What's the difference between empowering my kids and enabling them?

Kris Kluver, in The Dysfunctional Family Office, calls this Empowerment vs Enablement. Empowerment means giving your kids the education, the resources, the clarity, and the support to build a meaningful life. They get to choose their direction. They get to fail and learn. The landing is softer than yours was, but it's still a landing. Enablement means removing every obstacle in their path. The result isn't safety. It's codependence, weakened resilience, and a shrinking capacity to dream. The Founder's Mandate is the founder saying, I want to give you a head start, not an entitlement. Most founders confuse the two and discover too late which one they actually built. The difference often comes down to whether the kid can fall, which is uncomfortable for the parent, not the kid.