Is Intensive Parenting Serving to or Hurting Children?

There are plenty of issues to fret about as fashionable mother and father, from the influence of social media on our youngsters, to violence in faculties. However a few of us could also be worrying a lot that our parenting type leans towards overprotective, and even stifling.

I’m speaking about intensive parenting, a time period which dates again to 1996 when a sociologist named Sharon Hays coined “intensive mothering.”

The time period, which has been in comparison with helicopter parenting, was introduced into the highlight not too long ago via some mother and father on TikTok. “We’re now ready the place we’ve got to determine if we proceed placing all of ourselves into our kids to assist them turn into higher people or if we scale it again,” one father or mother shares in a TikTok video speaking concerning the parenting type.

Raquel Herrero-Arias, PhD, a researcher of youngsters and fogeys on the College of Bergen in Norway, not too long ago additionally spoke of eager to analysis this parenting type. She sees intensive parenting as a mode the place caregivers are doubtlessly doing an excessive amount of, to the detriment of the whole household.

Whereas intensive parenting can have advantages, together with constructing parent-child bonds via extra time spent collectively, it could possibly additionally result in points when taken too far.

What Does Intensive Parenting Imply?

Chances are you’ll apply intensive parenting should you continually attempt to maintain your youngsters entertained, not often depart them within the care of others, and advocate for them to the purpose of not respecting boundaries with academics and coaches. 

I’ll admit to being responsible of some intensive parenting habits, similar to organizing my life round my kids, and investing an excessive amount of of myself into their emotional state, in addition to obsessing over whether or not I dealt with tough conditions properly sufficient.

Some elements of intensive parenting take the notion of the child-centered household additional, with mother and father basing their total sense of well-being upon youngsters’ successes in life. Dad and mom could even try to stay vicariously via their youngsters, and fear, properly, intensely about their futures.

Intensive parenting sometimes additionally contains mother and father being closely concerned in a baby’s teachers, extracurricular actions, and social interactions. They could usually additionally step in to assist their youngsters clear up issues or deal with challenges.

Whereas placing your youngsters first isn’t essentially a foul factor, in accordance with specialists, intensive parenting can result in unhealthy pressures being positioned on youngsters, and fogeys who aren’t specializing in themselves, to the purpose of main a dangerously unbalanced life.

What’s Inflicting Intensive Parenting?

It is believed mother and father are turning to an intensive type of child-rearing as a result of elevating our households within the fashionable world is tougher and due to this fact requires ramped up supervision. Here is why.

Social media pressures

Specialists say social media is a big reason for intensive parenting.

“Most of us know, on a cognitive stage, that social media is a spotlight reel—a small piece of what truly occurs,” says Anne Walsh, PhD, a Belmont, Massachusetts-based medical psychologist and specialist in maternal psychological well being. “Nevertheless, that fixed publicity to different methods of doing issues—seemingly excellent methods—begins to have an effect on us.”

For instance, a 2024 Little Sleepies survey discovered about 73% of mothers compares themselves to different mother and father on social media. And 77% of mothers report feeling “mother guilt” due to social media.

Dr. Walsh stories, “I’ve seen shoppers whose psychological well being and parenting confidence improves considerably once they spend much less time on social media.”

Lauren Canonico, LCSW, a New York Metropolis-based psychotherapist and adjunct professor at Affirmative Remedy Collective, agrees that social media performs an enormous position in pressuring mother and father.

“From displaying perfectly-packed lunches to allegedly Montessori-approved actions that require hours of preparation, and presenting these as regular, every day actions, we have made mother and father really feel that the baseline should be extraordinary, with no room for deviation or falling quick,” she explains.

Rise in parenting expectations

Social media isn’t the one cause parenting immediately is so demanding. Dr. Walsh believes that general, the expectations for fogeys have risen dramatically in recent times. 

“There may be an expectation that we’re completely emotionally regulated, endlessly accessible, and all the time current,” she says. “Whereas these may be laudable objectives, additionally they aren’t actuality.”

