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Can Being Too Perfect a Parent Mess Up Your Kids?
Filed under: Opinions, Expert Advice: Tweens, Expert Advice: Teens
Sometimes, we feel like the official parenting motto should be "I just can't win."
Honestly, you let your children take the reins when it comes to deciding what they want to do, and you're a slacker destined to raise hellion teenagers. You try to plan their activities and get involved at their school and suddenly you're labeled helicopter parent.
Now, experts are warning that if you manage to offer up an idyllic upbringing for your kids, that's actually a bad thing, too.
Author and therapist Lori Gottlieb recently stirred up a little parenting controversy when she penned a story for The Atlantic in which she makes the case that providing your kid with too perfect of a childhood could be harmful to them as they hit adulthood.
"None of the experts I interviewed for my article, "How to Land Your Kid in Therapy," advocate going from over-nurturing to under-nurturing, from over-indulgence to hard-line rigidity," Gottlieb writes on the "Today" website. "Lavishing love and affection on your kids is a good thing, along with healthy nurturing, which means supporting but not fixing, being present without being intrusive, and wanting your kids' happiness but knowing they may need to struggle."
Gottlieb tells "Today" she, like many parents, is challenged by how to make her own kid happy.
"It used to be we wanted our kids to be generally content and now they have to be happy at all times in every way," she tells the news show.
Wendy Mogel, author of "The Blessing of a B Minus," tells "Today" parents who rush to their children's aid for every little thing may, in fact, experience a backlash.
"I think of parents these days as kind of good parents gone bad because we are so devoted and so concerned that we see something like a scraped knee or a skinned knee as the end of the planet as we know it," she tells the news show.
This sense of over-protectiveness extends as kids grow, Gottlieb adds.
"And then, when they get older and they don't get into the school play, we're calling the teachers and we're saying, 'well, can't you find a part for my kid,' " she tells "Today."
Keeping our kids from ever knowing the feeling of rejection or not keeping score during a soccer game so they don't feel the sting of a loss can actually be harmful, the experts say.
"It is causing problems because it's almost as though when they're young we say 'Look at you! You breathed in, then you breathed out!' When they win a Nobel Prize or an Academy Award it's a come-down from childhood," Mogel tells "Today."
So, what's a parent to do?
"If you want your kids to be resilient and function in day-to-day life, they need to experience some challenge, some struggle and some disappointment along the way," Gottlieb tells "Today."
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 4)
6-20-2011 @ 1:46PM
Melanie said...I think parents should ignore ALL the "experts", follow their own gut reactions and a child's lead and just do the best they can and let the rest of it go.
Reply
6-20-2011 @ 4:21PM
Marlene said...When one says a parent should just follow a child's lead, I suspect this person was or is still being coddled. The longer one lives the more they should know; thus an adult knows more than a child. I believe one should explain what can happen if the child does this or that and if they want to continue let them learn by experience. There is an old say, "Experience is the best teacher"
6-23-2011 @ 3:05PM
pam said...I buy almost everything except food and clothing from online auctions.Most people aren't aware of the almost unbelievable deals that they can get from online auction sites.
The site that has the best deals is hTtp://bit.ly/justsaved and I checked with the Better Business Bureau and was told that it is all legit.
How they can sell gift cards, laptops, cameras, and all kinds of goodies that we all want for 50-90% off, I don't know. I do know that I bought my son an iPad there for less than $100 and my husband a $250 Loews gift cards for $48. Why would I even think about shopping anyplace else?
6-20-2011 @ 4:07PM
Mary said...Here, here. Who are the "experts" anyway? Who exactly have they raised and what was their result?
6-20-2011 @ 2:06PM
J said...I so agree with this expert! I am a teacher. I have parents calling about the littlest things. If they would just take a deep breath and back off, their kids would be fine. Instead, we have twelve-year-old boys crying when things don't go their way cuz mommy and daddy always stepped in and fixed things for them. Let them fail now so that they know how to handle it later!!
Reply
6-20-2011 @ 5:17PM
jay said...I could not agree more!!! I'm also a teacher and I see the same thing. Real success almost has no meaning now because "everyone is a winner". How can you take pride in excelling at something when everyone gets treated the same. And why would any kid try to do better if they get rewarded even when they do poorly at something. Also, these kids are growing up with absolutely NO coping skills when it comes to let-downs and disappointments. Children NEED to fail sometimes. If they can't handle small failures as children, how on earth will they ever deal with the big things that happen in life as they get older?
6-20-2011 @ 9:19PM
Marlene said...You stated you were a teacher and you speak as you do. No wonder the children do not know proper English any more
6-20-2011 @ 9:12PM
olgalex1 said...I am not a teacher, but totally agree with you both. If parents do everything for their kids,so they never get disappointed with anything, when the are adults they kill themselves and others because they had their parents to fix for them everything, how they learn how to handle this life full of disappointments?? will you be always there for your kid to fix everything??
6-20-2011 @ 9:54PM
J said...Marlene, seriously? Because I used "cuz", I am the reason that children don't know proper English any more? And by the way, you forgot the period at the end of your sentence. My influence is amazing! :-)
6-22-2011 @ 10:39AM
overprotected said...YAY!!! NOW MY MOM WILL BACK OWN AND LET ME LIVE AFTER SHE READS THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHOO HOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
Reply
6-20-2011 @ 2:32PM
Jlea said...Blah, what a bunch of baloney. I let my kids fail, and when they cried about it, I told them this is how we learn, they had to go to work for the stuff they wanted, and still they act like adult children. There's this nothing-bad-should-ever-happen-to-me attitude, then they sink into a deep depression, and the docs come running with the prescription pad. I have to wonder when it's going to dawn on them that life wasn't created just for them to enjoy. I was raised to accept there are hard times in everyone's life. Seems my kids learned somewhere else that the world is theirs for the taking. Hey, good luck with that.
