To ask what you think is meant by 'overprotective?'

[Smugglers]

I had mental health problems at 18 - long story as to the cause - but my mum one day thought this was a result of her having been overprotective as a parent. I wish I'd questioned her more on what exactly she meant by this now - as she seemed to see this as the root cause of all my difficulties.

Anyway , when I was on holiday aged 13 my mum coerced me harshly into a friendship with another kid at the hotel - "your father and I want you to make friends". This frankly made me feel shit. When I mentioned this to my Dad year later - he said she was trying to protect me. I was surprised as I thought it's not 'protecting' a child surely if you push them into a relationship they don't want? I would say quite the opposite - surely it's exposing them to a bad situation? Again I didn't question this at the time but has anyone got any thoughts on this?

It sounds more like they wanted you to be occupied by a friend so they could relax without worrying about you or having to entertain you tbh. But yes, that’s the opposite of being over protective. Maybe your Dad was just trying to ensure you weren’t judging your DM too harshly for making you be friends, by saying she was protecting you?

Over protective -basically wrapping you in cotton wool. There was a thread recently for example with someone saying they never wanted to let their DD out to play ever so that she’d be safe. The reality of that would be that the girl wouldn’t know how to function independently. That’s the damage caused by being over protective. Did your DM wrap you in cotton wool? Not let you have boyfriends? Wear make up? Choose your own clothes? Meet friends in town as a teen? Maybe your mum said that in the hope you would somehow reassure her that your MH problems weren’t her fault?

Thanks - thing is the context of the holiday comment was that she was saying I liked my own company too much generally speaking. I was reading a book at the time so not asking or expecting them to entertain me.
She definitely disapproved of boyfriends but know she couldn't prevent a relationship as i was an adult at the time.
She also railroaded me at home into a friendship with another local girl whose relatives she knew - I hated it

Overprotective to me is not encouraging independence and allowing a child to make choices and assess risk.

Thanks I suppose forcing a friendship I think is wrong cos at 13 you're getting towards adulthood and no one had the authority to force friendships on an adult. My mums behaviour here turned me into a CB people pleaser making me an easy target for bullies

I doubt one holiday friendship had that effect on its own. Do you have other examples?

She played nursery rhymes at my 10th birthday

When I was 20 - when my friend was with me in her car - mum was giving us both a lift to an evening class - she said she had to take the car to the garage as they car had a headache' I mean wtf?! We were 20!!

Did your dm have mh issues of her own?

Yes

Yes, thats exactly as I'd see it. Often someone who is over protective says they're doing it for the other person but it often serves a more sinister purpose. It makes the 'carer' feel powerful because you must obey them because you need them.

Over protective to me means not allowing your children to take calculated risks that might be important to their development, shielding them from the world beyond what is fair and reasonable, not allowing them to fail.

My parents were crazy overprotective to the point it socially isolated me.

Or because the carer has an anxiety disorder about something happening to you in the big bad world.

Maybe your father meant "overprotective" in that your mother was choosing your friend instead of letting you go out and make friends on your own -- as most teenagers would.

Nursery rhymes etc sound like infantalising rather than overprotective (similar threass on MN about not being allowed to take a bus at 15)- not being able to accept you aren't a small kid

Overprotective is is never letting the child out of their sight. Like shadowing around a quiet playpark at 5, or driving a 13yo to school when its half a mile walk... Or tracking their moves constantly by phone.

Both can be damaging.

Dwelling on the past is pointless. You need to focus on the future

Overprotective to me is someone who is overbearingly worried about small things in daily life and is reluctant to allow age-appropriate independence due to a fear of what would happen. Eg. Not allowing their 4 year old go play supervised in a ln empty play area, insisting their teenager can't get the bus or walk more than 2 houses away.

There's a related behaviour where an adult might do the above, but for control/power, to feel like they're still wanted or needed, or to have the child remain dependent on them as they like the control. Eg Refusing to allow age-appropriate grooming, babying the child, telling the child they can't go somewhere or be friends with someone one day but when it suits the adult it's fine.

It is difficult for me to see here anything that is seriously damaging, is there a big drip feed coming?

It sound like they are using the world wrong. Maybe they just use ‘overprotective’ as a way to excuse their behaviour?

It sound like you blame your mother far too much for anything wrong with your life as an adult.
These are really not stand out examples of awful, damaging parenting and yet you clearly can’t let them go.

Yes. I've often wondered exactly this

To me, overprotective means not allowing or encouraging a child to take risks or leave their comfort zone. It means removing all obstacles from their path, never allowing them to experience - or learn from - age-appropriate worries and struggles, not allowing them to solve problems for themselves, leaping to their defence at all times instead of trusting them to manage a situation.

I'm sure parents who do this have the best intentions but it often results in children who can't cope with challenge effectively, who have no resilience or faith in their own abilities.

The holiday friendship and other things you highlight don't seem like big deals to me though. All parents are just muddling along and trying to do their best, sometimes imperfect, sometimes getting things wrong despite best intentions.

Did your mum have overprotective parents? Maybe she thought she was attempting to ensure this didn’t happen to you.

I am wondering whether they were indeed overprotective just because op remembers the one time she was pushed to leave her comfort zone so acutely.

Overprotective could mean interfering too much in the child's choices. For example forcing a 13 year old to "play" with a "friend" rather than leaving them in peace.

Many overprotective parents do it for selfish reasons, be that because they like to control, or because it's a way to deal with their own anxieties, or because they want their children to remain dependent on them. It's not good parenting

This one isolated incident doesn't tell us enough about them op. Who amongst us can say we have got every decision right with our kids? When they get to adulthood, most of our kids will remember one thing - probably more than one thing - we got wrong.

God I hope my children when adults don’t look back over their entire childhoods and pick out events they didn’t like to beat me over the head with. Are you 100% perfect all the time and never make the wrong call? Most parents are doing their best