Overprotecting Children: Why it Does More Harm Than Good Every parent wants to protect their child from getting hurt, whether it’s scraping a knee or losing their best friend. As parents, it’s your job to watch your child grow, learn and make mistakes. Children must make their own mistakes in order to learn from them; if they don’t do this, they won’t be able to tell right from wrong when they become adults and take on the world without the guidance of their parents. Protecting your child is good, but some parents may be a bit overprotective and shelter their child a little too much. Is it possible that overprotecting children is doing more harm than good? Dr. Sylvia B. Rimm says that children today are requiring more protection than children in prior generations. If you think about it, today’s parents …show more content…
have plenty to worry about when it comes to protecting their child from violence, stranger danger, explicit language, and family abuse. However, Dr. Rimm also says that protection without overprotection is a delicate balance. Parents do need to warn and protect their children from the dangers of the world, but too much overprotection causes its own problems (2010). There are certain factors that play a role in which children are more commonly overprotected. Birth order plays a role in overprotection; the youngest child of the family tends to get excessive protection by parents and older siblings. Some children who tend to be protected too much are those who are temperamentally more fearful and those who are handicapped (Rimm 2010). If you pay attention to other children, you can often see that those who are bullied or picked on also tend to be pulled out of these types of situations by parents to avoid emotionally scarring the child or hurting their self-concept. There are many signs that can be seen in both children and adults that show that there is overprotection in the relationship. Overprotective parents tend to immediately take over or shut out a situation if their child is in distress, feel the need to be liked as their child’s friend rather than as a parent, blame others for their child’s problems, give in to their child’s every demand, and hover around their child. They also will do anything to ensure that their child doesn’t experience sadness, anger, disappointment, or any other difficult emotions (Vivo 2010). Some of the early signs of an overprotected child include: sensitivity, kindness, and overall good kids. However, if the child continues to be protected to an extreme extent, the child may become oversensitive, get hurt feelings, become the victim of bullies, and may give up easily. They become a follower, may become anxious, and have little to no confidence in themselves. As these overprotected children grow older, they tend to rebel and go to extreme measures to show that they can be independent, rather than having their parents tell them what to do (Rimm 2010). These are a few of the reasons that you shouldn’t smother your child with protection from the real world. The world isn’t all sunshine and happiness, and in order for your child to grow they must learn this on their own. There are many different psychological effects of children of overprotective and strict parents. According to the Anxiety Support Network, one of the major causes of social anxiety is overprotective parents who try to over control their children’s lives. It stunts a person’s individual growth and development and doesn’t allow him/her to appropriately deal with emotions such as fear, sadness, and hurt. This network defines an overprotective parent as “one who never seems to let his or her child do anything, and if he or she is allowed to do something, it is only done with careful supervision from that parent and also a large amount of unnecessary rules” (“Causes of Anxiety” 2011). This Anxiety Support Network gives a great example of a comparison between a protective parent and an overprotective parent and how it negatively affects the child, causing the him or her to have social anxiety later on. People in general become anxious when they are trying new things, so if you force a child to wait to do an average activity until they are older, their anxiety will be skyrocketed when compared to a peer’s. Imagine if a parent didn’t let his or her child go on a merry-go-round until they were seven years old. Since most children would’ve ridden on a merry-go-round many times by this age, the child will find his/herself standing in line next to younger children, while he/she is shaking with fear and anxiety. The parent was trying to do what they thought was best for the child, but not letting your child get hurt is a bad thing for parents to do. The child’s anxiety will build because they cannot deal with many life situations or get back on their own feet after any kind of setback (“Causes of Anxiety” 2011). Parents have good intentions when it comes to protecting their children from the harms of everyday life, but how are these children supposed to deal with these same situations when they become an adult? The answer is that they won’t be able to successfully deal with them, which will cause them anxiety and other psychological disorders. Children need to learn from mistakes and from their own hurt. They need to live their own experiences, but this doesn’t mean that parents shouldn’t protect their children at all because that wouldn’t be good for the child either. These are a few more reasons why children need to have the guidance of parents, without having the parents tell them step-by-step what decision to make and how to make it. One of your goals as a parent should be to help your child succeed in their future, even after they have grown up and became the man or woman you raised them to be. There are many ways that you can avoid overprotecting your child so they don’t have to deal with these psychological problems later on.
