January 16, 2005

Getting out of a child's way;
High-pressure parenting can produce scripted lives.
Children need to write their own stories.

by Stephanie Dunnewind; Knight Ridder News Service

The most common message from educators and parenting experts is: Get involved with your children, their school, their activities.

Then there's the small caveat: But not too much.

"The major problem nationally is underinvolved parents," said psychologist Michael Thompson, coauthor of The Pressured Child: Helping Your Child Find Success in School and Life."But in affluent suburban neighborhoods, you get a lot of parents who are way overinvolved."

Call them controlling, pushy, enmeshed or hyper: Parents who have become too invested in their child's success (or failure), be it in academics, sports, appearance, or social life.

This includes parents who:

Write their high-schoolers' college essays or insist on a particular university.

Take over a homework project because the child isn't doing it right.

Ignore a child's own interests and insist on certain activities to build a "resume" for the best schools.

Yell at or criticize their child, coach or referee at games.

Overinvolvement "reflects some emotional need on the parent's part, not the best interests of the child," said Dan Neuharth, author of If You Had Controlling Parents."Parents' hopes and fears for themselves are transferred onto the child."

While there have always been hard-to-please parents, some experts say parental micromanagement has gone mainstream.

From books (recent example: Raising Your Child to Be a Champion in Athletics, Arts and Academics), "Baby Einstein" videos, and the specialization of youth sports, parents are encouraged to believe that it's up to them to ensure that their kids are the brightest and most athletic. Not taking advantage of every learning opportunity, one author notes, is practically considered middle-class child neglect.

"Overinvolved parents and overscheduled children are the recommended ways to raise children these days," said Alvin Rosenfeld, coauthor of The Over-Scheduled Child: Avoiding the Hyper-Parenting Trap."And it's really not to anyone's good."

No one suggests that parents shouldn't be supportive, and active in their child's lives; numerous studies show children who are emotionally connected to their parents do better in school and make good life choices, such as avoiding drugs.

But overinvolved parents - even with the best intentions - often fail to consider the long-term effects of intruding in a child's life, experts say.

Children struggling in school performed better when parents took a hands-off, positive approach rather than a critical, controlling one, according to a study by Eva Pomerantz, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois. Her research was reported in a recent issue of Child Development.

"For low achievers with moms who had controlling responses, kids' grades went down over six months," she said. When parents offered encouragement and supported the child's problem-solving skills, children had better grades in the same time period.

High achievers did well regardless of parents' response, Pomerantz said. That could be because these children already get positive feedback in school and don 't need parents to reinforce their competence, she noted. "Low achievers need that extra boost from parents."

Parents shouldn't help unless a child asks for assistance, Pomerantz said. If a child is having difficulty, parents can sit next to children as they work and ask guiding questions. "If you simply give the answer, you're not helping your child in the long run," she said.

Young children will attempt to please their parents, then burn out and "just throw you over" when they're old enough to assert their independence, Thompson said.

Neuharth agrees: "If you make decisions for your child, like making him try out for the school play because you always wanted to, the probable effect is alienating your child as he grows older."

Controlling parents often refuse to let children disagree, or negate their anger, said Neuharth, a marriage and family therapist in California. If children feel they have to act a certain way to gain their parents' love or respect, "one possible legacy as an adult is that it's hard to be oneself. It's hard to have a full emotional range."

Of all the areas where parents overcontrol, academics may be the most common. Some parents feel their child's grades reflect their parenting skills.

"One thing I'm getting now is a lot of parents who are frantic that kids aren't reading by the end of kindergarten," said Thompson, a school consultant and coauthor of Raising Cain. "It used to be, kids learned to read in first grade. Parents can't stand that now."

"It's good kids know education is important, but it's amazing how much parents pick at both kids and teachers with constant fault-finding," Thompson said.

Parents who rush into situations often justify it with love and the desire to protect.

But the underlying messages to the child are: Educators are not trustworthy. Other children are dangerous. We don't believe you can work out problems on your own.