Saturday, November 28, 2009

Overparenting

"Fear is a kind of parenting fungus: invisible, insidious, perfectly designed to decompose your peace of mind."

Nancy Gibbs
Can These Parents Be Saved?
Time Magazine Nov 30th
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3 comments:

kc bob said...

Guilty as charged. I let fear rule many of my parenting decisions.

Glad to see you posting here Carrie.

November 28, 2009 at 1:05 PM
carrie said...

Thanks, Bob. I didn't know if anyone would even look at this blog again! I'm going to try to post more in the future.

I'm definitely guilty of some types of fear-based over-parenting. When it comes to physical safety, I've been a helicopter parent way too much. And when it comes to protecting my kids (which we all want to do, of course) I've been solidly in the "over-protective" category way too often. Academically, I haven't been as bad. We haven't push our kids to be "the best" or brightest, or to get into the "best" colleges.

As a homeschooler I have, unfortunately, lost way too many nights of sleep wondering if I'm ruining my children's futures with bad educational decisions.

I'm better; I'm much better now than I've ever been at allowing my children to chose and fail in life. It's difficult to sit on my hands and watch, but I'm beginning to realize how much I rob them of when I try to run interference all the time to protect them from life's mistakes. I actually ended up with children who are tentative and afraid to fail. So afraid, in fact, that my older children have a difficult time trying new things or moving out of their comfort zones. I'm doing better with the younger ones, and hopefully they won't have the same paralysis.

November 28, 2009 at 3:54 PM
kc bob said...

I think that most parents resonate with what you are saying Carrie.. it is sometimes so hard to let go.

November 28, 2009 at 3:58 PM

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