March 2000

- Raising Our Kids -
"Hyper-Parenting":
When Too Much is Too Much

by Lori Pizzani

You've heard of hyperactivity, hypertension and hyperventilation, but as a parent in the new millennium, there's yet another "hyper" to be reckoned with - hyper-parenting.

According to a new book, "Hyper-Parenting: Are You Hurting Your Child by Trying Too Hard?", written by Alvin Rosenfeld, M.D., and Nicole Wise (St. Martin's Press, $22.95), today's parents are mired in a world where over-parenting abounds and good intentions can often turn harmful.

"Contemporary hyper-parenting is a true product of our times -- manufactured in a high-tech environment, according to a set of stratospherically high expectations," write the authors. Many well-meaning parents, hoping to mold their little ones into happy, healthy and successful adults, put the parental pedal to the metal and forget to slow down and take time to enjoy the journey. The result? Weary, over-scheduled children whose parents will do whatever it takes, often with great personal sacrifice, to assure that their children are the fastest, brightest, smartest and best.

It's not that parents of today are bad parents, the book explains. Just the opposite, in fact. Today's parents are genuinely concerned about their children's futures and are amply prepared for parenthood, starting the parenting process well before conception even takes place.

In this information age, there's certainly no shortage of 'experts' who will happily give parents the six best ways to cope with Jason's temper tantrums, or the 10 healthiest snacks to tuck into Jennifer's lunchbox. The key, say the authors, is understanding that such parenting rules need not be hard and fast. In our effort to be great parents, they continue, we seem to have forgotten that life is the journey, not the goal, and there is no one-size-fits-all way to parent. What works for one child may be totally wrong for another, even within the same family.

With the best of intentions, we schedule enrichment programs, sign up for gymnastics lessons, and help Peter 'polish' his writing assignment. But while our hearts are in the right place, like anything else, too much of a good thing many actually be harmful to both the development of our children and our own demanding lives. Moreover, we are teaching our children by example how to be hyper-parents themselves -- a lesson they will probably learn anyway in today's world. 

Today's modern parents are simply too involved with their children, claims the book.  "We're almost too good," says Dr. Rosenfeld, who is a child psychiatrist in private practice in Manhattan and Greenwich, Connecticut, as well as a member of Big Apple Parent's Health Advisory Board.  Dr. Rosenfeld has taught at Harvard and Columbia Universities, and has directed the child psychiatry training program at Stanford University.

"We're too involved with our children's lives," he continues. "They need to play with their Legos.  They need time to make up a game. We parents have to realize this is not idle time. We need to allow our children to create their worlds." Often the result of our self-made pressure cooker produces severe stress and a sense of resentment -- in both children and parents, he adds.

For those parents already feeling the pangs of guilt, the book explains that it's an entire societal shift that has led to this hyper-parenting syndrome.  The emphasis has changed over the last several decades, and now, from the moment a fetal heartbeat is heard at the obstetrician's office, our whole world becomes child-centric.

Yet our efforts to plan and organize to ensure that everything is ideal for our little ones may backfire, suggest Dr. Rosenfeld and Nicole Wise. "The conviction that each and every moment in our child's life out to be joyful, that he ought never to know what it means to 'suffer,' is misguided," they say, explaining that in life, some level of 'suffering' is inevitable and children must learn their own ways of coping with pain and failure.

"We may be uncomfortable with letting our children fail or mess up, but they need those experiences to develop resilience for the real world when we're not there paving the road for them," says Wise, mother of four and an award-winning journalist who writes about family life issues for a range of national publications.

In addition, she notes, while trying to do everything perfectly for our children, we often forget that we are people, too, with needs and desires that exist beyond those invisible umbilical cords to our children. "The 'you' gets lost," she says. "As parents, we need to really tune into who we are as people - and let our kids know that, too." For instance, she suggests, when we have a conversation about our day, we shouldn't focus solely on our children's experiences, but should mention some of our own as well.

So how can parents know if they are hyper-parenting? "The key question," says Wise, "is: 'How does your life feel to you? Are you enjoying it? Do you feel good? Do you have time for friends and family and personal interests? Or is is a drag to get everyone out in the morning?" If you're not so sure, then it's time to step back and reevaluate where you are -- as both a parent and a person, where your children are, and what' really important to both of you.

"Ultimately, we are going to raise a person who, like us, is less than ideal," say the authors. "As the wisdom goes, none of us will be a perfect person or a perfect parent. All we can hope for is the will and stamina to be good enough." Which may be just perfect.