Of course, I'm not implying that you should accept all of your child's behavior. What's appropriate is the middle ground between managing every little thing and total lack of supervision. Depending on their parents' behavior and their own sensitivity, many kids feel overly monitored, evaluated, and critiqued. Their antennae are almost always out anticipating evaluation. The longer their antenna are, the more likely they are to overreact, misinterpret, and display their defensiveness as they mind-read.
Some parents do have a high frequency of intervention.
These usually well-meaning parents are trying either to socialize their kids or to prevent any problem from arising. This defensiveness begets further evaluation and renewed efforts to get through to the child. The intervention frequency and defensiveness escalate, cycling to nonresolution. It's more important to make an effort to change simultaneously in a teamwork fashion. Breaking the Defensiveness Cycle I don't have to tell you that it doesn't work well to tell a child to just quit being defensive.