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Are You An Overly Protective Parent?
By Bloggaman | April 21, 2008
There are protective parents and then there are not-so-protective parents.
Are you a protective parent?
Do you strap a helmet to your kids head every time they walk out the door? I know some do.
I know some parents that won’t let their kids ride a bike without a helmet. Some kids are sent out with so much padding they can’t move. Some kids aren’t allowed to do anything where they could get hurt. That to me is a shame.
My wife isn’t that bad but she is a protective parent. She wants the kids to wear helmets when riding their bikes. She won’t send them out in body armor so they do get dinged up on occasion. That is ok with me. I think it toughens them up. Lets them learn what being hurt is and when it isn’t so bad. I think if you were to survey parents, most moms would be over protective and the dads would be the opposite. I could be wrong but I think most would fall in line with that.
I know I would. I will let my kids ride without a helmet. I didn’t ride with a helmet when I was a kid and I survived. Now I realize there are many parents out there that have lost kids because they didn’t have a helmet. Knowing that I should be more protective but I just haven’t been. I figure kids can die in any kind of a freak accident. What do you do, keep them helmeted all the time?
I ran across an article, on Associated Content, on over-protective parents. Here is one example of an over-protective parent.
“Parents often caution siblings and others not to get too rough when playing. Parents may also refuse to let their child play sports or become involved in any activity they feel may be strenuous. Some parents may prefer to keep their child indoors where they can keep a closer watch on the child. They may even limit contact with other children.”
Do you fall into that category? I think there are a lot of parents out there that do. They aren’t bad parents. They obviously love their kids but are they doing what is best for their child?
Do you treat your child differently because they are smaller than the other kids? Well if you do, here is another quote you might like.
“If your child is just small but healthy there is no need to treat him or her differently than any other child.”
I agree with that quote. Let the kids go out and have a good time. Why keep them cooped up in the house all day? Most deaths of children actually occur in the home so if you are trying to protect them, maybe you aren’t. If you lock your kids up at home and don’t let them out you might find this interesting. This quote is from a story FoxNews.com that references an article in Pediatrics.
“Of the more than 5,100 unintentional injuries that happened each year in a known location, more than half (55 percent) of the injuries happened at home.
Researchers say the rate of fatal accidents at home decreased by 22 percent from 1987 to 1997. The majority of unintentional injuries sustained at home were preventable, such as injuries due to fire, drowning, or poisoning.”
The story goes on to point out something I found even more convincing.
“The death rate due to accidental injuries in the home was highest among infants under 1 year of age and children aged 1-5 years compared with other age groups.”
Now what made me write about this today is the video below. A friend of mine at work sent it to me so I had to post it and share my thoughts. The video itself is funny. The guy took a Power Wheels car and souped it up. After he is done with it the car is absolutely scary fast. What made me laugh is that we have a similar vehicle at home and I immediately wondered how easy it would be to soup up the car I have. Watch the video and you will see why I didn’t see it as a great idea.
What were your thoughts? It was obviously the father recording it but what would the mother have said? I would love to know if she was watching or not. If she wasn’t, has she seen the video? I am not sure I would let my kids do that. There is over-protective and then there is opposite. I think the father making the video is clearly categorized as the opposite.
Topics: Parenting |
