Raising brave kids. Overparenting may harm children in the long run

Overparenting may harm children in the long run

No one likes to fail, especially not a middle schooler who’s adjusting to a brand new world of fun and friends, lockers and changing classrooms, complicated cliques and an exhilarating bit of independence. Life isn’t easy. Along with acne breakouts and fashion faux pas, there are going to be gym uniforms left at home, grades lower than a C and disagreements with class project participants. How a child — and the parents — handle these situations can be a predictor of what kind of a person the student will grow up to be.

Overparenting used to mean things like the mom who wrote her son’s history paper or the dad who built his daughter’s science project. Today’s teachers can give even more zealous examples in which parents refuse to believe their child is ever at fault and that any mistake is someone else’s. Simply put, these parents want to protect their child from experiencing failure.

Overparenting has the potential to ruin a child’s confidence and undermine an education in independence, said Jessica Lahey, New York Times columnist of “The Parent-Teacher Conference.”

A teacher for about 14 years, Lahey wrote an article in The Atlantic about why parents should allow their children to fail. Her book, “The Gift of Failure,” was publish in 2015.

“Parents have been overparenting for a while now, but America seems to have reached a saturation point,” Lahey said. “We are seeing the results of overparenting as kids move (or try to move) into the workforce and are unprepared and unable to cope with criticism or anything other than positive, supportive feedback.

“Some call it helicopter parenting, some call it snowplow parenting, but all of is implies that we are not preparing our kids to deal with the world on its terms. By protecting our kids from small failures — struggles, hardship or even the smallest disappointments — we are setting them up for big failures in their adult lives.”

Help kids learn by doing

It’s become common for parents to solve all of their children’s problems for them without asking their children to advocate for themselves.

“I have always taught my students to stand up for themselves, and learn how to talk to adults in order to ensure they get what they need from people, but when parents run interference when students are upset over grades, the difficulty of an assignment or an interpersonal issue, kids never learn to deal with these things themselves,” Lahey said.

Middle school is a time to broaden a child’s horizon, and that includes both positive and negative experiences.

“Middle school is a great time to experience small failures and upsets because the stakes are still relatively low. If a child cheats on a test in middle school, the consequences are a zero, maybe a day of suspension. If an adult cheats on an academic paper, it can mean the end of a career. Allowing kids to experience consequences and own up to their own failures will save them so much struggle later on,” Lahey said.

A disservice

While parents think they’re helping or protecting their child, they’re actually doing them a great disservice.

“This type of parenting absolutely impedes children’s emotional growth and learning,” Lahey said. “The most successful educational moments I’ve seen involve parents who trust teachers or administrators to hold children accountable for their actions rather than saving kids from consequences. The biggest disasters I’ve seen have resulted from parents who chose to shield their children from growth experiences, often to the detriment of their school relationships. Teachers and parents need to work as a team, and when parents and teachers are adversaries, kids can’t possibly learn from teachers.”

How to overcome overparenting

Lahey offers these tips to help parents overcome overparenting:

 Stop telling your kids how smart and talented they are.

 Start praising them for how hard they work and how long they stick with challenging tasks.

 Encourage them to take on the scary risk of pushing themselves to think one level higher than their teachers ask of them.

“When we tell kids they are smart or talented, they become afraid. They won’t risk messing with that label, and the easiest way to make sure their parents still believe they are smart or talented is to never fail and never take any risks,” Lahey said.

“We need to start raising intellectually and emotionally brave kids.”