Is modern parenting damaging to kids?

[Rainbowsponge]

My friend’s husband is a professional in the area of child development and education. He’s taught at numerous schools, SEN schools and is now a researcher. He doesn’t have children, but I do, and yesterday we were talking about the seeming increase in children with anxiety, mental health issues and what he described as ‘delayed adulthood’.

He’s British but his extended family are from India, and he said visits to see them make a striking contrast between how our children are raised and how theirs are raised. He said children are sort of left to run around in packs and find their own amusement from quite a young age, and as a result they seem more mature and confident.

His theory is that we are interrupting normal development opportunities for kids brains, and therefore they’re not properly developing. He thinks we intervene too much in perfectly ordinary learning opportunities, like playground disagreements, and our quest to make sure our children never feel challenged or upset is actually making them more anxious.

He also thinks softer, more modern punishments are bewildering children and reinforcing bad behaviour, leaving them confused about right and wrong. Children read facial expressions, so seeing us look calm/unbothered rather than angry/disappointed when they’ve done something wrong is counterproductive and blocks them from naturally learning human behaviour and socialisation.

I’m not professing to be a perfect parent at all, but it was a really interesting chat and I want to discuss it further!

So should we lock our kids up then ? To keep them alive ? How ridiculous. Kids arnt living If they arnt given freedom to develop and grow their own personalities.

Surely there’s a balance between not looking at the past with rose tinted specs and locking dc up 😆

Do you work with children?

There is lots of bad parenting, there is lots of physical abuse, there is lots of neglect.

But you only gave examples of abuse, you didnt give examples of yesteryear parenting.

@LGBirmingham Im resilient because I had some tough stuff to deal with growing up. I think it’s very hard to be resilient without hardship when you are young tbh.

Teen pregnancy was very much a worry in the 80s - yes, it had been a problem since the dawn of time, but standards and morals were changing rapidly. In Eastenders, the the whole Dirty Den / Michelle Fowler / unmarried mother with baby was quite the storyline. Cutting edge, up-to-date, yet arguably required.

We were lectured widely in schools and on TV about "stranger danger", but we were never discouraged from being out on our own, we were taught what we were supposed to do to avoid / or if approached. We also had some really graphic adverts on TV that showed what would happen if we played near a railway or climbed a pylon. They're all on youtube, and it's fair to say that in the main they did the trick.

I have been surprised at the number of posters on here that are very anti children ‘playing out’ in anyway and only allow organised activities and scheduled play dates. Ditto some posters who don’t allow their TEENAGERS to ‘hang out’ with friends or just have free time- it’s all strict ‘straight home after school and socialising is to be done at clubs and organised activities’

I've been saying this for years. Small example. People buying multiples of kids favourite teddy or scouring the internet when it's lost. Losing a beloved teddy can be a great way to learn to deal with complex emotions.
No one wants their kids to be sad but if we interfere at every opportunity they never learn and then can't cope when you're not there. Like pulling kids out of sats. Just creates more stress when you can't pull them out of GCSEs.

Actually if you look at suicide rates, you find that the highest rates are (I believe) for males between 50-55 and rates in men are higher overall than women. In my experience, early childhood trauma and neglect and being shamed by caregivers is highly predictive of future mental health difficulties. Often people will find ways to cope with this for many years (through denial/ overwork, etc) until it gets too much.

I said to mum not long ago that I wanted my DS to toughen up a little bit as he was so sensitive when it came to playing and it was ruining the fun he could have. She hasn't spoke to me properly since 😂

I think most kids will work through most unserious issues on their own, but schools have targets so we measure and pathologise everything.

It’s really hard in those situations. Especially when you can feel judging eyes in you. It makes it so much worse. I’ve been in similar situations. Sometimes I spot it early and can prevent it, sometimes I’m great at broken record - ‘I know you want that but you can’t have it’ rinse repeat until it stops, sometimes I have in for a quiet life and sometimes I lost my cool. Mostly I did ok but if you’d caught me on a bad day your judgy hat would have been firmly on.

@Montydone successful suicides occur at a higher rate in men than women. Women, however are three times more likely to attempt suicide than men.

I still do the above except I don't say it in a telling off way, I just say it nicely.

Genuine question then, are the female suicide attempts some sort of cry for help as opposed to wanting to end their lives, or is it that they are less successful at it? I can't word this question tactfully, I am so sorry.

Yup people thought I was resilient.

Often adversity toughens up kids and they're "wise beyond their years"

But I'm finding it also can unravel years later when these coping mechanisms don't work.

Not sure it's to be aspire to.

My personal theory is that the nursery and school systems are too much too young. Overwhelming for younger babies and children and school is complete sensory overload and too overwhelming for some children. I personally prefer to not work as well so that I can home educate but I appreciate that lifestyle isn’t for everyone and I respect that and just expressing a different approach as my eldest two dc became quite unwell when we did nursery from a young age and both working so I changed it

@Thedayb4youcame largely it's because men chose more "violent" and therefore successful methods. Women are much more likely to use methods such as overdose which are more likely to fail. I do believe that the vast majority of people who attempt to end their lives fully mean to not survive.

I really appreciate your reply, thank you. Thank you also for reading my question in the spirit it was intended.

@Thedayb4youcame no worries. It read as a completely genuine question IMO

I’m always a bit sceptical about this. Just because things were not given a name or diagnosis doesn’t mean they weren’t there. And teens didn’t cope that well. I remember loads of self harm, anorexia, drinking, drug taking etc. I don’t think we were that resilient really.

I feel like this happens a lot with schools and some parents too that an issue is made out of things that don't need to be issues and so conflict is created when no conflict is needed.

For example the almost zero tolerance on DC ever being off sick. Unfortunately, my DD has Long COVID and on top of this she catches everything, gets it more seriously than most and then can be left with post viral fatigue. Sadly, I cannot cure her of this. So yes, sometimes she misses school. But I get it in the neck! My GP told me to just ignore them, but it is very hard when you are being lectured by some ignorant person from the LA!

I still do the above except I don't say it in a telling off way, I just say it nicely.

@Riversideandrelax I wasn't told off, it was more in a 'I am in charge and that's just how it is' kind of way.

I completely agree lots of this happening when I was a teen too.

But the thing is that there are generations of toxic parents who've dumped their unresolved issues on their children.

I think that modern parenting seeks to not make children responsible for their parent's feelings which can only be good.

Also, generation Z don't get pissed all the time like my peers did when I was at uni.

Agreed.

Ah, right! That's how I say it to mine. I just say I have to parent you in the way I think is right for you and so and sos parents have to do the same.