Sunday, April 24, 2011

What is up with all the hand holding these days?

When I grew up there were no copious amounts of anti-bacterial usage, organic was something for only rich people, cheetos were an acceptable snack and it was ok to play in the rain. It seems these days there is a lot of what I call "hand holding parenting".  So much has changed since the days when everything wasn't so politically correct.


Why are parents so overly cautious these days? In my opinion parents are worrying about all the wrong things. Today mothers race to help solve their childrens problems without letting them figure it out on their own. Mothers teach their kids to fear so much, sun, falling down, getting dirty, taking chances etc. People are taking their children to the doctor for every sniffle or cough. Parents are also push kids to do things at an earlier age to compete with other children. Sometimes kids just need to do things at their own pace. For some people having juice in the house is like automatically giving their children diabetes. Children are becoming more clingy due to all the "hand holding" and fearful to do things on their own. Parents are just shaking their head when their child acts out and wants to have therapy sessions over it. They fear that spanking your child on the hand will associate their hand with bad feelings. I am sorry but parents we are not here to be our child's best friend. Also kids are being given things without them being earned just to stay in competition with all the other children.

Don't get me wrong, we are strict about some things in our house such as grades, behavior, manners and daily responsibilities. We do monitor internet activity, cell phone usage and what friends Taylor hangs around. Even with having a special needs child, we try to give her some independence and let her figure things out on her own. Yeah we let our kids eat junk food sometimes, allow them to go outside and play with the water hose and play video games for several hours. We have learned not to sweat the small things. How else will our kids learn if we are constantly "hand holding"? So far it has been working for us. The girls make honor roll, have great manners and are in general very well functioning children.

I think as a society we just need to learn to relax a little and let nature take its course. After all there is much more to worry about than your child drinking a can of soda..............

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