Coaching for Families - Building Healthy Family Relationships
POSITIVE FAMILY SOLUTIONS™
POSITIVE FAMILY SOLUTIONS™
OVERINDULGENCE AND HYPER-PARENTING
Overindulgence and Hyper-Parenting:
How we may unintentionally be hurting our kids
Could overindulgence or hyper-parenting be sabotaging your parenting efforts?
Checklist for Parents
Could we be hindering our child’s development, setting them up to feel smothered, inadequate, and even unloved? Is it possible that our parenting style is preventing our kids from achieving their full potential?
Most parents hear the words "overindulgence" and "hyper-parenting" and think "not me". Their typical response is, "Let me tell you about Julie down the street …".
But the fact is most of us have done it at one time or another and to some extent – the problem is it’s happening more today, it’s hurting our kids, and most of us aren’t even aware we’re doing it.
The question is - is it happening to you, sabotaging your best efforts? I think it's worth delving deeper. I'll share what experts are saying, what studies have shown, how these problems are affecting our kids, that this is nothing new, some possible solutions, and where to get help if you determine it could be a problem in your family (to see if this is a problem for you, answer the questions on the free checklist. You may be surprised at what you learn).
What are the experts saying?
Could overindulgence and hyper-parenting be harming our kids? Experts have been saying "yes" since the 60’s, and they’re still saying it.
Studies reveal that emotional development can come to a stop in overindulged kids and that overindulgence and hyper-parenting are related to dysfunctional behaviors in children, teens, and later into adulthood.
Books continue to hit the shelves with warnings to parents – slow down, trust your instincts, stop overindulging, pressuring, and micromanaging your kid’s lives. Stop being a "helicopter" parent.
They also warn the stakes are getting higher. Some believe overindulgence and hyper-parenting could be part of the problem with today’s troubled and struggling teens.
These recent titles alone should give us cause for concern:
How Much is Enough? What you need to know to steer clear of overindulgence, by Jean Clarke, Ph.D., Connie Dawson, Ph.D., and David Bredehoft, Ph.D.
Price of Privilege: How parental pressure and material advantage are creating a generation of disconnected and unhappy kids, by Madeline Levine, Ph.D.
Hyper-Parenting: Are you hurting your child by trying too hard? by Alvin Rosenfeld MD, Nicole Wise
And most recently, Under Pressure: Rescuing our children from the culture of hyper-parenting, by Carl Honoré.
These authors - their books and their messages to parents around the globe - inspired me to write Overindulgence and Hyper-Parenting: How We May Unintentionally Be Hurting Our Kids. I asked several of them if they wanted to share a few thoughts. Click here to see what they had to say.
It’s time we listen
We as parents love our kids and have every good intention. But has our love for our kids, our drive to shelter and protect them, our longing for the "perfect" child, our desire to create the next "Baby Einstein", our determination to not repeat what our parents did to us, somehow tainted our ability to see what our kids really need and want from us?
Overindulgence and hyper-parenting can sneak into our lives without us even knowing and, as I've mentioned, can be sabotaging our efforts. Again, take a look at the checklist to determine if this is a problem in your family.
With experts warning us that the problems have been around for years and are only getting worse, that they have become more prevalent, more pervasive, and more destructive to children, teens, and later when they become adults, and that they could be part of todays' problems with troubled or struggling teens, I think we need to listen.
How is overindulgence and hyper-parenting showing up in today’s kids?
Younger kids are often unable to get along with their peers and don’t know how to share. Tweens often can’t think for themselves and can feel empty, alone, and unsatisfied.
The video game they got last week is in the middle of the back lawn, their new iPod isn’t good enough because Meagan just got a better one.
They just have to have the new iPhone or they’ll just die! And, they’re only 9 or 10 years old!
It doesn’t stop there, it only gets worse. The suicide rate among teens has skyrocketed, teens cutting their own flesh has become commonplace, single and blended families are the norm, the number of kids being sent to boot camps and residential programs is stifling. Depression, feelings of sadness and loneliness are common among today’s teens.
According to Madeline Levine, Price of Privilege, her teen clients complain bitterly of being too pressured, misunderstood, anxious, angry, sad, and empty. These kids come from very affluent families and are given an abundance of material things. Yet one unhappy 15-year old used a razor to incise the word EMPTY on her left forearm. She said, "I tried to imagine how intensely unhappy my young patient must have felt to cut her distress into her flesh."
