Is it really molding? Or is it warping?

The way Savannah’s voice changed the other night, when speaking to me, caught me off gaurd. It changed as soon as she was “free” of my and g-ma’s expectations; because she was going to grandma’s house by herself for the night. She felt individual, not like “one of the kids”, and this changed her attitude. She sounded so much older and confident. Kind of like I heard her sound in the car when singing to High School Musical.
I want her to be able to feel that confident around me all the time. Or at least as much as she can. Sure, there may be times when she'll need babied. There are times when I need to be babied too...BUT, I don't want to feel evaluated, or babied all the time.
Wouldn’t I feel kind of held back or held down if someone I loved were always evaluating my mental growth, and trying to “help me grow” by constantly advising and admonishing me, or worse yet punishing me either with disapproval/disdain, or actual physical punishment when I made a mistake, calling it “doing wrong” even though I already knew what I did was wrong? I’d feel bad for the wrong but that would be quickly overlaid with the emotion of feeling ‘put down’ by the person ‘evaluating’ me…
I see that all the time in my relationship with my kids, but didn’t know how to fix it before, and still find it difficult to break those controlling, mistrusting habits.
I think that what I need to do is:

1. Stop evaluating them.

2. Let them grow at their own pace.

3. Trust that they have the inborn ability to grow and learn by watching.

I didn’t have to interfere AT ALL with their learning to walk and talk, and so many other things. I just stood by, watched it happen, and pick them up when they fell down and hurt themselves…. Hmmmm… sounds awfully familiar. I think that the universe is all spinning together in my life on this one. It sounds just like how I need to be allowed to be my own person without my surrogate parents constantly evaluating me, and letting me know where they think I stand in life, and with God.
I am actually really glad that I am going through all this other stuff because it is really timely to me understanding how to parent my kids by seeing that I am a person who needs my autonomy just like they do!
Giving someone their freedom is scarier and harder than trying to control them.