I'm guilty.
I want to spare my daughter any kind of pain, protect her from everything harmful, help her when she faces obstacles, discipline her with empathy, always give her choices and provide her with every opportunity and advantage under the sun.
Apparently, those things, which are supposed to make me a good mother, actually make me not such a good one.
So as things stand, I'm guilty of being the kind of mother likely to land her kids in therapy!
I know I sound preposterous, but don't laugh just yet.
The research and articles I have been reading may actually be on to something.
I did not want to admit it at first, but being a very loving and attentive parent may not be as good for our children as we think.
And this just may be the break we all need to maintain a bit of sanity as parents...
Two weeks ago, I had lunch with a good friend of mine who happens to be a child psychologist. She switched from clinical psychology to child psychology because she saw too many adults coming to therapy complaining they felt "unhappy", "empty", and "lost" even though they had no objective reasons to feel that way, and she wanted to deal with these issues from the beginning in the hopes that her kids wouldn't end up the ones on a couch across from a therapist.
After hearing her tell me more about her experiences, I did not want to admit to her what my bedside table looked like!
Stacked with over ten parenting books about everything -- from how to be a good parent, how to discipline your child, how to teach empathy, how to simplify their lives all the way to how to raise smart, successful and independent children -- I worried if I told her what I was doing, I would be lumped into the "overly attentive and loving parents who screw up their kids" group.
Then again, since I'm a stay at home mom who devotes most of her time and energy to her daughter, I was probably in that group already...so I had nothing to lose by delving a bit deeper.
I wanted to understand why something that seems intuitive -- loving and paying attention to your kids -- can become a case of "too much of a good thing is a bad thing".
Here's what I picked up about the downsides of overly attentive parenting:
- It parents for today, not tomorrow. What a two year old needs to be happy is not the same as what a 20 year old needs, or a 50. When my toddler falls, I often run to the rescue before she has a chance to deal with it on her own. I give her countless kisses every day and tell how perfect I think she is. At 18 months, this makes her happy. But research shows that what she'll need to be happy when she's 20, 30, 50 and beyond is perseverance and resiliency -- traits she can only pick up if she's been allowed to face adversity and experience the pride that results when she emerges stronger from the experience. So it's important to balance loving our kids with doing what's in their long term best interest.
I leave you with a page from the book The Parent's Tao Te Ching.