Tuesday, December 28, 2004
manic parents...
Over at Crazed Parent I saw this entry about "manic parenting"... which seems to be about over-involved, enmeshed parents who don't have a life of their own. What I tried to say in my comment was that now that we have so many teens (6 between 13-21), I have met many of these types of parents... often their teens hit a huge rebellion around age 14-15 ... they are likely to hide things from their parents, like their smoking, drinking, sexual experimentation, etc... and may even run away from home if the pressure from their parents get too great. I know this because at least 4 of them have ended up sleeping at my place for days, weeks or months... It is really sad... because it isn't that they don't love their parents, they JUST CAN'T STAND THEM....
I saw this great article:
'Parental protectionism may reach its most comic excesses in college, but it doesn't begin there. Primary schools and high schools are arguably just as guilty of grade inflation. But if you're searching for someone to blame, consider Dr. Seuss. "Parents have told their kids from day one that there's no end to what they are capable of doing," says Virginia's Portmann.
"They read them the Dr. Seuss book Oh, the Places You'll Go! and create bumper stickers telling the world their child is an honor student. American parents today expect their children to be perfect--the smartest, fastest, most charming people in the universe. And if they can't get the children to prove it on their own, they'll turn to doctors to make their kids into the people that parents want to believe their kids are."'
It continues:
"And subjecting them to intense scrutiny. "I wish my parents had some hobby other than me," one young patient told David Anderegg, a child psychologist in Lenox, Massachusetts, and professor of psychology at Bennington College. Anderegg finds that anxious parents are hyperattentive to their kids, reactive to every blip of their child's day, eager to solve every problem for their child--and believe that's good parenting.
"If you have an infant and the baby has gas, burping the baby is being a good parent. But when you have a 10-year-old who has metaphoric gas, you don't have to burp him. You have to let him sit with it, try to figure out what to do about it. He then learns to tolerate moderate amounts of difficulty, and it's not the end of the world."
One step towards keeping away from hyperconcerned parenting is to get a life. It is important for all of us parents (especially SAHMs) to have their own interests and activities which do not include their children or their partners. Join a book club, go swimming, walking or to the library... Go to the pub! Take a course! Work part-time either paid or as a volunteer! Anything where you will develop yourself as an individual. This way you can be a great role-model to your children and it will help you let them go as they grow up and establish their own independence.
I saw this great article:
'Parental protectionism may reach its most comic excesses in college, but it doesn't begin there. Primary schools and high schools are arguably just as guilty of grade inflation. But if you're searching for someone to blame, consider Dr. Seuss. "Parents have told their kids from day one that there's no end to what they are capable of doing," says Virginia's Portmann.
"They read them the Dr. Seuss book Oh, the Places You'll Go! and create bumper stickers telling the world their child is an honor student. American parents today expect their children to be perfect--the smartest, fastest, most charming people in the universe. And if they can't get the children to prove it on their own, they'll turn to doctors to make their kids into the people that parents want to believe their kids are."'
It continues:
"And subjecting them to intense scrutiny. "I wish my parents had some hobby other than me," one young patient told David Anderegg, a child psychologist in Lenox, Massachusetts, and professor of psychology at Bennington College. Anderegg finds that anxious parents are hyperattentive to their kids, reactive to every blip of their child's day, eager to solve every problem for their child--and believe that's good parenting.
"If you have an infant and the baby has gas, burping the baby is being a good parent. But when you have a 10-year-old who has metaphoric gas, you don't have to burp him. You have to let him sit with it, try to figure out what to do about it. He then learns to tolerate moderate amounts of difficulty, and it's not the end of the world."
One step towards keeping away from hyperconcerned parenting is to get a life. It is important for all of us parents (especially SAHMs) to have their own interests and activities which do not include their children or their partners. Join a book club, go swimming, walking or to the library... Go to the pub! Take a course! Work part-time either paid or as a volunteer! Anything where you will develop yourself as an individual. This way you can be a great role-model to your children and it will help you let them go as they grow up and establish their own independence.
