Lesson’s from a Butterfly

There lived a man who loved nature,

Birds, fishes, butterfly all enchanting creatures.

Once saw a cocoon with a tiny opening,

Where in a little butterfly was fighting and struggling.

The violent efforts went on for hours together,

“I should help, and make its agony lesser”

With this thought he tweaked the cocoon,

Out came the butterfly, a bit too soon.

Swollen body and shrivelled, crumpled wings,

Marred and disfigured, never to fly in spring.

His “HELP” and aid turned out to be a bane,

He condemned the butterfly to “life of pain”.

Poem by Ruchi Brise.

What Is Overprotective Parenting?

“Children must be given respect for their capacity to learn from experience,

including painful experience. There can be no more difficult prescription for a

loving parent to follow than this: children must not be overprotected.

...Overprotection protects parents and damages children.”

- Rusk & Rusk

As children grow, they progress from total dependence during their first years of

life to a higher degree of independence in their teenage years. Parents may feel

overly protective of their offspring’s and want to control every aspect of their lives,

fearing dangers such as drugs, alcohol, violence, teenage pregnancies and

paedophiles. How does Parents know the difference between being involved in

their children's lives and being overprotective?

Every parent must be the primary guardian of their child's welfare, and there is a

thin line between having a practical protective instinct and being an overly

protective parent. Let’s distinguish the two.

The definition of overprotective parenting

There is no formal definition for overprotective parenting, following are few characteristics of

an overprotective parents :

A) These parents are overtly anxious.

B) They place restrictions based on what might happen rather than what is reasonable to expect. They are driven by anticipation of experiencing hurtful things.

C) They attempt to shield their child from any and all unpleasant experiences or hardships.

D) Overprotective parents view negative experiences as a suffering rather than a character building event.

E) Overprotective parents harbour the view that children are fragile flowers who might shatter into a million pieces in face of adversity.

Signs of Overprotective parenting

Here are some indications that you might be an overprotective parent:

1) You incessantly worry about little things happening to your child, such as upsetting events at school or conflicts with friends or adult caretakers.

2) When something negative occurs, your first instinct is to try and fix it for your child.

3) You sometimes find yourself arguing with 4-year-olds on your child's behalf.

4) You find yourself complaining to school staff more often than other parents.

5) You micromanage a child's affairs to ensure that everything goes properly.

It's a parent's job to be protective, but all parents must distinguish between providing a

protective umbrella for safety purposes, and trying to protect a child against experiencing life

or enduring struggles. The latter type of overprotection aims to manage a child's life or even

limit certain experiences altogether, not because they pose any inherent and reasonable

danger, but because they stoke a parent's anxieties or might make a child uncomfortable. This is the type of overprotective parenting that limits a child's experiences, causing far more

long-term harm than what typically occurs even when a parent's most pressing fears are

realized.