In a video done by CBC, they examined the effects that "Hyper Parenting" is having on our generation, or "Generation Y". They state that our parents are coddling us too much. They are doing too much for us. Seems rather contradictory, since the widespread belief was that the more your parents did for your well-being, the better off you would be. However, it's when parents end up going overboard on trying to help us in our lives, that they end up actually causing the most harm.
It's the gymnastic classes before the baby can even walk, let alone balance on thin boards. It's the $4000 party for the baby's first birthday, complete with a professionally designed and made cake, as well as over 40 guests at a rented out hall. It's the GPS-locators being placed in school bags. The Cell-spy and Internet-spy, to keep tabs on your child's activities at all times. This sounds like an overlord, not a parent.
One part of the video that really got my attention was when someone stated that parenting has become a "cross between competitive sports and product development." When raising a child becomes developing a product, that's where I draw the line. A child is someone to instill the good values that you learned and were taught throughout your life. If you treat your child like an product, constantly trying to improve it with everything you can think of, with no regards to what's actually best for the child, then you are an unfit parent. Too much stress will be on the child, and this stress is detrimental to natural development.
In my opinion, you should never solve your child's problems, or try to improve them through your own doing. Instead, simply help your child to discover how it is he can solve his own problem. In doing so, the child will learn problem solving skills, and in the process, he has improved himself! Hardly magic, as this has been the method of choice for our grandparents, and generations before them. In this day and age though, too many new parents think that if they solve their child's problems for them all the time, then their child will be happier and better for it. What they neglect to realize is that once their child matures and goes out on their own... noone will solve their problems for them.
It's gotten to the point where parents enroll their children in specialized early reading classes, in hopes that others will teach their students how to read earlier than their peers. While many see this as a positive thing, it has an underlying nastiness to it that isn't always apparent. From my own experience, I know that the best way to learn something is to experience it yourself. While these reading classes are drilling the words and pronunciations into young minds, these young minds might not be very receptive to wanting to learn the words. I am a very good reader, and always was, because I wanted to learn. How is this possible? I'm not even a book-lover, and in fact I picked up very few books when I was young. Instead, I learned to read by playing video games. Back when I was 3 or 4 years old, I played a game system where all the dialogue was written. I wanted to understand what I was playing and doing in the game, so whenever words came up, I called my mother into the room. She'd help me read and pronounce the words correctly, and when I asked what each word meant, she told me. By the end of the game I could read like a pro, because throughout the whole process, I really wanted to learn!
This all just goes to show, that while failure at a young age can be prevented through protective, hyper-parenting, self-motivation can eliminate circumstances where failure happens for the rest of their lives. Just let kids be kids, and help them when they ask for it. Other than that, I think we'll be just fine.
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