Canonico underscores that for her, there isn’t a query this present second creates higher problem for fogeys.

“The world we stay in is busier, extra demanding, and costlier than any time that has come earlier than,” she says. “We’re anticipating the identical issues from ourselves—presumably extra given the pressures for perfection—with far much less disposable time and revenue to get it carried out than previous generations.”

Given these views, it’s straightforward to see how mother and father flip to an intensive type to deal with the various seeming-requirements of elevating our youngsters immediately.

A father or mother’s personal upbringing

Exterior of the calls for of elevating small people at this unprecedented time, there are different components that will drive caregivers towards intensive parenting. 

“A standard theme I see in parenting types is a pendulum swing from what got here earlier than,” says Canonico. “Gen X-ers and Millennials, the 2 major teams elevating kids proper now, each have their very own distinctive generational baggage.”

Gen X-ers had been the primary latchkey youngsters, whose mother and father could have each labored, and due to this fact they got here residence to an empty home, unsupervised, after faculty.

In the meantime, as Canonico explains, “Millennials have confronted disaster after disaster, usually feeling unprotected and unprepared, and counting on over-work and hustle tradition as guard in opposition to this.”

In her view, each generations are working to forestall their youngsters from going via their lived experiences. 

Persona sort

Generally, it comes right down to a father or mother’s persona. Dr. Walsh sees caregivers with sure persona varieties leaning into intensive parenting, together with excessive achievers and perfectionists.

“They’re used to approaching every little thing with arduous work, strategic planful considering, and considerate evaluation,” she explains. 

What Are the Cons of Intensive Parenting?

As Dr. Walsh emphasizes, it’s fantastic to care intensely about your youngsters, and be concerned of their lives. And the position of a father or mother is clearly to take care of youngsters’ well-being, developmental wants, and future success, as Canonico factors out. The draw back is that doing all of this with overbearing depth can truly result in stress for the entire household.

“The aim of parenting is to point out our youngsters that they’re liked,” Dr. Walsh says. “In intensive parenting, we will inadvertently ship the message that we’re solely ok if we’re excellent.”

Intensive parenting additionally doesn’t take a father or mother’s personal wants under consideration. So, not solely are we putting undue stress on our youngsters if our total sense of self-worth relies on them, however this method takes a toll on mother and father’ psychological well being. “But, we all know that probably the most vital issues for teenagers’ wellness is having a properly father or mother,” shares Dr. Walsh.

Canonico provides, “If intensive parenting is interfering with our personal means to look after ourselves, what are we modeling for our youngsters?”

On prime of that, each youngster is a person with so many components that decide how they develop in life. And never all youngsters, even in the identical household, reply to the identical parenting type, as a mother of many like myself can attest to.

How To Deal With Intensive Parenting

In the event you see your self regarding intensive parenting attributes, there are lots of issues you are able to do to course right—and that received’t essentially contain an overhaul of your total worldview. “Dad and mom can take into consideration firming down the depth fairly than dropping it,” advises Dr. Walsh.

Listed here are particular methods to seek out extra of a center floor together with your parenting type that can profit each mother and father and youngsters:

• Keep in mind it’s OK for teenagers to be bored generally. Allow them to determine easy methods to spend their time freed from organized actions or route from you.
• Empower youngsters to problem-solve on their very own. Resist the urge to take over and permit them house to work via battle.
• Keep away from evaluating your self to different households. Contemplate what’s vital to your loved ones and concentrate on that, whereas additionally engaged on trusting your personal parenting instincts.
• Consider what probably the most pleasant elements of parenting are versus probably the most worrying. Try to concentrate on issues that carry your loved ones pleasure, not angst.

Ultimately, Canonico gives this recommendation to folks: “It may be arduous to offer your self permission to do much less, but when in doing much less you’ll be able to provide extra to your self and your youngsters, that’s such a win in my e-book.”