Parenting has never been this challenging as it is now owing to the sky-rocketed magnification of the present-day kids’ realms. As parents or guardians, we move heaven and earth to provide comfort and security to our children but are we going too far to make this world overly comfortable without letting them taste the bluntness of the real world? Are we overparenting our kids?
‘Overparenting’ or ‘helicopter parenting’ is when we become overconcerned for our child’s well-being, when we are not willing to let them experiment with their pursuits or face their fears because we are previously consumed with the anxiety that our child will get hurt or may suffer consequences that he won't be able to bear.
Then other times, there is too much gentleness in our behaviour and we fail to decipher the difference between disciplining and becoming rigid; we are pushing our limits to engage them, to find solutions to their boredom issues, over planning every phase of their life and trying to fit them in those preset benchmarks to convince yourself that they are matching their peers or society standards. Thus, eventually, we end up overparenting to be not crowned as a strict parent.
Out of our apprehension, we try to interfere in the pettiest of things that are not even needed in the name of protection and love. Bit by bit, we began dictating their lives by poking in where they can manage on their own. Feeding a child after a certain age because you are worried that he won't be able to eat properly, helping them take a shower when he or she is capable enough to do it by himself or themselves, or running all the time after them to quench all their needs and wants; are some of the red flags that we are drifting from the road of parenting to overparenting.
Somewhere beneath, the obsession lies that I want to be there for my child even when he is capable of doing stuff well, we coat it and call it love but it is a weed that we are sowing in his way. Of course, it is innately natural for a parent to worry about their child to a certain extent but simultaneously, it is pivotal to understand that the child needs to experience their part of pain, hurt, failure, or loss. To make them independent and valiant, we need to take a back seat sometimes so that they can navigate through their set of issues.
Subsequently, overparenting a child stagnates his learning process, his thinking and processing abilities, and his resilience to tolerate failure and pain. Because he has never experienced a factual life outside a cocooned life, we have created for them. PubMed Central in their research published has shown many negative consequences of overparenting among emerging adult children, such as personality and psychological issues (e.g. entitlement, perfectionism), lack of adequate competencies (e.g. self-regulation, coping skills, friendship, and dating competence), internalising (e.g. anxiety, depression, low life satisfaction) and externalising problems (e.g. substance abuse, social media addictions.
We need to understand that we are here not to take control in our hands; rather hold their hands and guide them along the way, letting them go when they feel confident enough to embark on new aspirations, letting them experience life in their creative ways with the assurance that they have got our back; in case things go wrong. When we perceive that we are not clipping their wings but rather training them to fly in the highest skies through all the storms, parenting meets its true essence.
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
