Ray Hunt is a famous horse trainer. I am not familiar with his work, but apparently he is *the* guy in his field. I think he is also a giant Republican campaign contributor and oil baron, and may be just as famous for that. I have heard that he has a famous quote that is really applicable to raising kids, as well as training horses. It goes something like this:

“Do as much as is needed, but as little as is required.”

I found these quotes from Ray Hunt, but it does not include the one I am looking for. But it seems that many of his quotes are applicable to parenting as well:

“Make the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy”
“I can fix it so it’ll work, but I can’t make it work”.
“If you are going to teach a horse something and have a good relationship, you don’t make him learn it - you let him learn it.”

“Do as much as is needed, but as little as is required.”

This is my new motto for raising Pookie. He needs some support, but not as much as you might think. He needs to grow on his own. Everyday he accomplishes something new, but there are still opportunities to help him. But ultimately, we need to teach him how to live without us, as painful as that is to me! Giving him too little support is a bad thing…but so is giving him too much. As soon as I figure out the true quote, I might make myself a pretty little sign to hang in my kitchen, as a reminder.