Dad get involved in my life but do not be overprotective
A hilarious video with a deep reflection that will help us understand overprotection.
Source: catholic-link

It is a funny video. Definitely. And maybe it makes us laugh because-in some way-we can see ourselves subtly reflected in these scenes that are not exaggerated at all. Moreover, they have become so normal that we can list a long list of justifications that would sustain the supposed emotional mismanagement that we sometimes suffer when we accompany our children to some extracurricular class or workshop and our poor children are not treated as they are. : potential world champions of whatever.

And this idea that we all have children as geniuses locked up in the bodies of children or adolescents is not our creation. Moreover, I would dare to say that it is the result of ideologies that promote conceptions of life that, among many other negative effects, confuse us about the true meaning of what it is to live and what it means to achieve true happiness. If not, why is it not enough to look around and realize what maybe 99.9% of the people we know are ordinary human beings, who do not appear in any magazine or television program and who, in these conditions, find great value and meaning to your life?

What happens is that today, among other thoughts that are considered progressive, several "gurus" of pedagogy have convinced us, with complicated words and a mixture of concepts, that if our children are not millionaires, presidents of some multinational or Olympic medalists, the fault is ours or, paradoxically, of the dirty oppressive system that demands to have the sub-employed people and as robots to feed their capitalist interests. Of course, from their strengthened ego, for them, there is no possibility that the normal functioning of humanity since its creation has a meaning that allows achieving personal fulfillment.

Perhaps this "new age" of education - which exacerbates emotionality, belittles knowledge in favor of technology and confuses the requirement with child exploitation - combined with other socio-economic and cultural factors, has resulted in children asking them to act less and less like children. But not because we do not let them play as before - or because they do many tasks, as others maintain - but also because we deprive them of their right to be educated in the exigency, effort, and work in the ordinary things of life. On the other hand, today we overprotect them and try to supply all their needs, arguing that they can not waste time making their bed when they have a future in front of them that they can not invest a second in trifles.

And it is there, in that change of paternal paradigm, that a new type of father begins to manifest itself that today is categorized as "helicopter". The term "father helicopter" has its origin in the year 1969, in the book Between Parent & Teenager by Haim Ginot. There is the talk of a teenager who says: «I have my mother always on top like a helicopter». The concept was extended later, around the year 2000, when the directors of the American universities detected a greater number of parents of students who meddled too much in the academic life of their practically adult children. There are even universities in the United States that hire personnel exclusively to answer calls and emails from parents who want to help their children to choose the courses they should take. And it's not strange, too, that some recruitment professionals have received young candidates who attended the job interview ... with their mom!

We are perhaps facing one of those cases where the complex is to find the point of equilibrium. How much should parents be present? What is the measure? Authors such as Carl Honoré, in his book Under Pressure, quip that "childhood is too precious to be left in charge of children and children are too precious to be left alone." And it does not lack reason since we have sufficient evidence that excessive care is not bringing, unfortunately, good results, much less, better-educated children.

While addressing this issue may exceed the space of this post, I would like to share some ideas that help us reflect on whether, in some way, we are being overprotective parents to the point of hurting our children.

Some reflections

You have to learn to differentiate between being involved and being overprotective. The first is the last impulse that the boys need to consolidate their self-confidence. On the other hand, overprotection produces the opposite effect because it generates the idea that objectives can not be achieved by oneself.

Are we educating for success? For what? Much of the helicopter parent syndrome is due to the fact that it follows a culture that craves Hollywood fame, power, money, and beauty. And if we educate our children according to this idea that does not contemplate the failure, they may end up just failing and without understanding why or how they got there, flooded with the anxieties of the parents for that dream that, surely, they will never fulfill.

Do not we want our children to fail? Then they will not have tolerance for frustration, that mechanism that helps overcome opposing situations. When failure is not tolerated, one can go from simple temporary sadness to a deeper depression.

It is a normal feeling to want our children to be happy and not to suffer. However, growing up and becoming strong means facing obstacles and experiencing adversity because that is where one develops skills and abilities to face life in different areas and times.

Ironically, from the perspective described above, educating for success does not involve doing domestic chores. How are we going to make our children waste time on such basic things? However, the family is the greatest school of virtues and, of course, involving them in the work of the house teaches them to have discipline, responsibility, and autonomy.

Do we confuse excessive presence with care? It is time to ask ourselves if we are covering the real needs of our children or imposing a personal fantasy of what we want them to be.

Finally, something we can give our children without limits is love. In that, we will never exceed. And true love does not tie or generate dependencies. It is a gift that seeks the best for the other. It is not a system of merits and rewards.