I know Ned was the warm, kind & doting father – the protective Papa Wolf – who would still see his daughters as his little girls. (that attitude extends a little with his sons too, though he is a bit more stricter on them , example his emphasis of Bran witnessing the execution b/c he wouldn’t be a boy forever.) BUT do you think if Ned had taken a stricter approach regarding his children’s prospective marriages, that it could have saved himself & family from all the issues of them being tbc…

unmarried. Ned could have negotiated possible marriages for Robb and Sansa with his bannermen’s heirs? Example, Robb/Wynafryd Manderly or Alys Karstark AND Sansa/SmallJon Umber or Brandon Tallhart? Last time, Starks married South it resulted in the death of 3 of them – why would Ned want to risk that again? Wouldn’t it have more safer to marry his children into the family of people he knew respected & valued him? This reminds me of what Lady Dustin tells Theon about … tbc …

“The Freys may not care for what your master does to her [fArya] but what do you think goes through their minds [Northern lords] when they hear valiant Ned’s little girl’s cry?” I also thought that Ned didn’t like the previous experience of fostering children out so why allow the Southern betrothal for Sansa? If Ned really wanted to spoil Sansa & her dreams of going South a possible fostering in Riverrun or Runestones would have being much preferrable than bringing her to KL, b/c she tbc…

Yikes, folks. These super-long questions are getting a bit tricky to answer. Might I suggest the About page on my WordPress site?

But to get to the substance of your question – Ned’s behavior wrt his kids is a bit strange. I think we have to look at it in context of a man who lost almost his entire family violently and very suddenly – father, brother, sister, possibly his mother, then his only remaining brother takes the black – and who probably had a major problem with the idea of his kids going anywhere. Hence no fostering, no squiring, no nothing.  

We also need to keep in mind that Sansa marrying South was not his idea – it was Robert’s, and Ned had to be talked into saying yes.