Main content

Are you over-parenting your children?

During her first pregnancy, Naomi felt she had everything sorted. She kept a detailed spreadsheet which budgeted all the child-rearing ‘essentials’, including a buggy worth almost £1000. She was a member of countless forums, had downloaded the relevant apps, and could recite the size of her unborn child throughout her pregnancy. Now, Naomi is a mother of two, who openly admits to ‘over-parenting’.

In Bringing Up Britain, Anjula Mutanda uncovers why so many parents are over-doing it, to help Naomi understand the root of her full-on parenting approach. Here’s how to find out if you’re over-parenting your children, and what you could do instead.

What is over-parenting?

Tanith Carey, author of ‘Taming the Tiger Parent’, explains that over-parenting is: “when a parent comes to believe that they are entirely responsible for their child. We feel that we have to be with them every step of the way.” Parents end up micromanaging their children’s growth into well-rounded members of society by encouraging endless sporting, academic and creative skills. Hovering over one’s children and taking full responsibility for their successes and failures is sometimes known as ‘helicopter parenting’.

Hovering over one’s children and taking full responsibility for their successes and failures is sometimes known as β€˜helicopter parenting’.

Historically, and in non-Western societies, it took a village to raise a child. Childcare was shared out between relatives and neighbours, and the primary goal was to ensure the child survived into adulthood, explains Professor David Lancy, an anthropologist. In the West, however, the process of parenting now falls to just one or two people, and the goals are more complex. He says: “In the current climate, it’s not enough, obviously, to keep the child alive. Now, it’s optimising.”

Why do we do it?

According to Tanith, several developments last century led to the culture of ‘optimising’ our children. Sigmund Freud, father of psychoanalysis, has a lot to answer for, as his work suggested that parents were responsible for the way their children turned out. Tanith also highlights the influence of the development of modern grammar schools on our overbearing, overambitious parenting. She explains: “You have parents realising that the outcome of a child’s education can change the family’s class, so you get a lot more parental investment.” The introduction of league tables in the 1990s added even more pressure on parents to help secure their children places at the best institutions.

How to encourage creativity in your child

Are we bringing up children creative enough for the future they face?

The problem with over-parenting

Through over-parenting, caregivers are not only holding both themselves and their children to exhaustingly high, potentially unattainable standards, they can harm their children’s mental health. “Children and teenagers, and even young adults, quickly get the feeling that if you’re over-parenting them, that’s because they can’t do it by themselves. It’s seen by them to be a lack of confidence in their ability.” Explains Tanith.

Children and teenagers, and even young adults, quickly get the feeling that if you’re over-parenting them, that’s because they can’t do it by themselves. It’s seen by them to be a lack of confidence in their ability.

Are there benefits to this parenting style? Economist Matthius Doepke, sees it as a rational response to modern life and the societal inequalities of today. Matthius explains that, when it comes to incomes, the gap between school-leavers and those who complete higher education is considerably greater than a few decades ago, and parents are reacting to this. As far as Matthius is concerned, over-parenting works within the boundaries of its narrow goal: doing well at school and fostering long-term economic success. This does not, however, always result in happy children, and there is a correlation between teenage mental illness and intensive parenting. “We are not saying we are completely endorsing this new parenting style; we are saying the trade-offs have changed and so it makes sense that parents have changed their behaviour. But there are real costs to this.”

How to stop over-parenting

Focus on mental wellbeing

Taking a huge, metaphorical roll of cotton wool and wrapping our children in it may feel as though we are protecting them, but this can just hinder young people from overcoming challenges and developing valuable life skills as a result. As Tanith says, “the job of a parent is to create a mentally balanced young person who is able to live independently.” Perhaps it is time to rethink our measures of success and focus on mental health and resilience.

Let your garden grow

Professor Alison Gopnik, a leading child psychologist, likens the modern parenting model to a form of work, such as carpentry. There is an assumption that by following a set of rules, instructions, books and apps, we will produce a desirable result – in this case, a functioning person rather than a sturdy chair. Micromanaging and intervening in a child’s early development is what David calls a “pick when green” approach. This is different from the way in which children have historically been raised, and is the opposite of what David calls a “pick when ripe” approach, which is rooted in the assumption that a child will still grow up normally if they set their own pace and direction. In non-western societies, this is a standard parenting approach.

Alison explains the “liberating and empowering” benefits of ‘gardening’ over ‘carpentry’ when it comes to raising children, which involves enjoying the present experience of raising children and letting them develop in unique ways rather than working towards a fixed end goal. She says: “You’re providing this rich, nurturing environment and all the information about the things you’ve learnt in your life over the years, all the traditions that your culture has developed and then you have to let go and give that to the children. And the children will develop in completely unexpected ways, mostly good ways, but sometimes not. It’s a different kind of attitude, a different kind of relationship than ‘did I succeed or did I fail?’”

Do parents over-praise their children?

When should we praise our children? And when should we provide constructive criticism?