Stories like these are not uncommon. Two states away, and in another affluent area, my 18-year old client described his feelings of sadness, loneliness, anger, and depression. He had held up in his room for five years since he was 13, not going to school. The spiral began the day his father abruptly walked out of their home and continued as his parents fought the hard fight in an ugly and very bitter divorce. His step-father was cold and unfeeling, showering his own two kids with possessions and his time.
He felt no one cared but nothing could be further from the truth. His mother cared very deeply and tried in her own way to make things better for him. She bought him anything he wanted and needed feeling that it somehow made up for the time she spent trying to keep her new husband happy, trying to turn his focus away from her son. Trying to keep the peace and avoid another divorce. I asked if he felt a wall had built up around him, the wall getting thicker and thicker, and he said, "You just described my life!" I then asked if there was a door for his escape he said, "Not any more." When asked how he would feel if I were able to help him find the door and the key to escape those walls he’d been locked behind for the past five years he got up and hugged me saying, "this is the first time I’ve felt there was any hope for me."
One of Levine’s 14-year old clients was cut from his high school varsity team. He was afraid to go home, anticipating his father’s disappointment and criticism. He believed he had nothing left to live for. It’s tempting, she said, to brush this off as part of adolescence, but that would be a mistake. Adolescent suicide has quadrupled since 1950.
And a 15-year old girl, in her desperate cry for help, called her high school counselor after she had taken a bottle of pills. Because of her counselor’s care and gentle words she revealed where she was – hidden away behind a store in an old VW bug. The paramedics arrived just in time. She nearly lost her life and will suffer permanent physical and psychological damage as a result of her suicide attempt.
These scenarios are not isolated instances. They are happening every day across this country. We must ask the question: What is it that is making kids feel so empty in this land of plenty? Madeline Levine said she was forced to consider that some aspect of affluence and parental involvement might be contributing to the unhappiness and fragility of her privileged patients.
I believe we as parents all need to take a look at how we are parenting our kids and if hyper-parenting or overindulging our kids is sabotaging our parenting efforts. We should all be concerned because as we’ve read - today’s teens are among the most depressed, sad, and troubled than any other time in history.
My goal is not to make parents feel guilty. This is not about blame.
It is about identifying a problem and seeing if it might be negatively affecting our own kids and families, and if so, what we can do to stop it. It’s not about taking things away from our kids and overreacting out of fear. That’s why so many kids have found themselves locked away in residential programs. It’s about learning what works for our own individual families. It’s about preventing the problem in the first place or learning how to stop it – which is where parent and teen coaching can help.
Many parents have somehow lost confidence in their own parenting abilities. Many are so absorbed in their own kid’s lives that they forget about their own. Parents can become bitter because, after all, they’ve put their own lives on hold. We don’t need to put our lives on hold because we have children. We don’t need perfect kids.
We need to strike a balance.
Nothing new
When I think about Madeline’s clients in the affluent area of Marin County just north of San Francisco, I reflect on my own childhood there. I remember growing up with kids whose parents had so much money that the kids could have just about anything they wanted - except their parent's time. While my mom and dad were home with us on Friday night watching family movies (something I continued with my own kids) their parents weren’t home – they were either working late, out partying, or on a date - and the kids were left alone to fend for themselves. They'd sometimes show up at my house to get something to eat, begging to spend the night. Begging for what they called a "normal" family.
Even back in the 60’s and 70’s when I was growing up those kids were constantly complaining and as we got older nothing we did seemed fun enough for them. When some of us were still having fun playing jacks and hoola-hooping they were sneaking off smoking cigarettes and sneaking into their parent's liquor cabinets. I remember well what those kids were doing by the time we reached junior high. And by the time we reached high school some of them were drug addicts, drop-outs, or in jail.
Not much has changed, except that I think it's gotten worse over time. The same thing happened when my kids were growing up between the 80’s and the 2000’s. Many of their friends were alone and longing for someone to make a meal for them, to spend time with them, to tell them they had to do their homework. They too were left to fend for themselves and it is those kids who are now struggling in life. They are out of high school and have no direction, no drive, and no self-confidence. There are many, not just a few.
What’s the solution?
It is my hope that parents around the globe will take another look at what is going on with their kids. How they can slow things down and strike a balance. I know that most parents don't think they fall in the category of overindulging their kids, or hyper-parenting them, and I think that's half the problem. I join Carl and Madeline in trying to get the message to parents to take another look, to dig deeper, to delve into what it really means to overindulge a child or to hyper-parent them.
