To ask how the kids of very overprotective parents turned out?

[Uncleebz]

To be honest I can see the pros and cons (don’t have kids myself) of insulating your children from risk. However, my friend has a son who’s 14 and the rules he has are insane (eg not allowed to go anywhere on his own with friends unless accompanied by an adult). It got me thinking do you know any adults who were very overprotected as a kid (or are you one) how did it work out for them? What are they like now as adults?

My friend was one of these. She's fine - very successful in her career, has high expectations of how she is treated etc. but she is really scared of a lot of things - and wildly overestimates risk in my opinion.

My best friend grew up like this. She's an anxious wreck now she's in her 30s. She has really struggled with having her own child. Luckily her DH is very laid back but she has to fight very hard for it not to impact her DS.

My parents were overbearing, hyper-strict helicopter types. At 16 I went right off the rails before moving out. Spent years living abroad and around the country, and even now I live 4 hours away from my DM because I can't be around her. Such a claustrophobic upbringing did me a lot of damage mentally.

Risk is something you need gradual exposure too, you need practice negotiating it and making decisions. If children aren’t given opportunities to build up skills they don’t cope well as adults. I think we’ll see that the pandemic stopped kids from having any independence and there are key periods of childhood when being kept away from normal life is hugely problematic.

Read a really good article once comparing developing resilience to developing an immune system, you need lots of small exposures across childhood.

I know a woman who had overprotective parents. It’s messed her up. Unlike PP, she did not rebel or go off the rails. She’s just continued with it. She believes all of those ridiculous “warning to women” type emails that go around. She thinks everything in life is dangerous.

She won’t do anything alone. If she goes on a work trip, her mum or current boyfriend go too. If she is going on a girl’s weekend, she won’t drive there alone. She won’t go to a restaurant or a movie alone. She won’t go for a walk alone. She won’t drive anywhere alone, except to work. Her parents taught her that it was a frightening and terrible thing to be female and alone in a house. She moves on from shitty live-in boyfriend to shitty live-in boyfriend quickly to avoid being alone in a house. If there is a gap, she moves in with her parents.

She has no insight on how none of this is normal and her parents continue to dominate her life and decisions. She has one daughter who isn’t allowed on play dates outside her home or school camps and excursions.

I know someone who has 4 children and was a bit like this, they didn't really do much without adults until 15/16.

To be honest the 4 kids all turned out really differently to one another. A couple are quite anxious in certain situations (but they also have ASD/ SEN), the others are more confident.

It's a difficult one to get right, because depending on your children's personalities they have different needs/reactions to different approaches. I don't think it's as simple as overprotective parents = anxious adults.

Also my parents were the opposite of overprotective but I still grew up with anxiety 😂

My best friend and my brother had a mum like that. She went away to Uni at 18 and never went back home to live, stayed in the city she studied at which was two hours away from home. She’s made a conscious effort to be the exact opposite of the parent her mum was.

Her brother stayed at home for his degree. Had all his meals cooked, didn’t stay out overnight. He’s now 50, only ever had one girlfriend years ago, has a dead end job, and really struggles with depression and OCD.

I was actually thinking about this in relation to me just yesterday. I wouldn't say I had very overprotective parents but my parents were certainly more protective than those of my friends. I wasn't allowed out as much as my friends were, maybe once or twice a month as opposed to several times a week, and only to very certain places and with prior planning. I do feel like I missed out a lot as a teenager and that it prevented me in many ways from forming proper, long lasting friendships which has translated into my adult life. In my thirties, I suffer from social anxiety (which was also evident back in my teenage years) and GAD which makes going to new places, meeting new people etc very difficult, and I do think a lot of it can be attributed to how much I was able to do these things as a teenager.

I don't blame my parents. They were doing what they thought was best to keep their teenage daughter safe, never mind the financial worries they had that prevented me from going places until I had my own money. But it has definitely made me consider how I want things to be for my children when they hit their teen years.

My daughter has a friend with parents like this. Its exhausting trying to arrange things because the parents expect so much.

A sleep over at our house meant a 20 minute call with the girls Mum to discuss everything from if we smoke or intend to drink, to what our fire escape plans are. She also gives us a list of emergency numbers. Then the actual sleepover had her calling every hour and insisting on a long drawn out "good night" phone call with their daughter. Followed by a call to us detailing exactly what her daughters bedtime routine is.....they're 13!!

We ignored the "rules" and the girls ate too much sugar, stayed up too late, and had a blast

I think if you protect your kids from all risk and independence, you're just setting up kids to be anxious, naive adults. I see on here people who wont leave their children alone in the house at 13/14 years old for even a couple of hours!

My friend went totally off the rails at uni - heavy nights out where she couldn't remember what had happened or where she'd been. Once she got through that phase she went to the opposite extreme, she lives a very quiet life, admin job that's easily within her capabilities, quiet partner, doesn't go out much. She seems okay but I do think overall the way she was parented didn't do her any favours.

