{"id":7689,"date":"2018-06-27T09:36:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-27T07:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=7689"},"modified":"2018-06-27T09:36:00","modified_gmt":"2018-06-27T07:36:00","slug":"the-results-of-modern-parenting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/7689\/","title":{"rendered":"The Results of Modern Parenting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well this is a surprise<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Children whose parents are over-controlling \u201chelicopter parents\u201d when they are toddlers, are less able to control their emotions and impulses as they get older apparently leading to more problems with school, new research suggests.<\/p>\n

The study looked at to what degree mothers of toddlers dominated playtime and showed their child what to do, and then studied how their children behaved over the following eight years, revealing that controlling parenting is linked to a number of problems as a child grows up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Something which always amuses me about many modern parents is their casual dismissal of two thousand years of experience by their forebears. Parents having time to play with their children, let alone micromanage the activities, is something very, very new. I’ve asked around and few people my age (41) had their parents play with them when they were toddlers, and absolutely none of my father’s generation did. Children were expected to play with their siblings, with other children, or by themselves – as quietly as possible. Parents would read to their kids, or help them with a particular task (“ask a grown-up to help you” often appeared in the instructions in children’s play-sets), but they were never seen as a play partner. The reason for this was parents were too busy and it wasn’t really their job. Now it appears some mothers not only want to join in their childrens’ playtime, they want to take it over. Unsurprisingly, this is having an effect on their development.<\/p>\n

\u201cParents who are over-controlling are most often very well-intentioned and are trying to support and be there for their children,\u201d said Dr Nicole Perry of the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, who co-authored the research.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, to foster emotional and behavioural skills parents should allow children to experience a range of emotions and give them space to practice and try managing these emotions independently and then guide and assist children when [or] if the task becomes too great.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If the role of a parent is to raise a child to become a functional adult, they ought to be able to stand by and watch their offspring struggle and overcome small problems. But I suspect many mothers are more interested in the “unconditional love” they keep telling me about, and hence can’t bear to see their child undergoing any sort of difficulty. I’ve said this before, but I think some may have been better off getting a dog.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem here really is that if you don\u2019t learn skills to self-regulate, how can you self-regulate when you leave the home, like [when] you go to school or you go to university? In a way it is a form of abusiveness \u2013 taking this opportunity away from children,\u201d he said, although he noted over-controlling parenting was usually done with the best of intentions.<\/p>\n

But Dr Janet Goodall from the University of Bath urged caution, noting that it is difficult to say how much parental control is \u201ctoo much\u201d, and that cultural factors such how dangerous a child\u2019s environment is should be considered when looking at parental behaviour.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What’s interesting about this is it echoes with what I was on about in yesterday’s post<\/a>. Modern parenting seems to be an odd mix of over-controlling combined with ultra-permissiveness. Several mothers I’ve observed try to micromanage every aspect of a child’s life and environment, sometimes demanding the entire world be changed for the benefit of her brat, yet at the same time let him or her dominate the household. Mothers will campaign for diesel cars to be banned in cities “for the sake of the children” yet allow her toddler to dictate when he is eating, what he is eating, and where he’ll be sat while doing so. There are few households now where young children are forbidden from interrupting adults when they’re talking; most are permitted to barge in for the most trivial reasons and the mother will give them their full attention for as long as required. As a side observation, I’ve found French children are a lot better behaved in the home and in restaurants than their British counterparts; for all their reputation of being liberals, the French are a conservative lot.<\/p>\n

For whatever reason, the study mentioned above only looked at the degree of parental control not permissiveness, and I think they may be missing a large piece of the puzzle. By way of example, have a look at this tweet, which to be fair is quite funny:<\/p>\n

\n

My 3yr old has been crying for 2 hours because she ate all of her dinner but didn\u2019t get ice cream…We\u2019re all out of ice cream.<\/p>\n

She won\u2019t shut up…<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 9:25pm and I\u2019m driving to pick up ice cream…<\/p>\n

For those of you out there thinking about having unprotected sex tonight…<\/p>\n

\u2014 Will Rodgers (@WilliamRodgers) June 16, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n