Psychologist and author Dr. Madeline Levine, in her book “Teaching Your Children Well: Parenting for Authentic Success,” thinks our overparenting might be causing psychological harm to our children.
Here are 3 ways we might be doing that:
- When we do for our kids what they can already do for themselves;
- When we do for our kids what they can almost do for themselves; and
- When our parenting behavior is motivated by our own ego.
Levine says that when we parent this way we deprive our kids of the opportunity to be creative, to problem solve, to develop coping skills, to build resilience, to figure out what makes them happy, to figure out who they are.
Our behavior actually delivers the rather soul-crushing news: “Kid, you can’t actually do any of this without me.” It increases our kids’ chances of suffering from depression, anxiety, to become cutters, and to have suicidal thoughts.