According to Amanda Morin, one way to ensure that you don’t overprotect your child is to not fear first. Whether it’s your child taking his or her first steps or going on his or her first date, they’re always going to be trying new things, so you might as well get used to this early instead of holding your child back because of your own fears. Another one that many parents do is set their own rules or guidelines to ensure that they don’t do everything for their child, but that their child does certain things on their own. Another huge way to avoid over-sheltering your child is to simply let your child make their own mistakes. It may be hard for you to watch them make mistakes, but how else are they going to learn? Everybody makes mistakes, but he important thing is that we learn from them. Instead of keeping your child from trying new things where they could fail or make mistakes, take a step back and let them do it. This will help your child become stronger and more independent, allowing them to learn necessary life skills
(2014). Other ways to avoid overprotection are by increasing freedom with maturity, teaching problem solving skills, and permitting the child to go on adventures. Take a look at your child’s maturity, and base the amount of freedom they get off of that. Many parents make the mistakes of either not giving their child any freedom or basing their child’s freedom off of age. Freedom should be based off each individual child’s maturity and responsibility. You should also teach your child problem solving skills. Rather than telling a child the solution to a problem, help them figure out how to solve it on their own. Believe in their ability to solve problems and praise them for their good thinking. You should allow your child to go on adventures. This will allow them to have fun and try new things, while there are still reasonable precautions. These adventures encourage the child’s initiative, resilience, motivation, and independence that will help your child to be ab strong and responsible adult (Rimm 2010). As a parent, it is your responsibility to protect and guide your child at least until they become an adult and can tackle the world on their own. Therefore, you probably want to protect your child from anything that could cause them any kind of pain. However, if they don’t learn what pain, fear, and sadness are early in their lives, it will cause even more issues later on. In order to positively protect your child without cause issues later on, you have to find that balance between protection and overprotection. Your child will thank you later on for not taking away the lessons they’ve learned and that have shaped them into the responsible and independent adult they have become.
Moreover, I think taking risks in the lives has a lot of benefits for development or education. We need to give responsibility to our child because they are taking risk and assuming responsibility which often goes hand in hand for example “giving a child her first pocket knife at, say age 9 not only gives her the advantage of experiencing a little risk play with a sharp object. It signals that she’s responsible for keeping herself and others safer”. Michael Ungal 28.
Coben states, “…overprotective parents fight their kids’ battles on the playground, berate coaches about playing time and fill out college applications…” (19). This is a weak argument because it inadvertently suggests that overprotectiveness
Parents do not want to disappoint their children, so instead of saying “no” they say “of course honey”. These children grow up unaware of the concept that they can and will be denied something in their future. When the time comes they don’t know how to take it because they lived their whole life getting everything they wanted. Children also grow up without the understanding of how to properly process pain and discomfort. Gottlieb interviewed a teacher and she said that if a child fell on the playground, adults had to rush over to aid the child before he or she had enough time to process what happened. The teacher did not point this out because she thought that parents should ignore their children, instead they should let their children process what happened and how to deal with it independently. When parents make a huge scene, their children think something serious has happened and panic. Gottlieb believes parents should give their children room to deal with a situation without intervening until it is
Tina Fey says “Guide her and protect her … at any age” (239), when she is discussing a wish that she has for her daughter. Yes, most mothers want their daughters to be safe at all times, but they have to trust that the little girl has grown up into a woman who knows how to stay safe on her own. Once a child reaches adulthood, it is only in her best interest that the parent should not hold her back from doing what she wants, as long as her intentions are good. If a mom tries to hold a daughter back, the mom will be the reason that she did not reach her full potential of life. For example, if a daughter’s passion is rock climbing, very possible, but her mother is too scared to let her daughter adventure out of the safe zone her daughter will never truly know if she would have been good or not. Once a woman is able to make intelligent choices about life, she should no longer rely on her mother to make decisions for her, but to only rely on her for advice. When a woman begins to make her own choices, which will be the start of her making her own path to
An outline of current legislation, guidelines, policies and procedures within own UK Home Nation (England), affecting the safeguarding of children and young people.
