Overprotective parenting - How it affects children?

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Parenting is probably the most difficult, most demanding and most thankless job that exists. From the moment of birth, the child becomes the most important thing in our world, although in most cases, the parent will only be one part of child's life. It's natural that parents wants only the best for their family. On the one hand, one needs to offer the child enough attention, love and care, while paying attention to the education and development of its personality through growing up. However, being a parent is not a job we can be ready for, and despite our best intentions, it often happens that we make serious mistakes.

As children grow up, they slowly move toward the moment in their life when they become adults. They advance from complete dependence in the first years of life to a higher degree of independence in teenage years, when they have the mobility and abilities that have developed in the meantime. Parents can be overly protective to children and try to limit degree of their independence. There are many dangers that children may encounter in a growing cycle, such as drugs, alcohol, school violence. Therefore, parents may think they are completely justified in overly protecting their children. However, there are lot of side effects of over-care parenting, which can affect the entire family.

Lack of self-confidence

Overprotective parents send a message to their children that they are not capable of dealing with life's challenges alone. This can lead to a lack of self-confidence. These children can't really succeed in life without the leadership of their parents, or any other person. Or at least they think they can't.

Illusion of control

Some parents firmly believe that they are protecting their children with control, but this is just an illusion of control. Children, especially during the adolescence age, can rebel against such control and break this illusion, leading to serious behavior problems.

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Risk taking

When it comes to teenage years, children will spend most of their time without parents. This freedom can lead to the situation where they must take greater risks than their peers. This happens because these children couldn't develop responsibility for their actions, as they are used to be protected. The teenage years and the inability to take responsibility for their own actions are never good combination.

Lack of self-esteem

Children's self-esteem develops through facing challenges themselves, both successful and unsuccessful, and this can be denied if they are too protected. This happens because child is not allowed to face challenges without parental supervision. A child grows up into a person who doesn't take initiative and runs from responsibilities.

Relationship problems

These children tend to be at the passive end of any relationship in life. Most of them usually lasts really short, as nobody wants to be a babysitter for an adult person. This further leads to the lack of confidence, and they often try to find more dominant partner.

Conclusion

Being a parent means being a friend of your child, but being a friend does not mean being a good parent. A child can't always understand what's best for him, and if we're there to fulfill all his wishes and solve all problems instead of him, we will leave him incapable of being independent. Sometimes it's best to believe in your child, and let him find his own way, through falling down and making mistakes. Its often said that "it's scary out there", but once you overcome your fears, it's exciting and beautiful. Because our job is not to go ahead of them. Our job is to go next to them or behind them.

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Sources:
http://www.najboljamamanasvetu.com/2012/05/10-saveta-za-uspesno-roditeljstvo
http://www.detinjarije.com/ja-svoju-decu-vaspitavam-da-odu-od-mene