PEP Blog

10|18

3 Steps to Conquer 21st Century Parenting Challenges

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By Paige Trevor, PEP Certified Parent Educator

Have you ever dressed your 4-year-old because you can do it faster, or told your 7- year-old she has to wear a coat when she says she isn’t cold? Can I get a show of hands of other parents who have “helped” their fifth grader on a Science Fair tri-fold board because we can cut straighter and center the background paper more evenly? Who can join me in having our tween’s long-term assignments on OUR calendar?

Why do we parents fall into the trap of overprotecting our kids from short-term struggles and underpreparing them to cope with life’s long-term challenges? Intellectually, we know that over parenting undermines a child’s initiative and sends him or her off into the world unprepared to make independent choices and own the consequences of those choices (both positive and negative). Yet it can be difficult to translate that knowledge into practice.

21st century challenges

Over the 18 years we are considered “active parents” (raising a minor child) we move, ever so gradually, from needing to protect our children to needing to prepare them. The real job of “active parents” is to work ourselves out of a job in those 18 years.

Hal Runkel, author of “Scream Free Parenting,” believes parenting has changed in recent decades as a result of the 24/7 news cycle, the Internet and the ability to check our children’s grades, school attendance and whereabouts at any moment. Runkel says, “If we think our number one job is to protect our child, then anxiety is going to drive the boat. We will want to know before they make a mistake or get into trouble. The more we protect them, the less we prepare them.”

Loosening the reins

Runkel suggests that parents set a goal of having no rules for children by their senior year in high school. Senior year becomes a dry run for college, with freedom and responsibility living side by side. What can we expect to happen during senior year? Mistakes! In the wise words of Mark Twain, “Good judgment is the result of experience, and experience the result of bad judgment.”

When our children are infants, we manage every aspect of their lives – when they go to bed, the books they read, the screens they have access to and the rhythm of their day. As kids grow older, parenting morphs from managing kids to being their on-demand consultants. “Guidance is important, if it is solicited,” PEP Leader Wendie Lubic notes. But she warns that consultants have to wait to be asked for advice: “If it’s unsolicited, then you are crossing the line.”

3 steps to breaking the over-protecting habit

What can we do when we discover that we are overprotecting and underpreparing our kids? How can we face our fears with courage?

Let’s say a child has not yet mastered the skill of consistently turning in his homework. This situation triggers anxious thoughts that fuel anxious emotions, and our knee-jerk actions might be to check online, text the child, find the homework in his bedroom and drive it to school.

Does this prepare the child to turn in his homework independently, or does it merely reinforce his dependence? If our response is not in the service of preparing, we can plan a better response for the next time. By changing one or more of the three prongs, we can move from anxious protecting to compassionate preparing.

1. ACTIONS: Take a break. Leave the scene. Go on a 20-minute walk. Any of these actions will help create space for new thoughts and emotions.
2. THOUGHTS : You might focus on this thought: “In the long run my child will need to remember his work. I believe he is capable. Better to experience forgetting when he is in eighth grade than forgetting in college. He remembers to hand in his homework more times than he forgets.”
3. EMOTIONS: After 20 minutes of walking and trying on new thoughts, emotions will downgrade from anxiety and fear to compassion and curiosity. We will be able to greet our child after school with an open mind, an understanding heart and true curiosity about how he handled his problem. Kids are much more creative, capable and motivated than we give them credit for.

Practice makes progress – for adults as well as kids

When we find ourselves over parenting, we can take our good-hearted love, tweak it a bit and transform protection into preparation. Calming our own anxiety allows children space and time to grapple with the responsibilities that life throws at them.

With practice our children will become prepared. And prepared young adults can go about the business of living their own big lives and protecting themselves.

Common examples of over-parenting

• Dressing preschoolers instead of letting them practice doing it themselves
• Waking up school-age kids instead of letting an alarm clock do the job
• Nagging about homework instead of encouraging the use of a planner and schedule
• Checking grades more frequently than the child does
• Doing extra credit work for the child rather than holding them responsible
• Worrying more about their future then they are

Paige Trevor is a Certified Parent Educator with the Parent Encouragement Program (PEP). This article originally appeared in Washington Parent magazine, where PEP contributes award-winning articles monthly to the Ages and Stages column. 

Want more practice kicking an over-protective parenting habit? Check out PEP’s many programs: Live Webinars, Noted Parenting Author Series, 4-Week Online Master Classes, and Local In-Person Classes.