According to a leading parenting journalist, parents who are overprotective of their children are delaying their development into adults.
Georgina Fuller is asking why parents are becoming so afraid of allowing their children to have freedom when it’s been proven to be of benefit to them.
Naturally, there will always be shifts in parenting styles to match the modern society that we live in, however Fuller believes this overprotective nature stems from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Speaking to Newstalk, she said: “I don’t know if it’s related to the pandemic, most recently.
“I think it’s been a gradual shift from being parents-led, and not having the word ‘parenting’ as a verb at all, and kids just doing what they’re told and ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ as my mum used to say to me in the 80s, to being very, very child centric.
“I don’t know if it’s because we’re having less children or we’re more pressured with both parents working but it’s certainly been a seismic shift from the 80s”.
While you may think being overprotective is a form of good parenting, Georgina went on to say that it isn’t in fact good for children at all and can result in anxiety, depression and other mental health issues.
“I think the problem is that we are seeing – again this is probably partly related to the pandemic – higher rates of anxiety, depression and mental health issues in children which we haven’t seen before,” she explained.
Another reason could be the level of online access for younger generations and the detrimental impact that can have on young people.
“We know that being online is detrimental to their health, and we know that it’s preventing them from being outside and from learning really important social skills and life skills.
“I think, because parents are so overprotective now and because we are somehow in this state of paranoia – this kind of ‘what if’ mentality – what we’re doing is we’re cocooning our children so much that they’re not growing, they’re not developing.”
Speaking about the effects of overprotective parents, Fuller said: “I think we’re actually disenabling our children from developing into adults. I think the fear has eclipsed rational, common sense.”
Children begin to rely on their parents more than they should, which can delay their development in things like problem solving and independence.
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