Reply
6-20-2011 @ 7:43PM
Shadzii said...^^ this
There are no words to describe the correctness of this statement. Thank you Jlea for stating pretty much what I was gonna say.
6-20-2011 @ 2:34PM
ourmanoliver said...WOW! Ive been saying this for over 20 year. I've had close friends who were coddled growing up, and some who were on the other extreme of neglect.
There is a happy medium. Coddled kid become self loathing wimps who live off their parents til death. And over neglected kids tend to become sociopaths.
Somewhere in between, not 1 extreme or another. In the real world you win some, you lose some. Next.
Reply
6-20-2011 @ 2:59PM
Carl Shelton said...I have come to the conclusion that no matter whether you raise your children to believe that you are the All-Seeing God-Parent, or that you are a sin-filled, fallible Human-Parent, that your children will ALWAYS think of you as the PERFECT PARENT!
My father raised us kids to believe that he was the all-knowing, all-wise, God-parent. Did he do it on purpose? i don't know. I just know that that is what we all thought, and that he actually vocally took pride in it at times. So as I grew older I vowed that I would NEVER do that to our kids. Our kids would KNOW that Bob and I are most definitely IMPERFECT, full of sin, full of weakness, and that one of the reasons Heavenly Father places the human in a family setting, is so that we can live together, come to know each other's weaknesses, forgive each other, over come our weaknesses AND OTHERS' weaknesses, and just "hold hands and love each other anyway"!
So, that is exactly what we did. We taught our kids - practically every time we screwed up: "see? we mess up too. we make mistakes too.... NO ONE IS PERFECT!... so you should never listen to satan's discouraging thoughts he tries to put in your head that you just can't match up, and you might as well give up, because you'll never be perfect. Of COURSE you'll never be perfect! NONE of us are!"
We have taught all three of our kids this since the day they were born. I have taught them that especially - because it took me decades before I came to fully understand the power of the Atonement - and how the Atonement can apply in our lives. I still don't comprehend it 100%, but I do enough to know that there is no sin that is too big that the Atonement won't cover.
Well... evidently it doesn't matter that we taught them that. Our oldest daughter has recently run away from home and she is fully convinced that she can never be as perfect as her parents are - specifically as perfect as her mother is. Somehow she got it into her head that she is past hope, that the Atonement will cover everyone else on earth except her, and that somehow WE expect her to be perfect!!!
Reply
6-20-2011 @ 2:49PM
george said...IF A CHID IS BAD SPANK HIM IF A CHILD IS GOOD REWARD HIM THE "OLD ADAGE SPARE THE ROD AND SPOIL THE CHILD" IS TRUE TODAY AS IT WAS YESTERDAY
WHEN WE WERE BAD MY FATHER SPANKED US WHEN WE WERE GOOD HE REWARDED US ....THERE ARE SIX SIBLINGS
2 Doctors 1 Engineer 1 Retail Store owner and 2 retired workers AN I EMPHASIZE WORKERS NONE OF SIX TURNED OUT BAD
Reply
6-20-2011 @ 3:14PM
anni said...Sorry George, you can raise great kids without hitting them. I have two. My Grandparents had 5. My Mom and Dad spanked all the time. After a while, you didn't even care why, it was all about the spanking and being humiliated and hate. I raised my children quite stern but never felt the need to hit them.
6-20-2011 @ 4:45PM
Leslie said...AMEN, George!!!! Let's get back to the basics!!! :)
6-24-2011 @ 9:24PM
Lorie said...There we go with the extreems again.
6-20-2011 @ 2:50PM
Lily said...It's unrealistic for children to expect happiness all of the time. It's not true life & it never will be. Reality is not a fairy tale. If they are raised in a manufactured bubble of parental protection & perfection, they will be destined for disappointment in adulthood. Let's be honest with our kids, for God's sake.
Reply
6-20-2011 @ 3:01PM
Carl Shelton said...I have come to the conclusion that no matter whether you raise your
children to believe that you are the All-Seeing God-Parent, or that
you are a sin-filled, fallible Human-Parent, that your children will
ALWAYS think of you as the PERFECT PARENT!
My father raised us kids to believe that he was the all-knowing,
all-wise, God-parent. Did he do it on purpose? i don't know. I just
know that that is what we all thought, and that he actually vocally
took pride in it at times. So as I grew older I vowed that I would
NEVER do that to our kids. Our kids would KNOW that Bob and I are
most definitely IMPERFECT, full of sin, full of weakness, and that one
of the reasons Heavenly Father places the human in a family setting,
is so that we can live together, come to know each other's weaknesses,
forgive each other, over come our weaknesses AND OTHERS' weaknesses,
and just "hold hands and love each other anyway"!
So, that is exactly what we did. We taught our kids - practically
every time we screwed up: "see? we mess up too. we make mistakes
too.... NO ONE IS PERFECT!... so you should never listen to satan's
discouraging thoughts he tries to put in your head that you just can't
match up, and you might as well give up, because you'll never be
perfect. Of COURSE you'll never be perfect! NONE of us are!"
We have taught all three of our kids this since the day they were
born. I have taught them that especially - because it took me decades
before I came to fully understand the power of the Atonement - and how
the Atonement can apply in our lives. I still don't comprehend it
100%, but I do enough to know that there is no sin that is too big
that the Atonement won't cover.
Well... evidently it doesn't matter that we taught them that. Our
oldest daughter has recently run away from home and she is fully
convinced that she can never be as perfect as her parents are -
specifically as perfect as her mother is. Somehow she got it into her
head that she is past hope, that the Atonement will cover everyone
else on earth except her, and that somehow WE expect her to be
perfect!!!
Reply