Check out this article my wife just linked me to... It covers a lot of what we've talked about on the board about over/under-parenting, and what's happening when we do "everything" we can to make our children happy...
Overall, I think we're doing pretty good at keeping our girls off the couch, how about you?
Very interesting. I think we are doing an OK job, but ime will tell.
After meeting a friend's unbelievably poorly behaved 8-year old son, if your child isn't physically and verbally abusing the parent(s), and making a complete mockery of everything they try to do to discipline the kid, then you are definitely not the worst parents ever.
lastsnare - It's important to have role models, whether they're positive or negative, eh? :)
When I started reading that article, my kids were quite young. By the time I was finished, they were in college!
I think my 8 month old son has heard "You're okay!" as much as he's had us rush up to comfort him when he falls. And now that he's trying to stand up, he falls all the time.
WonkoTheSane wrote: Overall, I think we're doing pretty good at keeping our girls off the couch, how about you?
take 'em to a shrink if it keeps 'em off the pole.
I didn't make it all the way through (busy day at work) but I read about the first 30%-50%. So far she's pretty much spot on. Kids need to choose wrongly and to lose sometimes.
So far I think I'm doing OK, with 2 daughters (ages 21 and almost 18).
I am already nervous for my kids (4,3 and 2 month old) since I have witnessed the destruction of Internet/cellphones/TV had on my nieces in the last 5 years. Bullying, sexting, whatever goes on these days seems very hazardous to their health. End results were not good. 1 got pregnant at age 16 from a boy that made it his mission to deflower every girl in his school. Not kidding about this kid. 1 got suckered into having sex at age 14 and the boy told everyone that she was "a terrible lay". 1 did sexting plus nude pics at age 13. All the kids in school got pics of it. She was so depressed about the breached of trust it caused severe self esteem issue causing massive weight gain. Their Mom was doing everything she could to parent them but was defeated by the society.
16 year old boys trying to deflower every girl in school - nothing new there. Same with the younger girl, that's not new behavior either.
The DIY nude pics definitely used to be more challenging.
In a similar vein as that article, I have two family members in HR/Personnel careers. They have noted that with many new hires/applicants from the last 10 years there has been a extreme increase in parents of new employees calling them to ask about the hiring decision and in one case my one family member had to have security remove a parent from the workplace when her daughter wasn't chosen for a job. The mother demanded that she be hired and wanted everyone to stop and explain why that couldn't happen. It led to new policies at their work to not allow applicants to know who in HR/Personnel was handling the hiring and passcode locks on the office suite doors.
Tiger Moms, CTFDs, over protective parents, increased injury and death from walking while using smart phones... Crazy times. There is an underlying growth of this generational masking of reality from children and "super support" from parents that is worthy of some study.
You can do a fairly good job and have your kid end up in therapy anyhow. Sometimes nature will trump any nurture you can throw at them.
About a third of the way through the article, she talks about a story of preschoolers fighting over a toy, working it out on their own, and then having a parent come over to "make it fair". These people are why I absolutely hate hate hate to take my kids to the playground or birthday parties or anything. My theory is that unless something is on fire or bone is protruding through skin, the kids just need to figure it out themselves. When my kids do the whole "she took that from me" or "she hit me" or whatever, I want them to work it out themselves. The earlier they learn that people don't always want to share and that some people are just going to be difficult to get along with the better! And if they fall off the swing onto the safety foam, or whatever that stuff is on the ground instead of dirt or mulch or broken glass, there's no need to go running. If they're that hurt, they'll either not get up or they'll come running to me.
But it never fails that I'll be at the park with the kids and I get the stinkeye because my kid falls and I don't get off my bench. Or my kid will say that they're stuck and I'll tell them to try again instead of running up to lift them down. Or we'll be at a birthday party and they'll start doing the "but I had it first" dance over a toy or something and my response is to tell them that they need to work it out on their own.
Not that I think over-parenting isn't a potential problem, but the effect it has can be pretty easily overblown. Especially if you're basing it on anecdotal evidence gathered by a therapist.
The rate at which people seek treatment has a lot to do with people's perceptions of mental illness. It's highly likely that people are just going to therapists at a higher rate than they used to. Used to be, people only went to the shrink for serious E36 M3. My dad has the same anxiety issues I have, but I can't imagine him ever going to a therapist. First time I had a full-blown panic attack, I got myself to a shrink in a week and was busy fixing the problem. I'm OK with seeking treatment, because, well...because I've always been surrounded by people who value my mental health.
If there's one safe assumption you can make, it's that kids today are probably more like kids yesterday than you think. But, of course, saying "things are ok!" doesn't make for clickbait articles and book sales.
If you look at measures of satisfaction, the united states beats the pants off of most countries, especially the ones where parents tend toward the "tough love" side of things....see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisfaction_with_Life_Index
People always think things are getting worse. They're more scared of violence now, even though the world has been getting steadily less violent for hundreds of years. They're more scared of kidnappers getting their kids now, even though kidnappings have gotten less common. They're more worried about teen pregnancy and sex, even though teen pregnancy (and abortion) rates has been in decline.
The amount of worry remains constant even as number of things to worry about declines.
ppddppdd wrote: The amount of worry remains constant even as number of things to worry about declines.
The density of worry is rising!
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