and Dead help too.