What Are You Shielding Your Child Against?

“Constant interference from parents deprives the child of the opportunity to explore the world emotionally and physically. This is a must if children are to become confident, responsible and independent adults,” advises Jinisha Chedda, child psychologist, Sol's ARC in Mumbai.

Lynn D'Souza says she gets jittery every time her son climbs onto the jungle gym in the park. She is convinced he would hurt himself. This feature aims at draining out this unreasonable parents’ hysteria.

Parents and their ‘Big Bad World’

Every parent has a preconceived notion that the world in which they have brought their little angel into is the proverbial Big and Bad. So, it is only natural for them to want to defend and protect their children from any conceivable harm that is even remotely possible. But, have you as a parent, ever asked yourself – how long and to what extent can you protect them?

It’s about time that you realized that cuts, bruises, pain, scratches, broken limbs and tears are all an integral part of growing up and why in the world do you wish to snatch away their childhood from them. Let them learn through their own experiences. And if not now, when?

Drawing a Line

Being protective about your children comes as naturally to parents as loving them, so when are you over doing your protectiveness? How do they come to know if they are being over protective towards their children? Well, ask yourself the following questions and if the answer to all or most of them is a ‘YES’, its time you should give more individual space to your children, or else you would be causing more harm to the child than good.

• Do you view every physical activity as being potentially dangerous? Or Are you in the habit of ruling out all those activities that have even a remote possibility of causing harm to your child?

• Do you feel reassured only when your children are under your own watchful eyes?

• Are you in the habit of incessantly giving instructions to your children?

• Do you feel that you child is incapable of doing an activity that other children of his age can perform quite comfortably?

• Are you of the belief that your child should be under your supervision 24/7?

Drawbacks of being Overly Protective

Rose realized her mistake only when she saw her neighbor’s 11 month old crawl up the entire stairs to reach her apartment, while her 1 year and 2 months could barely stand on her twos. She was too scared to put her baby on the floor least she hurt herself or put something in her mouth.

Psychiatrist Michael Liebowitz, believes that, "Over protectiveness brings out the worst in kids."

Such unreasonable fears of parents can have a negative impact on their child’s confidence and self esteem. Parents unintentionally send out a message to their children that they are incapable of doing things themselves. Moreover, such fears could be highly infectious as even children can start believing that every activity that they undertake is dangerous. It might even kill their willingness to learn new skills and end up making them increasingly dependant on their parents. Such an attitude could be held responsible for depriving children from experiencing a sense of achievement of doing new things themselves, even if it means putting on clothes all by themselves. In short, by being overly protective parents are in fact depriving their children of making the most of their childhood.

Being Overprotective with Teens

Children in their teens need be dealt with even more tactfully. According to Psychiatrist Michael Liebowitz, “Teens need to make their own decisions and make their own friends. They even need to do a certain amount of risk-taking. The parents' job is to facilitate these developmental stages, not try to delay or prevent them. I have observed that when parents are overprotective, teens are over-rebellious.”

Rectifying Your Problem

- It is of prime importance that you identify and then device means to tackle the situation yourself before there develops a rift between you and your child.

- If you are still finding it difficult to mend your ways, seek a councilor’s help at an earliest.

- Try tackling your fears by watching the other parents deal with their children.

- If you feel genuinely concerned and want to protect your children from an impending danger simply giving them a dire warning of the same might work.
- Be assertive and not hyper while dealing with your little one, irrespective of the seriousness of the danger.

- Keep reminding yourself that bruised knees, fractured limbs, a few stitches are all essential ingredients of the process of growing up. You can only avoid them by being a little careful but not totally expunge their possibility.

Learn to enjoy your kid’s childhood by letting him make the most of it. A few mishaps are bound to happen but, later on these will only be reminders of what a mischievous child you had.