What so many people don't understand is that overindulgence is not all about money or material things. It's about giving a child or teen too much of anything, because too much of anything is never a good thing. That means too much free time, too many choices to make, too little time with mom or dad - when their job should be being a kid and not having to wonder if they'll have to figure out what to eat for dinner since no one will be home to fix them a meal.
I believe educating ourselves about this issue is key and that parents owe it to themselves, and their kids, to explore if it’s happening in their own families. Could we as parents be doing something that’s hurting our kids when what we want is the best for them?
There is help
Help is available for those who want to make a shift toward building relationships with their kids that are built on love, respect, trust, compassion, and understanding. Relationships that help kids grow to be confident, self-sufficient, happy adults.
My recommendation to parents is that they read what they can on this topic and if they feel they need more they can contact me for my next 5-week teleclass on Overindulgence and Hyper-Parenting. Some families will feel a need for one-on-one individualized help, and that’s available as well.
Don’t worry, location is not a problem. I work with clients across the nation and around the world using the most popular coaching method – telephone coaching. It saves time and money, it’s convenient, and parents have reported it works wonderfully for them!
I can be contacted by phone at (877) 835-7589
As I close I would like to share something Carl Honoré said, something I strongly support:
"Children need to feel safe and loved; they need our time and attention with no conditions attached; they need boundaries and limits; they need space to take risks and make mistakes; they need to spend time outdoors; they need to be ranked and measured less; they need healthy food; they need to aspire to something bigger than owning the next brand-name gizmo; they need room to be themselves.
Because every child and every parent is different, every family must find the formula that works best for them."
I’m the mother of two grown boys now in their 20’s and I have to reflect and ask myself if I was guilty of overindulging my kids or hyper-parenting them in any way and if so how I can now help them to be the best they can be. Because after all, I’m like you, I want only the best for them!
Written by:
Isabelle Zehnder
Certified Family Coach
Specializing in Family and Teen Issues
www.positivefamilysolutions.com
coaching@positivefamilysolutions.com
Tel: (877) 835-7589Founder and President, Advocate and Consultant
www.caica.org
How we may unintentionally be hurting our kids
| "Overindulgence is not all about money or material things. It's about giving a child or teen too much of anything, because too much of anything is never a good thing. That means too much free time, too many choices to make, too little time with mom or dad." |
Could overindulgence or hyper-parenting be sabotaging your parenting efforts?
Checklist for Parents
We as parents all want the same thing – to raise happy, healthy, well-adjusted, self-sufficient kids. But could our parenting style be sabotaging our efforts? Could overindulgence – giving our kids too much of anything, doing too much for them – and hyper-parenting – managing and scheduling every aspect of our kid’s lives – be hurting them?
Could we be hindering our child’s development, setting them up to feel smothered, inadequate, and even unloved? Is it possible that our parenting style is preventing our kids from achieving their full potential?
Most parents hear the words "overindulgence" and "hyper-parenting" and think "not me". Their typical response is, "Let me tell you about Julie down the street …".
But the fact is most of us have done it at one time or another and to some extent – the problem is it’s happening more today, it’s hurting our kids, and most of us aren’t even aware we’re doing it.
The question is - is it happening to you, sabotaging your best efforts? I think it's worth delving deeper. I'll share what experts are saying, what studies have shown, how these problems are affecting our kids, that this is nothing new, some possible solutions, and where to get help if you determine it could be a problem in your family (to see if this is a problem for you, answer the questions on the free checklist. You may be surprised at what you learn).
What are the experts saying?
Could overindulgence and hyper-parenting be harming our kids? Experts have been saying "yes" since the 60’s, and they’re still saying it.
Studies reveal that emotional development can come to a stop in overindulged kids and that overindulgence and hyper-parenting are related to dysfunctional behaviors in children, teens, and later into adulthood.
Books continue to hit the shelves with warnings to parents – slow down, trust your instincts, stop overindulging, pressuring, and micromanaging your kid’s lives. Stop being a "helicopter" parent.
They also warn the stakes are getting higher. Some believe overindulgence and hyper-parenting could be part of the problem with today’s troubled and struggling teens.
These recent titles alone should give us cause for concern:
How Much is Enough? What you need to know to steer clear of overindulgence, by Jean Clarke, Ph.D., Connie Dawson, Ph.D., and David Bredehoft, Ph.D.
Price of Privilege: How parental pressure and material advantage are creating a generation of disconnected and unhappy kids, by Madeline Levine, Ph.D.