Perhaps not as extreme over protectiveness as some of these stories but I grew up with pretty over protective parents, not allowed out without an adult, not allowed to parties even after turning 18 (still at school). Was driven to and picked up from anywhere I was allowed to go including my weekend job, school etc.
I moved out for university and went wild for 2 years, I had no clue how to drink appropriately because i'd never been allowed so much as a sip in a controlled environment. I let boys treat me terribly because i'd never been allowed to meet them, have a boyfriend in an innocent teenage way etc. so I had no boundaries. I thankfully pulled myself together and passed my degree by 3rd year. I have lived abroad in various countries since graduating, and I think part of the desire to do that was to figure out who I am without having to fit in my parents box.
I am pretty risk adverse but not to an extreme level so I think I have managed to shake that off but one thing I still struggle with is standing up for myself. I am so keen to avoid confrontation of any type I am a complete doormat. Luckily DH is the opposite and not afraid to point out when people are taking advantage.

A boy in my daughter’s year (year 10) has a 4pm curfew and isn’t allowed out with friends in town yet. This hasn’t stopped him a) having a girlfriend b) having underage sex with the girlfriend and c) a pregnancy scare. As far as I know his parents don’t know about the sex or the pregnancy scare.

I’m not mum of the year of anything but my strategy with my kids is to talk to them about everything and be as honest I can be so they feel that they can be honest with me. Hopefully that pays off.

If we’re talking overbearingly strict I have noticed from a couple of family friends children that they ended up going off the rails the minute they get a bit of freedom as they got older.

I remember my friend telling me her mate at uni had extremely strict parents, as soon as he got to uni he ended up going off the rails and unfortunately he died due to taking drugs. Obviously at 18 he should of known better and be aware of the affects of drug abuse. He told my friend he was finally able to be free and go mad and he died soon after

Weirdly my parents were over protective of me until I was about 12: and then they just let me get on with it after that (I was quite a sensible soul at that age)

I have anxiety and MH issues: but don’t think that’s anything to do with my parents being over protective: I think it is genetic though. Thankfully I take meds that have calmed me down massively over the last year

The ones I know went completely mad when they got to uni.

I just resent what I lost out on. While my kids will always be looked after to the best of my ability, they will have much more freedom than I was given.

The irony of it is, is that I was a good kid. I had no interest in sex, drugs or drinking. Just wanted to hang out with my friends

My best friends parents were a bit like this. Less overprotective, more strict rules? So she was allowed out in the day to do whatever she wanted but at night she wasn't. Consequently she used to sneak out her window at night and stay out all night returning in the morning and pretending she'd been out for an early walk.

Sometimes she would say she was staying at a friends but would actually be staying with a boy.

I've always remembered this and how I would always rather know where my child is than be too OTT and risk them lying.

She has turned out ok - no anxiety whatsoever, very chilled but hugely naive to many things. Also now replicating the strict parenting with her own kids so we will see how that turns out......

I'm overprotective of my son, he has autism and adhd though. He's growing up fine.

I had to much freedom as a teen and completely went off the rails onto drugs and booze.
Was an addict for a long time (now clean and sober!) so to much freedom can be a bad thing as well.

I don't think you can blame a person's anxiousness on parenting style entirely.

You'll find people who suffer from anxiety and those who are overcautious had parents who had anxiety or were risk averse. It's a personality trait.

My Dad was ridiculously over protective. As I had two older brothers I could see the difference in the way I was treated.
I lied so much as a teenager, still at 40 tell my parents very little. Its not worth the hassle.

My friend is insanely overprotective of her 14 year old DD. The girl can't walk anywhere on her own. My friend works at a school as a lunchtime supervisor. She's out of the house for 1.5 hours only. If her DD has an inset day she'll take her to work with her, despite the fact HER HUSBAND IS WORKING FROM HOME!! So the girl wouldn't even be left alone in the house (which I think is fine at 14), she'd just be unsupervised as her dad's working upstairs. I feel really sorry for the child. She never wants to do anything or go anywhere with friends - maybe that's just how she is. I can't help thinking it's because her mum's made her terrified of the world.

I have the ‘typical’ strict Asian parents, very loving but strict. I’m fine, had a bit of a party phase in my 20s, moved overseas (still here) and have a very quiet life working in local government, living in a rural village with husband and two young kids.

Whereas my husband had neglectful parents and no rules growing up, he is not fine and has depression.

I was going to say this too.

Sometimes it's not the overprotectiveness that causes the anxiety.

It's perhaps the anxiety of the child that causes the parent to appear overprotective.

One of my kids has SEN and extreme anxiety. As his parent I know what things he can cope with and what he can't - I probably appear overprotective to outsiders who don't know our situation. But in his case it's not OVER protection, it's just protection against sensory overload, meltdown etc. Most of the time he's making the decision not to do something and I just back him up.

It makes me wonder if a lot of these anxious adults were in the same situation as kids. Sometimes it's nothing the parent has done wrong.

On the flip side, a relative of mine had parents who just let him get on with things (basically neglected) and he's now a heroin addict/dealer who has had his child removed. He had no real direction or a feeling of belonging. There definitely needs to be a happy medium. Not easy to find what that is as a parent though!

I have a friend who is extremely over protective of her daughter. She is nearly 18 and seems ok but I do wonder about her resilience when she finally leaves home. But not as much as I worry about the friend who is so over involved in her daughter's life that I wonder how she will cope when her daughter moves on.