Are you trying to decide how much you should protect your child and
maybe how much might be too much? Well, I'm Nicholeen Peck
and I am author of multiple books about parenting
and about teaching parents and children self-government.
In this video we're going to be talking about what are the effects of
overprotective parents.
What do overprotective parents do?
There's actually multiple different ways that parents can
over protect their children. Well, one of those things they do is they protect
their child from mistakes. They don't want their child to
make mistakes, to be in any danger.
They protect them sometimes from failure. Sometimes they protect them
even from correction which is actually fairly immoral just so you know.
So, when parents understand their role and their authority as the parent, they
know that one of their duties is to correct their children and
teach their children how to accept correction. Which means that the child is
going to learn they won't always do everything right. So, that's one of the
effects of overprotective parenting, is that a child
thinks they always do everything right. They're protected from any kind of
failure. They're protected from ever
feeling like it's okay to make a mistake. That's vital for the success of a person.
People do not accomplish great things in life without making lots of
mistakes along the way. So, if your child isn't okay with making
mistakes and doesn't see mistakes as a healthy
part of life then your child could potentially become
one of those people that just never steps out of their
comfort zone. And what happens when that child
does get correction? A child that has been
over protected and not corrected very often
can't take correction. So, if they get a job
and somebody doesn't like their performance in the workplace,
they feel offended. They might even want to quit
and walk out and tell everybody it's not worth it.
"I deserve more respect." They can't take correction
because they haven't practiced it. Any skill that we develop in our lives
which includes being able to take correction
requires practice. We have to do it again and again for it to seem like it's safe
okay productive and healthy. Children who are
overprotective don't learn cause and effect very well.
Cause and effect is a vital lesson to help a person learn good problem
solving and to help them master themselves and their own behaviors.
But when a parent is constantly stopping anything
bad from happening to their child or stopping a child's
emotional reaction before it even starts, then the child has nothing to conquer.
They never see the other side of something that didn't work
out. That's dangerous. Because there's many things in life that don't work out.
And a person never feels fully confident and empowered
unless they understand cause and effect and know how to point their lives in a
direction to get the effects that they want. If
they don't understand cause and effect and someone has always had
control over the things that are happening to them,
then they will feel like it's always somebody else's job
to control what is happening in their life
and to control their successes. Which also means that if something goes wrong
in their lives, they won't take responsibility. Instead
they'll blame. Blame the government, blame their church,
blame their parents, blame their friends, blame their boss.
They'll just blame. Because they don't want to see
the truth which is inherent in understanding cause of effect. So, if
parents over protect their children, the children are not good at problem
solving. There are so many things that we need
the opportunity to figure out. Have you ever seen a child try to build
a fort without any help? So, they've got things
out there. Books, blankets, toys, chairs
and they're trying to figure out how to make this little blanket fort stand.
They put it up, they get under. It falls. They come out, they look at it.Tthey try
to do something else they put more books on it
so it doesn't fall. They put something in the middle. All of a sudden,
they are in this process of solving this problem of
how to make a blanket for it. And that's because
they've gotten the opportunity to see it fail. Good problem solving requires
failure. So, parents must allow their children to
fail where it is appropriate. Sometimes we do
have to say that's a risk we can't take right now. That's a failure that would
not be okay because it would damage maybe the life
or health of the child. But most things we can take a risk on
and allow them to learn from. Many children who reach adulthood who have
been raised by parents who over protect lack confidence.
They're afraid to take steps forward. In fact, they
always want to be in the shelter of somebody else who's going to care for
them. We have many people who are reaching
adulthood now who are afraid to have families, who are afraid of
homeownership, who are afraid of fill in the blank.
And that's because there have been a generation of people
who not all but many have been overprotected
by their parents. When a person is over protected,
then they don't get the opportunity to learn all the vital adult skills
that they need for success. And when you learn adult skills,
that builds confidence. So, what are some of the adult skills
that a person needs? They need to know how to have a good relationship. They
need to know how to communicate effectively. They need to know how to fix
problems with basic things like appliances in their home, their cars.
They need to know how to care for property and a yard,
how to grow things, how to cook things, how to sow things, how to chop
things. All my boys learned to cook and sew. And all my girls
learn how to set up tents and chop wood. Everybody in my family learns all the
skills. Because those are the types of skills
that are going to give them confidence for their entire lives. My children
because we've always grown food and canned food and dried it
and frozen it and we've cooked from our home so much
and cooked from our garden so much, they will never
have to worry about starving. They'll never have to worry about, "Well, what if
the store doesn't have what we need?" Because they
know how to take a seed grow it into a crop and turn it
into something that they can save to last them for a whole year. That's
adult skills. And that's confidence and peace of mind
that they need. Since youth who have overprotective
parents are often more entitled, then what we see
a lot of the times is they're not willing to serve other people
as readily. So, when there's an opportunity for service, they back off
and wait for other people to volunteer first.
They think of themselves oftentimes before they think of
others. Why? Because their parents thought of them
before everything else. Now, I know we love our children
so much but we can't have the world revolve around
them and their safety all the time. Our children
benefit when they have to share our attention with other people
and even sometimes other things. This helps them see you serving other
people. Maybe their siblings, siblings are great
at teaching children how to serve. I always hope that people get the
opportunity to have a sibling because they have to share all the
attention all the stuff. And they have to learn how to get along.
It's really good training for them. So, parents
what you need to do is show your children that you serve other people
besides them. That's going to help them learn that
they need to be able to serve other people as well. If you protect your
children from any work or hardship which often is included
in service then your children won't have that servant's heart
which can help them make a positive impact on the world.
If you've loved this video about over protecting children
and overprotective parents then you will love my next video
which is How Do Parenting Styles Significantly
Impact a Child's Temperament? Because they do. Click that button now.