Sometimes, with the best of our intentions, parents are overprotective of children. This has a series of consequences for them in their emotional and mental development, which they will drag on into their adulthood. That is why it is convenient to know where the limits are, what are the consequences of overprotect children and how to avoid it. Today we talk about this interesting topic.
Overprotection
There are various reasons behind to overprotect children. It may be that we fear that he will face the problems of the world, a desire for perfectionism, to want to avoid the problems that we had or because we believe that we are making his life easier. This leads many parents to try to anticipate the wants and needs of our children, before they even occur, or to eliminate or solve any problem or inconvenience that appears causing children not to have access to tools to handle themselves. The truth is that with These behaviors are doing more harm than good to our children.
Our job as parents is to love them and give them all our love, so that our children do not have emotional deficiencies. When it comes to the problems that you will have to face in life, unfortunately we cannot avoid all of them or put a bubble in them to protect them from all evils. They will have to face them, so we must give them the necessary tools to do so instead of taking them away. This way you will have a healthy development, you will know how to cope with life and your level of frustration will not be so low.
Consequences of overprotecting children
As we saw before, when trying to minimize the possible problems that children have to face, we deprive them of having skills and tools to be able to solve them by themselves, it prevents them from growing emotionally, they will be more dependent on other people, low self-esteem, low level of frustration, low self-confidence, inability to solve problems ...
Ultimately, it will be a weaker and immature person, influenceable and dependent. With all these consequences, it is to seriously think about what kind of future we want to give our children. One where they can cope well with life, or another where they suffer innumerable misfortunes for not having the necessary tools.
Helicopter parents
Helicopter parents are called those hyperprotective parents who fly over the lives of their children, pending to attend to all your needs and desires. It is a parental style that is very common in the United States, and that is also seen more and more in our country.
Children of helicopter parents have higher levels of anxiety, stress, depression, life dissatisfaction, and a low sense of security and self-efficacy. They feel incapable of taking charge of themselves and not knowing how to make important decisions. With these consequences in mind, it is time to review our educational style. Stop passing on our fears, to make them believe that behind every corner there is a danger lurking around them. To do that is to teach them to live insecure and in fear, believing that the world is hostile from which they must hide.
Se can have a healthier and more educational style of education, and set limits at the same time. It is not necessary to be permissive or inattentive in education for children to acquire these skills. It is having a balance between being a present, loving, caring parent and leave their space for them to develop as independent people that they will be one day. We can, meanwhile, accompany them in the process, without removing the obstacles that arise and instead help them find solutions. There will always be some problem in life, we cannot eliminate them but we can teach them to face them effectively.
Why remember ... today it seems that there are more dangers than before, and it can lead us to overprotect our children. We must find the limits between helping them and inhibiting them in their development. That instead of helping them we are harming them.