Hyper-Parenting: Are you hurting your child by trying too hard? by Alvin Rosenfeld MD, Nicole Wise
And most recently, Under Pressure: Rescuing our children from the culture of hyper-parenting, by Carl Honoré.
These authors - their books and their messages to parents around the globe - inspired me to write Overindulgence and Hyper-Parenting: How We May Unintentionally Be Hurting Our Kids. I asked several of them if they wanted to share a few thoughts. Click here to see what they had to say.
It’s time we listen
We as parents love our kids and have every good intention. But has our love for our kids, our drive to shelter and protect them, our longing for the "perfect" child, our desire to create the next "Baby Einstein", our determination to not repeat what our parents did to us, somehow tainted our ability to see what our kids really need and want from us?
Overindulgence and hyper-parenting can sneak into our lives without us even knowing and, as I've mentioned, can be sabotaging our efforts. Again, take a look at the checklist to determine if this is a problem in your family.
With experts warning us that the problems have been around for years and are only getting worse, that they have become more prevalent, more pervasive, and more destructive to children, teens, and later when they become adults, and that they could be part of todays' problems with troubled or struggling teens, I think we need to listen.
How is overindulgence and hyper-parenting showing up in today’s kids? Younger kids are often unable to get along with their peers and don’t know how to share. Tweens often can’t think for themselves and can feel empty, alone, and unsatisfied.
The video game they got last week is in the middle of the back lawn, their new iPod isn’t good enough because Meagan just got a better one.
They just have to have the new iPhone or they’ll just die! And, they’re only 9 or 10 years old!
It doesn’t stop there, it only gets worse. The suicide rate among teens has skyrocketed, teens cutting their own flesh has become commonplace, single and blended families are the norm, the number of kids being sent to boot camps and residential programs is stifling. Depression, feelings of sadness and loneliness are common among today’s teens.
According to Madeline Levine, Price of Privilege, her teen clients complain bitterly of being too pressured, misunderstood, anxious, angry, sad, and empty. These kids come from very affluent families and are given an abundance of material things. Yet one unhappy 15-year old used a razor to incise the word EMPTY on her left forearm. She said, "I tried to imagine how intensely unhappy my young patient must have felt to cut her distress into her flesh."
Stories like these are not uncommon. Two states away, and in another affluent area, my 18-year old client described his feelings of sadness, loneliness, anger, and depression. He had held up in his room for five years since he was 13, not going to school. The spiral began the day his father abruptly walked out of their home and continued as his parents fought the hard fight in an ugly and very bitter divorce. His step-father was cold and unfeeling, showering his own two kids with possessions and his time. He felt no one cared but nothing could be further from the truth. His mother cared very deeply and tried in her own way to make things better for him. She bought him anything he wanted and needed feeling that it somehow made up for the time she spent trying to keep her new husband happy, trying to turn his focus away from her son. Trying to keep the peace and avoid another divorce. I asked if he felt a wall had built up around him, the wall getting thicker and thicker, and he said, "You just described my life!" I then asked if there was a door for his escape he said, "Not any more." When asked how he would feel if I were able to help him find the door and the key to escape those walls he’d been locked behind for the past five years he got up and hugged me saying, "this is the first time I’ve felt there was any hope for me."
One of Levine’s 14-year old clients was cut from his high school varsity team. He was afraid to go home, anticipating his father’s disappointment and criticism. He believed he had nothing left to live for. It’s tempting, she said, to brush this off as part of adolescence, but that would be a mistake. Adolescent suicide has quadrupled since 1950.
And a 15-year old girl, in her desperate cry for help, called her high school counselor after she had taken a bottle of pills. Because of her counselor’s care and gentle words she revealed where she was – hidden away behind a store in an old VW bug. The paramedics arrived just in time. She nearly lost her life and will suffer permanent physical and psychological damage as a result of her suicide attempt.
These scenarios are not isolated instances. They are happening every day across this country. We must ask the question: What is it that is making kids feel so empty in this land of plenty? Madeline Levine said she was forced to consider that some aspect of affluence and parental involvement might be contributing to the unhappiness and fragility of her privileged patients.
I believe we as parents all need to take a look at how we are parenting our kids and if hyper-parenting or overindulging our kids is sabotaging our parenting efforts. We should all be concerned because as we’ve read - today’s teens are among the most depressed, sad, and troubled than any other time in history.
My goal is not to make parents feel guilty. This is not about blame.
