The Dangers of Over Parenting
By Carl Pickhardt
It’s a risk parents run particularly with a first child, an only child, a last child at home, a child in crisis, or a child with special needs: becoming so absorbed in, preoccupied by, and invested in that single child that they over parent to formative effect.
What is Over-Parenting?
Over parenting occurs when parents carry some concern or care-taking behavior to such an extreme degree that the child reacts with an extremely troublesome response. For example: parents who treat their child as especially fragile may raise a child who is unduly risk-averse. What’s called for in this case, of course, is for parents to moderate their absorption and preoccupation so that the child learns to remain responsibly aware of her condition, but not so frightened by it that fear prevents safe and normal growth.
Common Examples of Over Parenting:
· In response to over solicitous parents, a child can become extremely sensitive and easily upset. “I get treated so carefully by my parents that I get easily hurt when not treated with that degree of consideration by other people.”
· In response to over critical parents, a child can become extremely judgmental and self-critical. “I can never do well enough to satisfy my parents, am really hard on myself and other people say that I am too hard on them.”
· In response to over giving parents who keep setting their own self-interest aside for their son’s or daughter’s sake, a child can become extremely exploitive: “I expect other people to do more for me than I should do for them.”
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