Many individuals are taking the process of process of parental licensing into their own hands, despite their contributions being made up in mind only, however, it is thought that counts. One respective person believes that a restriction on having children should begin at the earliest stage of one’s life: birth. As soon as a child is born, doctors should “go in and turn off their spickets” (McRedmond). In the later stages of life, this would prevent several cases of teen pregnancies, seeing as though it would be an impossibility for women to get pregnant. Then, when a women eventually becomes ready enough to think about having children, they should go through a testing process, perhaps similar to Sherman’s ideas of interviews, writing, and demonstrations of capability. If they pass, they “get their spickets turned
When Amy Chua, a professor at Yale, wrote her personal memoir in 2011 called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, controversy arose regarding the topic of an extreme parenting type called a “Tiger Mom” (Tiger Mom). When The Wall Street Journal posted an excerpt from Chua’s book on their website, it received over 7,000 comments both positive and negative including death threats (Extreme Parenting). In her book, Chua describes is forcing her 7-year old daughter to stay up all night without bathroom or drink breaks until she was able to play a certain piano piece (Extreme Parenting). Her daughter rebels, drops violin, and takes up tennis (Luscombe). Extreme parents exert great pressure on their child to meet expectations, and if they are not met, the child may be punished (Hatter). The MacMillan Dictionary defines a tiger mom as “a very strict mother who makes her children work particularly hard and restricts their free time so they continually achieve the highest grades,” (Tiger Mother).
Safeguarding is a term which is broader than ‘child protection’ and relates to the action taken to promote the welfare of children and protect them from harm. Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility. Safeguarding is defined in Working together to safeguard children 2013 as:
In modern Western countries, adults take the responsibility of managing children’ behaviours, activities and the environment as protecting children from significant injuries. Also, parents are likely to pay more attention to protect their children from external injuries such as traffic accidents, stranger’s dangerous, personal accidents and other factors (Wyver et al., 2010, p.264). Under these kinds of protections, children lose many opportunities for free play and lead to the increase of childhood obesity as well as inactivity health issues (Wyver et al., 2010, p. 263). Beside the protection from parents, the features in the childhood environment are less risky for children to play with. For example, some Western countries such as the United Kingdom uses the rubber playground to reduce the rates of children injuries (Wyver et al., 2010, p. 265). The surplus safety from both parents and environment minimises children’s chances and experiences of encountering risks. In some way, the surplus safety infringes children’s right of play and silences their voices on their lives. Wyver et al. (2010, p. 263) argue that the surplus safety is negative to children from both legitimate anger and child development anger. Surplus safety may not substantially build the child-friendly
According to me every parent wants the best for his or her child. One of the most effective ways to protect your child is to make sure
protection and control parents have over their children. A huge problem that we face in today’s
Parenthood is a huge factor in any child’s life, If you were to ask me, a parent decides who we are without either the child or the adult knowing it. The parent’s role also requires discipline, and this is where things get rough in parenting, as so I’ve been told. When the child is disciplined enough and in the right way, they are willing to pass this wisdom on to their children in the future. But when a child is discipl...
(Kakar 6) This is an excellent point. If parents do not care for their children and show them the ways of life, how could they expect them to know any better, and more importantly, how could they expect them to pass on the knowledge to their own children? Parents, more than anyone, hold the key to shaping the ideals and minds of their children… and until society gets that key fixed, the problems of child abuse will always remains.
Child abuse refers to lack of care or any type of emotional, physical or sexual mistreatment that results in emotional damage or physical injury to a child or a youth. In most countries, children are considered to be anyone below 18 years of age. Child abuse can occur directly by harming a child or indirectly by failing to prevent the child from any form of harm or injury. Child abuse can occur either in the family set up, in the community set up or in an institution such as a school. Also, children can be abused by adults or by other children or by people who know them or people who are complete strangers to them.
Child abuse is a very serious problem that continues to happen all over the world. The Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, defines child abuse as a failure to act as a parent or caregiver which results in physical/emotional harm, sexual abuse, and in some cases death. There are many different types of child abuse such as emotional, physical, neglect, and sexual. With each type of abuse there are warning signs you can spot before it is too late. When a child is abused there is a huge possibility that it can cause them to have many long term effects.