It is about identifying a problem and seeing if it might be negatively affecting our own kids and families, and if so, what we can do to stop it. It’s not about taking things away from our kids and overreacting out of fear. That’s why so many kids have found themselves locked away in residential programs. It’s about learning what works for our own individual families. It’s about preventing the problem in the first place or learning how to stop it – which is where parent and teen coaching can help.
Many parents have somehow lost confidence in their own parenting abilities. Many are so absorbed in their own kid’s lives that they forget about their own. Parents can become bitter because, after all, they’ve put their own lives on hold. We don’t need to put our lives on hold because we have children. We don’t need perfect kids.
We need to strike a balance.
Nothing new
When I think about Madeline’s clients in the affluent area of Marin County just north of San Francisco, I reflect on my own childhood there. I remember growing up with kids whose parents had so much money that the kids could have just about anything they wanted - except their parent's time. While my mom and dad were home with us on Friday night watching family movies (something I continued with my own kids) their parents weren’t home – they were either working late, out partying, or on a date - and the kids were left alone to fend for themselves. They'd sometimes show up at my house to get something to eat, begging to spend the night. Begging for what they called a "normal" family.
Even back in the 60’s and 70’s when I was growing up those kids were constantly complaining and as we got older nothing we did seemed fun enough for them. When some of us were still having fun playing jacks and hoola-hooping they were sneaking off smoking cigarettes and sneaking into their parent's liquor cabinets. I remember well what those kids were doing by the time we reached junior high. And by the time we reached high school some of them were drug addicts, drop-outs, or in jail.
Not much has changed, except that I think it's gotten worse over time. The same thing happened when my kids were growing up between the 80’s and the 2000’s. Many of their friends were alone and longing for someone to make a meal for them, to spend time with them, to tell them they had to do their homework. They too were left to fend for themselves and it is those kids who are now struggling in life. They are out of high school and have no direction, no drive, and no self-confidence. There are many, not just a few.
What’s the solution?
It is my hope that parents around the globe will take another look at what is going on with their kids. How they can slow things down and strike a balance. I know that most parents don't think they fall in the category of overindulging their kids, or hyper-parenting them, and I think that's half the problem. I join Carl and Madeline in trying to get the message to parents to take another look, to dig deeper, to delve into what it really means to overindulge a child or to hyper-parent them.
What so many people don't understand is that overindulgence is not all about money or material things. It's about giving a child or teen too much of anything, because too much of anything is never a good thing. That means too much free time, too many choices to make, too little time with mom or dad - when their job should be being a kid and not having to wonder if they'll have to figure out what to eat for dinner since no one will be home to fix them a meal.
I believe educating ourselves about this issue is key and that parents owe it to themselves, and their kids, to explore if it’s happening in their own families. Could we as parents be doing something that’s hurting our kids when what we want is the best for them?
There is help
Help is available for those who want to make a shift toward building relationships with their kids that are built on love, respect, trust, compassion, and understanding. Relationships that help kids grow to be confident, self-sufficient, happy adults.
My recommendation to parents is that they read what they can on this topic and if they feel they need more they can contact me for my next 5-week teleclass on Overindulgence and Hyper-Parenting. Some families will feel a need for one-on-one individualized help, and that’s available as well.
Don’t worry, location is not a problem. I work with clients across the nation and around the world using the most popular coaching method – telephone coaching. It saves time and money, it’s convenient, and parents have reported it works wonderfully for them!
I can be contacted by phone at (877) 835-7589
As I close I would like to share something Carl Honoré said, something I strongly support:
"Children need to feel safe and loved; they need our time and attention with no conditions attached; they need boundaries and limits; they need space to take risks and make mistakes; they need to spend time outdoors; they need to be ranked and measured less; they need healthy food; they need to aspire to something bigger than owning the next brand-name gizmo; they need room to be themselves. Because every child and every parent is different, every family must find the formula that works best for them."
I’m the mother of two grown boys now in their 20’s and I have to reflect and ask myself if I was guilty of overindulging my kids or hyper-parenting them in any way and if so how I can now help them to be the best they can be. Because after all, I’m like you, I want only the best for them!
Written by:
Isabelle Zehnder
Certified Family Coach
Specializing in Family and Teen Issues
www.positivefamilysolutions.com
coaching@positivefamilysolutions.com
Tel: (877) 835-7589Founder and President, Advocate and Consultant
www.caica.org
2008© Positive Family Solutions™
