Three months ago, I spoke to parenting expert Dr Siggie Cohen and she told me about the modern epidemic of overparenting. She says that over the past decade, parents have started “overaccommodating and overfixing for, overexplaining and overnegotiating with” their children.
I’m lucky enough to talk to parenting experts frequently as part of my job and all of them, including Cohen, agree that authoritative parenting, where we empathise with our children’s feelings but also hold boundaries, is what is best for them.
I also recognised myself in some of Cohen’s overparenting criticisms. Partly, this is not surprising: in this day and age, it’s incredibly difficult not to helicopter our children, hovering over them. But I was interested to find out whether it is possible to stop overparenting, even a little.
Pausing before I jump in to fix problems
All my instincts are to help my children with their problems and make sure their falls have a soft landing. I find the balance between intervening and leaving them to figure things out very individual to each child; one’s experience of a small fall might shake another’s confidence.
But I also see the importance of placing more faith in their problem-solving abilities. As Cohen told me: “Their future relies on their resilience, on their coping skills, on their ability to navigate challenges, and [parents are] missing that.”
She suggests that when my children come to me with a problem I ask them: “What would you like to do? What do you think is the best to do next time? And in the beginning they may say, ‘I don’t know,’ which is totally fine.”
My seven-year-old son Xavi started coding club this term. He’d been excited about it over the holiday so when he came home disappointed on Friday night, after the club, I was surprised. “We were in twos and I didn’t get much time because my partner wasn’t good at sharing,” he told me. (For Xavi, this is the equivalent of going to watch your team in an FA Cup final and realising that you’re behind a pillar so can’t see).
“What would you like to do?” I asked. “I don’t know,” he replied.
“Will you sit with him next time?” I asked, somewhat leadingly. “I don’t know,” he repeated.
A couple of days later he mentioned coding again and I asked if he’d had any thoughts about the club. “I’m going to suggest to the teacher that she uses a timer so everyone gets an equal share,” he told me, sounding surprised that I hadn’t realised it was all resolved in his mind. It was a much more positive solution than any of the ideas I’d thankfully resisted sharing. The following week, Xavi told me there was an iPad for each coder so no one needed to share but I was beyond proud of his problem solving.
Encouraging independence
There is nothing like a mother being arrested for letting her five-year-old child walk half a mile alone in a gated community to show how different cultures regard independence. In Switzerland and Japan, children aged five walk to school alone; in the US Karyann Parkinson, a trainee lawyer, is now on the child abuse register for seven years for giving her child similar freedom.
I suspect the UK is much closer to the US than Switzerland. I’m pretty sure this comes down to collective parental anxiety and not our children’s lack of competence at crossing roads.
I live in a suburban, safe area. Astrid, nine, regularly runs errands to the local shop. When she takes longer than I anticipate – more than say 10 minutes – I feel myself becoming twitchy until she returns. I frequently remind myself this is my issue, not hers, and that by her age I’d be out playing with a group of children for hours at a time.
This summer, I tried to encourage Astrid and her brother to cycle home ahead of me, which they did. I knew that it was unlikely either would fall and when I felt twitchiness, I reminded myself this was my issue and I’d soon catch up. Each time, they were thrilled to welcome me home.
‘Their future relies on their resilience, on their coping skills, on their ability to navigate challenges, and [parents are] missing that,’ says Dr Siggie Cohen (Photo: Kathy Schuh/Kathy Schuh Photography)I also suggested to Xavi, who is confident at crossing roads, that he could walk to the shop alone and he looked really scared. “I might not know my way,” he told me. Given there’s only one corner between us and the shop, I suspect he has inherited my sense of direction.
For now, I’m hoping I can persuade him to run errands with his big sister until he gains the confidence to go alone. As Cohen says, we want our children to use their home and family as “a training ground for challenging themselves”. She says that when we step in, it’s important to ask: “How much of this is about our own triggers, panic and anxiety?” It’s important to help our children find the uncomfortable ground. “You want to be present, involved, that’s a given. But ask yourself at any given moment: how much is too much?”
In the meantime, last week Astrid started cookery at school and was delighted to bring home shortbread. “We worked the oven ourselves,” she told me. “We didn’t need help.” The following day, she asked to cook noodles. Instead of giving her the overparenting reminder that the hob is hot, which she knows and sounds like I’m not confident in her abilities, she went ahead and cooked for herself and her siblings.
“I’m bored” isn’t my job to sort
I think the phrase “I’m bored” is sometimes a reflex for my children, especially when they say it within a minute of getting home. But I hadn’t realised how quickly I rush in to accommodate, suggesting painting, reading, drawing, a game, a bike ride or park trip.
Over the past few months, I’ve tried to stop what Cohen describes as “suggesting 15 things or feeling guilty”. It’s very hard. Instead, she recommends that I “validate without accommodating”, saying: “I hear you’re bored. It doesn’t feel good, but sometimes it happens. What would you like to do about it?”
“If a child responds ‘I don’t know’ then explain kindly: ‘Only you can fix your own boredom. It’s not really my job to fix that.’” The first time I tried this, my children simply looked baffled. This isn’t how their mum reacts when they complain they’re bored.
Juno is almost four and copies this phrase from her older siblings – if I suggest painting, she’s excited and I rarely manage to let her figure this out herself. Once, I gave the older two a mini speech on how being bored leads to a creative mindset, which led to pretty justified groans. “I just wondered if you might have an idea in mind,” Xavi told me. I keep trying but it feels very unnatural; overparenting is very ingrained for me.
Giving up overnegotiating
I hadn’t realised I was an overnegotiator until I tried to stop. Nor had I realised that it was adding a layer of unnecessary stress for me.
Frequently, when my children wake up they say they don’t want to go to school. I empathise. I also know that there will be some fun moments in the day. I used to try to persuade them they might enjoy parts of it or ask them if there’s anything at all they are looking forward to. This would invariably backfire because at that moment, they couldn’t imagine future positives.
Now, I’ve stopped trying to persuade them of anything, I listen and reflect, telling them that I know how much they don’t want to go. And it has made a huge difference. They appreciate that there’s no one trying to convince them of any “bright side”, while I’m not using energy in trying to talk them into optimism they don’t want to feel. And by the time they leave school at the end of the day, they tend to be really positive about the hours that went before. I’m so glad to learn this.
So, is it possible to stop overparenting?
I didn’t manage to give up overparenting entirely but I’m learning to notice when I step in more quickly than my children need. I see them benefitting from it and growing in independence.
I’m sure we’ll look back on the overprotectiveness of our generation of parents and recognise that being a little more Switzerland would instill confidence in our children and be a big antidote to anxiety. In our home, it’s small steps and I’m hoping to keep encouraging Xavi.
I’m also learning to give myself an easier time when I spot myself overparenting. I’m hoping this will also help my children learn to give themselves an easier time, too.
You Are the Parent: Becoming the Calm, Confident Leader your Child Needs, by Dr Siggie Cohen, is published by Harper Collins (£16.99)
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