Can being an overprotective parent stifle a child’s development? As parents, we want our children to be safe and to stay out of harm’s way. But, as with most things, too much of a good thing can reap undesired results.
First and foremost, you can’t protect your children from all bad things, it simply isn’t possible! Sure, we do our best to shelter them from the horrors of our world and keep them from harm’s way, but eventually, our toddlers will fall down, scrape their knees and find some kind of trouble.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – if anything, it helps a child to learn and grow. They discover that their food is too hot, so they learn to wait a minute and to blow on it. They learn that falling down can hurt, so they find a way to be more cautious and steady themselves.
And while our tasks as parents is to shield them from the things that go bump in the night and preserve their innocence for as long as humanly possible, are we hurting them by overdoing our jobs? Let’s delve further.
How Being an Overprotective Parent can Stifle Your Child’s Development
- Children of overprotective parents can be underprepared for situations, environments and social/emotional experiences.
- Children of overprotective parents can form a sort of dependence on their parents and rarely venture out to explore and learn new things.
- There are arguments whereby children of overprotective parents tend to have lower self-esteem and self-confidence of other children their age.
- Though other factors may contribute, some children of overprotective parents end up forming anxiety issues.
- Children of overprotective parents have the tendency of taking too little risk-taking behaviour, or excessive risk-taking behaviour.
- Children of overprotective parents may also be bullied more – this is do to forming dependency on their parents, being passive and not developing the abilities to stand up for themselves to others.
While many overprotective parents are mean well, sometimes the helicopter parenting style (while meant to keep kiddos safe) ends up stifling them even more.
Am I an Overprotective Parent?
There are several signs of being an overprotective parent, and below are a few examples:
- Not letting your child explore and try new things…like monkey bars on the playground or climbing up the jungle gym.
- You do things for your child that they can do for themselves. One example would be feeding them instead of having them feed themselves. Sure, it may make a mess, but messes don’t take long to clean up!
- You rescue them from uncomfortable situations. For example, maybe they are afraid to meet new friends in school and they hide behind you. Instead of allowing them to go through their emotional process, you introduce them to their school mates for them.
- You need to know everything that is going on with your child. You interrogate babysitters, family members or whoever was in proximity of your child while you were away. You may even pop in unannounced at school from time to time just to keep an eye on them.
In summary, we all want the best for our children and we do the best we can as parents. Sometimes though, it’s good to look at our own parental behaviour to determine whether or not we are helping or hindering our children!
About Little Human Scholars School and Full Day Daycare Centre in PJ
Little Human Scholars is an all-in-one childcare solution. It is a preschool, playschool, kindergarten, nursery and full day daycare centre (with extended hours) located in the heart of PJ.
In fact, the location is one of the things which makes Little Human Scholars so sought after – it is conveniently nestled near Jalan Gasing, University hospital, PJ Old town, PJ New town, Jaya One, Jaya33, and the PJ IT Mall.
The best part is LHS has premiere services many other schools in PJ don’t offer such as full day daycare with extended hours, CCTV access for parents, and a nifty little phone app called Toddlytic which provides parents with automatic updates on their child’s development, behaviour and health checks.
With full-time guards always present at each of their locations, access to CCTV (which is in every room except the office, bathroom and kitchen areas), and very strict pick-up and drop-off rules, Little Human Scholars treats every child who walks into its hallways as one of their own children!
This place has it all: location, safety, health, IGSCE curriculum and play-based learning. What more could you ask for? Did I mention they also have transportation services and offer meal plans for students? It doesn’t get any better than that.
If you are interested in a tour of one of our centres (that’s right, there’s more than one), all you need to do is fill out the form here or call +6017-7303-025 and an LHS administrative staff will get back with you shortly!
Cheers,
Jana Moreno[pb_builder]