Iqra Rasheed Sial;
“Wrapping our children up in cotton wool isn’t doing them any favors” Bringing a person into the world, teaching them wrong from right, and equipping them with the skills to live a happy life make parenting an extremely challenging and daunting job. Why is it that our generation of parents is totally obsessed and overprotective of our children? We put so much pressure on ourselves to be perfect parents we angst over how we talk to them, blame ourselves for their behavior, get upset if we shout.
But all this mollycoddling could be doing more harm than good. We need to stop being so hard on ourselves. While we’re busy protecting our precious ones from any negative experience, we forget they need to learn some harsh realities along the way. It means staying very close, rarely out of reach, paying extremely close attention to your child and rushing over to prevent any harm, physically and psychologically, to the point of enmeshment. This is where personal boundaries are diffused, sub-systems undifferentiated and over-concern leads to a loss of autonomous development.However, if most parents read this they will likely say, phew that is not me. So, let’s look at a few examples: 1: You prevent your child from exploring and stretching his abilities (e.g. your child climbs a tree (or anything), you run over and tell them to not do that). 2: You monitor and control their homework, providing disproportionate assistance for homework and school projects. 3: You shield them from failure, if they fail then you pull your weight to change that. 4: You do for your child what he/she can actually do for herself. 5: You influence your child to work as per your ambitions. 6: You negotiate your child’s conflicts. 7: In toddlerhood, you might constantly shadow your child, always playing with and directing his behavior, allowing them no alone time. 8: In elementary school, you ensure your child has a certain teacher or coach, selecting the child’s friends and activities. 9: You hold the responsibility for all your child’s house chores. 10: You don’t allow them to tackle their problems. 11: You don’t allow them to make age appropriate choices. Causal Factors : Parental anxiety, Parental Regret, Gender and Culture are causal factors of such type of parenting. It’s natural for parents to do whatever they can to keep their children safe and healthy, but children need space to learn and grow on their own, without Mom or Dad hovering over them, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association. The study, published in the journal Developmental Psychology, found that overcontrolling parenting can negatively affect a child’s ability to manage his or her emotions and behavior such as: Leads to dependence on parents: Helicopter parents do so much for their kids that it can make their kids dependent upon them. If a mother calls her 19-year-old to wake them up each morning to ensure they get to class on time, they won’t learn how to do this for them self.
Parents should be helping kids learn how to survive without them. Hinders kids from learning to advocate for themselves: parents usually advocate for their children, rather than teaching their children to advocate for themselves. It’s important for kids to be able to ask questions, gain clarification, and speak up when they need something. In the workforce, these kids won’t have Mom or Dad available to help them deal with a mean boss or challenging policy at the office. Poor self-regulation: Low self-efficacy, lack of trust among peers, and alienation from peers were associated with helicopter parenting.Undeveloped coping skills: If the parent is always there to clean up a child’s mess—or prevent the problem in the first place how does the child ever learn to cope with loss, disappointment, or failure? Studies have found that helicopter parenting can make children feel less competent in dealing with the stresses of life on their own. Sense of entitlement complex:
When parents involve themselves in their child’s academic, social and athletic lives, children get accustomed to always having their parents to fulfill their needs. This makes them demanding as they feel that it is their right to have what they want. Meanness and aggression:Research shows that kids raised by intrusive helicopter parents tend to be meaner or more hostile towards other kids. This is believed to be a response of extreme parental control. Kids act out and assert their dominance as a way to regain a sense of agency over their lives. As such, they tend to become irritable and less patient when faced with having to relate well with peers.
