Here, in this article, we are going to talk about Hyper Parenting and its negative impact on children.
Parenting can be overwhelming at times. Parents know about the world more than we think or know of. You, as a guardian and a parent, must have realized that children imitate their elders.
Hence, child-rearing must be taken very seriously. A child might not pay heed to whatever the elders say but, eventually, they have been conditioned to believe them.
What Is Hyper Parenting?
Hyper Parenting, in crystal clear words, refers to those parents who give more than necessary attention and care to their children. This phenomenon is messy and induces high amount of stress on both the parent and the child. You, a parent, don’t just remain a caretaker during hyper-parenting. You become a caretaker whose mindset is purely achievement-oriented.
A hyper-parent, therefore, can be quite detrimental for a child, especially during childhood. It can easily destroy any childhood with over-involvement, over-protection and over-scheduling.
According to researcher Holly Schiffrin, a hyper-parent is someone who over-meddles in the child’s life. However, this is unfair on a child’s part and we will provide certain cures for good parenting. The list includes the following:
- It is mandatory to teach your kid decorum and good manners. Your child might not be a perfectionist or affluent in 4-5 languages. Being bilingual doesn’t guarantee humanity but manners and kindness do. Also, never burden your kid so much that he becomes emotionally distant and takes out his frustration on other people.
- Kids should be made to enjoy free-time and parents, also, must engage in fun activities with the kids. A micromanaging parent can be victims of their child’s aversion and that can be quite intense for the atmosphere in the household. The old saying, ‘all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’, shouldn’t go in vain.
- “Carpe diem, folks!” It means to seize the moment. Hyper-parents usually don’t abide by this so we suggest that they realize that the future of their kids lies in how they are being shaped and moulded in the present. So make every moment of their present life worthy of remembering. There is no point in telling your toddler that he will go to a prestigious college for PhD. There is no point in not letting your kid eat chocolate doughnuts on the night before his exam. There is no point at all in harbouring high expectation from your newborn baby. Let them live in the moment and write their own stories.
- Nobody has proclaimed universally that if parents fail to balance their family life and career, they aren’t good parents. Every human is allowed falter, make mistakes. However, what’s important is that parents learn from their mistakes and never train the child to sweat out at every possible curriculum activity possible. Sometimes, when parents fail to maintain an equilibrium, they project their demand for perfection onto the child. This is wrong.
- Parents must respect their child’s hobbies, passion, interest and capability. Everyone excels at one or the other aspect of life. If your child wants to do mass communication and you want him to be a civil engineer, then, find a middle-ground; something that will excite both of you. For example, your kid can utilize his mass communication degree for investigative journalism which will help him expose unfair and uncouth ways of construction used by civil engineers.
- Emotional intelligence is as equally important as education is. If you don’t teach your kids to recognize their emotional capacity and only focus on intellectual quotient, then, you are violating basic principles of good parenting. You are unknowingly venturing into the position of a hyper-parent.
Negative Impacts of Hyper Parenting
Now, in this article, we will discuss a few negative impacts on children due to the prevalence of hyper-parenting.
1. Children become the preys to intentional bullying:
If hyper-parents redo the educational forum of the child’s and over-burdens him with unprecedented academic responsibilities, the child tends to get socially awkward. Being an asocial Caterpillar, the child fails to have a one-to-one conversation with his peers. This affects social life negatively and hinders all probabilities of social growth.
2. Diseases become common:
Limitation on participating in outdoor activities is a common symptom of hyper-parenting. Parents are followers of one big myth – ‘dirt, dust, fungi make people more prone to diseases than usual’. They offer so much protection from asthma, dust allergy, throat infections that they blur the lines between caution and prevention. Most parents are unaware of the fact that dirt is needed for the healthy development of the immune system. Hyper-parenting is, truly, destructive.
3. Imbalance of chemicals in the brain caused by over-obedience:
Parents’ over-indulgence and nature of unnecessary meddling in the child’s life makes the child too obedient for his good. Whatever the parents say and do, the child has no option but to follow. This makes the child distant from parents. The child begins to behave like a robot. His soul gets gnawed, his mental peace gets lost. Often, such conditions lead to mental health problems in the child. A child should be given some amount of freedom to choose his priorities and hobbies. If the parents try to control every aspect of the kid’s life, then, the kid loses that respect and love for his parents.
4. Socially awkward children:
With constant vigilance of hyper-parents, children grow up to be less independent and less confident. Hence, the child doesn’t know how to socialize. They begin to feel anxious whenever they are asked to participate in social events. Hyper-parenting induces negative effects on children in this manner.
5. Children either become difficult to control or overly obedient:
If parents snatch away the freedom of their children, the child becomes reclusive and desperate to be an escapist. In easy words, it means that children become difficult to control as they start throwing temper tantrums after being drained out mentally and physically.
Final Words On Hyper Parenting
In conclusion, it can be said that being a hyper-parent or a helicopter parent can be unequivocally exhausting. There are different types of hyper-parents.
- Parents who put constant pressure on children and monitor every phase of the children’s life are called helicopter parents.
- Over-caring parents make their child’s life a bed of roses. They pave such a path that the child never tumbles down and gets hurt. They are called bulldozer parents.
- The parents who over-schedule the child’s routine with one extracurricular activity after another are called chauffeur parents.
- Parents who expect flawless performance from their children are called snowplough parents.
- Parents who are focused on the health of their child in an unbearable manner, that is, they run behind the child all around with a healthy snack in hand until the child finishes are called snack parents.
- The last kind of hyper-parents is called hyper-protective parents. They ensure that the child stays protected under all adverse circumstances.
Parenting doesn’t come with a hand-me-down guidebook that will guarantee no impediments in the journey of a parent. As you go about being a parent, you learn while later on, your mistakes will be the jokes that will be cracked on a Sunday family dinner.
Rather than worrying over the child’s morning routine, kiss the child goodnight and let him have a healthy nighttime sleep. Be a real-parent (not a hyper-parent) and allow the child to explore the world on his own and make decisions that suit him the best. Children should be the reason parents laugh, smile and not stress out excessively. Commit to this role if you want to share a peaceful life with your child till death comes knocking at the door.
We hope this article by Tiddle Toons was informative and you liked reading it. Don’t forget to share your view on this in the comment section.
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