There is no one parenting style that every parent must use to train their child as what works for one parent might not work for the other. However, it is important to understand your child’s personality in order to know the best parenting technique for them.
Strict parenting is one of the parenting styles commonly used among parents and this is quite sad because this particular parenting style is not a very healthy parenting style for training a child.
You might get the result you want, which is that your child is always of good behavior, but their good behavior is likely to be influenced by them not wanting to get into trouble with you.
The Psychological Effects Of Strict And Overprotective Parents
We would be discussing the signs of an overprotective and strict parent, as well as the psychological effect of overprotective and strict parents on a child. Read on!
Signs Of A Strict And Overprotective Parent
A parent who seems to be keen on protecting your child from any form of failure, even though they know that these failures serve as lessons to kids, is simply exhibiting signs of over-protectiveness.
Choosing the friends you kid hangs out with and even forcing them to be friends with certain children of your own liking is a clear sign that you are being overprotective of your child.
Unless you sense that a friend your child is keeping is not good for them, and you feel the need to step in, you should allow your child choose their own friends, people they can feel comfortable around.
Always reminding your child of some danger or the other shows over-protectiveness. Allow them be themselves and make some mistakes. They are bound to learn from these mistakes. Avoiding stopping them from going outside or doing some other thing. It will suffice to just be around supervising them to be sure they do not get into any serious trouble.
Choosing your child’s activities and career path is not a good way to bring up a child. Allow them choose their paths even if you would rather they towed a different path. Whatever their reasons for choosing the path they have chosen, respect their opinions and allow them do what they enjoy doing with some form of independence.
You do practically everything for your child. You do their laundry, clean their room, and even make their bed. This leave the child with no sense of responsibility whatsoever and this is not a healthy way to bring up a child. The child should have a share of the house chores assigned to them.
You do not have to get worked up every time your child goes somewhere or is not around you. Calling to check up on them every hour might seem like a show of care and concern to you, but might be overburdening to them. Put a balance on your check routines so as not to make everyone else frantic with your incessant calls and checks.
Going overboard with consoling your child when they are upset or hurt. You do not need to do too much just to console your child and make them feel better. Always getting them gifts just to console them is too much consolation. Warm hugs and soothing words should e just fine for consoling your upset child.
Disadvantages Or Negative Effects of Strict And Overprotective Parents
Quite frankly, overprotective parenting does more harm to a child than it does any good. Of course, the parent’s attitude is always good meaning but in the long run, it is more of a disadvantage to the child than an advantage. The following are some of the may disadvantages and negative effects of strict and overprotective parenting:
Strict parents dictate practically every aspect of their child’s life: their diet, their friends, and even their career paths. The child is not allowed to express their own passions as they are forced to go in a particular path, thereby inhibiting their creative potentials.
The parent’s fear of all the many things they are scared of begins to rub off on the child and they also become scared. The overprotected, scared teenager will be unable to indulge in those events and take those risks common to teenagers. The child will technically not have a fun or adventurous teenage life to tell about when he becomes an adult.
Your child is very likely to grow into a liar. As your child grows, they begin to see how overbearing your parenting style is and how unrealistic some or most of your expectations are.
To save themselves from the trouble they are likely to get in when they make a mistake, they begin to lie to you. Although this seems to be just a means to escape present punishment, unfortunately, this lying habit becomes a part of them with time and they are unable to drop it even as adults.
As they grow, they become more and more detached from their parents. They are not free to communicate with their parents as the kids are only used to complying with their demands and not communicating with them.
This leads them to hide vital information about their lives and what they are up to from their parents and encourages more lies to hide these information.
Strict parenting takes away the opportunity and freedom of a child to think and make decisions for themselves. They are taught to agree with every of their parent’s decisions and choices for them.
This affects their confidence as they grow, in the sense that they do not confidence in their ability to make the best decisions for themselves when it comes to life changing, important issues, without the help and input of their parents.
Growing up with strict parents might cause a child to be depressed but more than that, living a controlled life under strict, overprotective parents can breed anger in the child. The child is not free to have a fun childhood and can barely express themselves or even have friends come around. This can cause the child to develop serious anger issues and begin to resent their parents.
Of course, the fastest way to teach a child is by doing what you want them to do. Kids naturally emulate what they see their parents do and kids raised by strict parents will likely emulate the strictness and bullying they were used to growing up.
Since this was how they were brought up, they go on with the mindset that it is alright to be strict or to be a bully. This is the only way they believe they can have a control and power over people and situations, just as they saw with their parents.
When you bring up a child with the mentality of always getting a reward for doing right and a punishment for doing wrong, they tend to grow into materialistic adults, only doing the right thing because of the reward they hope to get from it, not necessarily because it is right.
Living with very strict parents can be depressing as a child’s whole life is practically controlled by the parents and it seems the child is walking on egg shells at every time since any little mistake would result in severe punishment for the child.
Hence, they grow up feeling unhappy and unloved in their homes. Children who are brought up by strict parents are more likely to fall into depression. This is not a healthy way or environment for a child to grow in.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Do Overprotective Parents Cause More Harm Than Good?
The simple answer to this questions is Yes, they do. Although parents believe that they are doing the best for their children when they introduce strict parenting style and are being overprotective, on the contrary, over-protectiveness and strict parenting can be more disadvantageous to a child than advantageous.
Can Parents Be Too Overprotective?
Already, being overprotective is not a very good way to raise a child as there are more disadvantages to it than advantages. Quite sadly, some parents are way more overprotective than others. So yes, a parent can be too overprotective. This is basically when they go overboard with their over-protectiveness.
Conclusively
As we earlier mentioned in this article, your child will do the right thing, not because he knows it is the right thing to do, but just to avoid getting into any trouble with you and to make you happy. This is not a proper parenting technique to raise a child. You can read up on other parenting styles that you can introduce to help you properly raise your child.
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