Man : The Bubble-Wrapped Kid (Overproctective Child)
.
§ Dfn : Kids who are being
denied opportunities to experience risk and responsibility.
§ Study : A group of young
people from a stable, nurturing, middle-class homes, show two signs:
o
very
compliance young people with depression, anxiety and an incapacity to take on
responsibility or show much common sense in getting on with their lives, or
o
coming
up with very dangerous, risk-taking behaviors having to cope with very
restrictive or overprotective environments at home.
I. Rooted
cause of the phenomena
§ In either case, they
didn't have an opportunity to sink their teeth into
·
some
adventure,
·
to
have some responsibility,
·
to
take some risks, and so –
o especially the more
dangerous ones – adventure as an options
II. How
were the kids coddled or restrained?
§ Denied a whole
bunch of doing different things.
o
Now,
there are far fewer expectations that kids do paid work or volunteer or get
certifications than there were a generation or two ago - such as lifeguarding.
§ Instead being asked
to study harder, or simply being excused of any responsibilities.
o
They
are shuttled from one structured activity to another. Not developing a sense of
personal responsibility.
o
They're
doing a lot of screen time managing - from one study to another study. Not being
given opportunities to develop
·
the
work ethics or
·
the
common sense that I think we would hope that young people would develop.
III. What
age does this start at?
§ Very young. It
starts in a pattern of being hesitant to let our children climb the monkey bars
in the playground. Overprotective to dog’s barking.
§ Taking away what we
perceive as dangerous toys and driving them to school, not letting them walk or
learn to navigate the streets on their bicycles or their skateboards.
§ Hardly see kids on the streets, except right in
front of their houses.
IV. Kids
don't go out and explore, especially not without helmets.
§ The helmets aren't
necessarily the problem. The problem is we're not letting them develop street
sense.
§ Given them those
experiences that develop common sense and get them street-savvy.
V. Talking
about helmets because I think they represent an interesting tension in all of
this.
§ Encouraging kids who were tobogganing to wear
helmets, and it's mandatory to wear bicycle helmets.
§ However, when grown up, nobody wore helmets when
they were riding their bikes, they fell
down, and got scraped, hit your head, but most of survived without too much
damage.
§ The helmet shouldn't
mean that not being able to bicycle on the road, just a mean for safety even if they fall down, a kids risk-taker's
advantage.
§ If wrap and keep
them safe, don't let them push their limits, they'll find their own ways to do
it and may make bad choices.
VI. Kids
become docile and depressed when they're not exposed to risk
§ Need to develop the
self-confidence to control their world. Not to slip away and lose time. Getting
the kid back out there and the starting point is with the parents themselves.
§ It's a source of
great insight to ask parents,
§ There is a need for
an opportunity for these kids to experience some amount of danger for themselves.
Instead, of hearing the words no, abstain, stop, wait -- some responsibilities
lot Kids love to mow the lawn.
VII. Parents
can't say no to their kids.
§ Need to say the complete opposite, can't shut our
kids down, figure out how to say yes..
§ It's not about
suppressing, it's about substituting.
§ Learning from the
kids, as more they mature they're
willing to negotiate.
VIII. Do
more damage to our kids by overprotecting them
§ Kids who are exposed
to some risk-taking and who have that sort of get-out-there-and-do-it kind of
attitude actually injure themselves less than kids who haven't been challenged
enough.
§ Children are less
likely to be sexually assaulted, are less likely to be physically assaulted,
are less likely to be sexually active.
§ Perception every
time somebody walks into a child's bathroom in a school and sexually assaults a
child ...Believing there's a pervert in every bathroom
stall.
§ The truth is that
the riskiest place for our children is home. Being solicited on the Internet,
physical and sexual assaults, all happen in our homes.
X. Working,
having a job as a teenager, a good thing
§ The benefits of working
job for the kid is : adventure and the other is responsibility. Kids nowadays are
not being raised to look after younger siblings much. Not asking as much of our
children.
§ Work or volunteer
experiences are an opportunity for kids to have their own experiences and say,
"Look, I'm older. This is one way that I can be an adult."
§ Work is related to status as an adult. If not
given that status, how else is the child
going to get it.
XI. Small
families are contributing to coddling
and risk-averse parenting
§ Mother don’t make your
child as a project. Both and parents should have own life.
§ There is too much
focus on the child.
XII. Kids
are safer than ever before
§ Parenting hasn’t changed
most of those things, the world abide
o
world
of public health,
o
occupational
health and safety,
o
road safety.
It's all about injury prevention.
§ If we continue to
suppress every aspect of kids' risk-taking behaviors then inadvertently we're
not giving them the advantages that they could find in our communities now that
we've made those communities safer.
§ Make sure our kids
have
o
unstructured
time,
o
have the responsibilities,
o
have
the dangerous toys -- the pocket knives, the chemistry sets and the scooters.
XIV. Long-term
consequences of risk-averse parenting
§ In the universities
there was a biggest cohort of kids who came in for counseling for relationship
issues. Now it's anxieties/stress.
§ Anxiety is the
biggest referral item. And a lot of it –
o
homesickness,
o
anxiety
around performance, and
o
anxiety
about being away from home and
o
expectations
placed on them –
There is a need for the child to face riskier situations to
survive in this world.
XV. Being
away from home
§ The inability to
function on their own away from home. If from a very young age, did not had to
deal with the knocks of life, they are not going to be ready for what inevitably
happens to all of us.
§ At some point we
fail. Need to give kids some sense of their own responsibility for themselves,
as opposed to always being patted on the back, for job not well done or failure.
§ “That you've been cut, that you didn't get the job,
that you failed the test, or you didn't make the team.”
§ Huge amount of plagiarism
at universities, no boundaries on cheating, or a sense of self entitlement. Anxious
young people who are desperate to succeed and they have to perform, and they haven't
. This can only be develop through common sense or work habits.
XVI. Don't
have the tools to respond to adversity?
§ Positive outcomes
for kids growing up in all conditions that are being given, they will benefit
o
opportunities
to take chances,
o
take
responsibility for others and for yourself,
XVII. Striking
a balance between finding opportunities for kids to take chances while at the
same time not pushing them too fast.
§ The kids themselves
need to set :
o
The
boundaries
o
limits
placed on them,
o
someone's
watching them,
o
being
monitored and cared for,
but they really do want
opportunities to do their things and ways..
XVIII. Society, have a lot of tolerance for
risk-takers
§ It seems that we're less and less comfortable with
these sorts of behaviors.
§ A moral panic about
kids just having any exuberant behaviors, or any sort of behaviors of
children that don't fit the norm in terms of orderly fitting into classrooms.
§ We keep kids in
school longer. A lot of kids, who are
not academically inclined would probably do a lot better if they were given
opportunities to apprentice or transition out into the workforce, find
vocations and occupations much earlier, and instead we box them into these
wait-wait-wait mentalities, sit them down in classrooms and try and teach them
in academic ways. It doesn't work.
KENNETH WHYTE | Feb 15, 2007 | 20:28:59 :
An
Interview with Michael Ungar
Michael
Ungar, a social worker, family therapist and associate professor at the School
of Social Work at Dalhousie University, is the author of a new book, Too Safe for Their Own Good.
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