7 Ways You Might be Over-Parenting your Child

According to the Oxford Dictionaries, over-parenting is a situation where guardians are excessively involved in the life of their children, with an aim of shielding them from the thorny life.

The parents who have a rich history in attempting to control the lives of their children are called overprotective parents. By default, parents will always find themselves protecting their children from any challenges that come their way.

However, there is this crop of parents that can't stand their children making even the slightest of mistakes fearing they will fail or getting hurt. In short, they constantly nag their children to ensure they stay in their comfort zone.

Although this may be good, it’s equally important to know that it comes with enormous setbacks. The Journal of Child and Family Studieshave found that over-parented children emit low autonomy, competence and inability to interact during their youthful years. This automatically results in a depressed life and inclined life with limited choices.

We surely don’t want you to regret or hate yourself for over-parenting your kid. For this reason, we’ve compiled top instances parents fall into over-parenting their kids without their knowledge and some helpful tips to take a step back.

Frustration When the Child Fails

We understand clearly that it’s quite hurting to see your child fail. However, if have a tendency of reacting every time your child makes a mistake they will never learn from the failure.

Furthermore, the problem-solving skill which develops at early ages becomes stunted if you happen to be offering or hinting solutions to their problems every time.

If you are this type of parent, it’s high time you stand down and accept their failure, and intervene when it worsens!

Sometimes, children just have to fail to realize how to do it right. They’ll learn how to deal with similar problems in the future without relying on anyone.

Cleaning the Child’s Mess

Children who don’t often perform day to day chores have poor life skills. Always assign chores to your kids as it helps them have to be independent in the future. You may start with simple basics like ensuring they know where to put dirty clothes, toys etc.

Constant Arguments with Adults on How to Treat Children

There are parents who always find it hard to trust someone with their kids. Often, you’ll find them in heated arguments with house-helps, daycare management, and even relatives giving cruel rules on how to handle their kids.

When the kid reaches the age to join a school, you'll find the same parent telling the teacher not to discipline the child yet she demands good grades.

This is a clear sign of overstepping your mandate as a parent.

If you are such a parent, it’s time loosen the bolts and stop telling people how they should treat your child. That way the child isn’t restricted and is able to borrow a few characters from the people that surround him/her.

Micromanaging the Child’s Friendships

Let's be real for once. In life, you will meet many positive friends and an equal number of negative ones. As a parent it’s okay to teach your child between good and bad, enlightening the child about his/her life is one of the many responsibilities as a parent.

However, shielding your child from the ups and downs of friendship is not advisable. Instead of dictating whom they should befriend, teach them on the important attributes to weed out bad friends.

With the teachings, your child will be able to establish friendships with like-minded kids which helps strengthen their self-awareness and interpersonal skills.

Creating Strict Schedules for the Child

Some parents will set the bar too high for their kid. For instance, a parent may push the child to over-involve herself/himself in many social activities. For example, what do you expect when you enroll your child in music classes and a football team running concurrently immediately after school? Even worse, you still expect them to excel in their academic goals yet they don’t get time to rest. This is way too much for your kid to handle.

Therefore, as a good parent continuing with that life will only lead to a blocked future for your child. Give them a personal time where they can get out of their usual life and be kids for once. If they want to jump outside with friends, let them do it.

Free time gives children a chance to use their imaginations and learn other things which further nurtures their talents.

Too much Worry over Petty Issues

Over-parenting takes root when you as the parent develop low expectations from your child. If you don’t believe your kid is capable of performing things independently, you are only molding a big problem.

For instance, if you can’t stand the thought of your 12 years old doing their homework to personally do it for them, you are over-parenting them.

You can let them struggle a little bit with their homework or learn the hard way when you have a grown college kid behaving like a child. Therefore, start treating your child like a mature and competent human being to ensure he/she reaches full potential.

Giving Excessive Praise

We all want our children to gather the necessary life skills so that they don’t go through all the mess we probably went through.

Some parents will try to console their children by giving them praises even in occasions where the child should have done better. As a result, the child sees no need to put that extra effort. After all, the parent is contented with what they achieve. Don’t get it twisted though, it doesn’t mean that congratulating them is bad… but also follow it up with “next time you can do better”.

Final thoughts

As a parent, you are expected to guide your kids through the path of becoming a responsible and respectable adult. However, in the course of doing so, you may get lost between guiding them and over-parenting them. This prevents the child from experiencing the raw childhood lifestyle which means they reach adulthood half-baked. It’s never too late; if you note any of the above signs, correct yourself early before you ruin them.

About the Author:Dan Chabert - Writing from Copenhagen, Denmark, Dan is an award-winning web lover and the Co-manager of several sites for your house needs and others. You can check these out That Sweet Gift, Borncute, Contractorculture and Runner Click. He is a travel Scholar at the same time a health Enthusiast