Should we or shouldn’t we be?
I remember the days of my youth when I could go off either on my own or with my siblings and roam free without my parents worrying about us. We could go from one neighborhood to the next, and back in the day as a very young child I didn’t live in a Subdivision (in those days it would be what’s that?) however, we lived in close proximity to have a neighborhood of kids that could play and hang out together. Everyone knew everyone’s business and you couldn’t do anything bad because we had “a village” raising us.
Yep, back in the day I could run about the road, stay out late until my curfew and not worry about being kidnapped, a pedophile or any such scary things.
These days every parent (including me) keeps a keen watch on their child (ren) to make sure that nothing evil befalls them.
I read an article written by Kristopher Kaiyala on men.msn.com, he thinks we are spiraling out of control and it’s becoming a worrisome trend. Back in his day as a child he too was able to roam free while still keeping in touch with his parents, being home on time and all that.
He says however, that we are not allowing our children to explore and be a kid and thus not encouraging their healthy development and we need to stop smoothing the way for them. In his article he mentioned another writer, Hara Estrof Marano who did an article for Psychology Today entitled “A Nation of Wimps”, who also said that too many parents are quick to have their children “labeled diseased” just because it might help them in school. I’m sorry to say that I actually know someone who thinks this way!
Marano thinks that parents are not allowing their children to find their own identities because they are always quick to do the problem solving. We have a right to be anxious, and there is nothing wrong with that, but we should not be ‘guilt-ridden’. He also said something interesting; for those people who like to think that it’s because parents are likely to be working-parents these days, it’s their fault, it is not. Well thank you Mr. Marano for saying that! [I went into a tizzy the other day when this discussion came up – my thoughts later].
Some parents just do not allow their children to learn some things on their own. They are always there to rescue the child or to spoon feed them. Sometimes it is difficult to not rescue your children, but we do them a disservice when we do. I have to remind myself sometimes too and take a step back that hey, he/she has to figure this out on their own. So I’ve been trying to do that with my three kids. I guess it’s because you’re there for them from birth and you take them through every stage of their development and you’re the one responsible for how they turn out. You sometimes forget when to let go. You want it to be easier for them because it might have not been easy for you; and knowing how difficult life is you want them to not have a hard time in doing what they have to do.
As far as being over-protective goes, I don’t think we’re being too anxious about that. I believe as parents you have to be. My mom always said ‘prevention is better than the cure’ which in our local dialect translated to ‘being cautious and not letting something happen is better than when it happens and having to find the solution for it’. In other words, why let something bad happen when you can prevent it from happening in the first place!
It’s a scary world out there Mr. Kaiyala, and while I do understand and agree with you that we are becoming too anxious and set in our ways of not letting our kids roam free, I think because of what is happening in our world today, we have to put a leech on them in order to keep them safe. That’s sad but true.
Link