Why should you let your children experience hardship? What can happen if your children don’t learn to handle pain?
According to psychotherapist Amy Morin, being an overprotective parent who handles your children’s problems will cause more issues for them in the long run. Children need to learn how to overcome struggles and build confidence.
Here’s why you need to learn to step back and let your child struggle, even though it’s difficult.
Mentally Strong Parents Aren’t Overprotective
It’s natural to want to shield your child from hardship. However, Morin says that not letting children experience pain—both physical and emotional—sends the message that they’re too weak and fragile to deal with such pain. This often leads to adults who spend their whole lives trying to avoid ever feeling bad and resorting to unhealthy coping mechanisms like drugs to do so.
Therefore, mentally strong parents allow their kids to experience adversity, then provide the guidance and support they need to cope with it. This way, their children build confidence in their ability to handle pain and hardship, rather than becoming afraid of it.
For example, an overprotective parent might forbid their child from trying out for the school soccer team because they’re afraid that their kid will get hurt. The child then internalizes the message that they can’t handle danger and grow up to be a timid adult who’s afraid to take risks.
Conversely, a mentally strong parent would encourage their child to try out for the team—and, if they do get hurt, help them to endure the pain and recover from the injury. That child would then internalize the opposite message: that they’re strong and resilient, so they can afford to take risks because they’ll be able to handle whatever happens.
| Strategies to Build Resilience Reining in your overprotective instincts is only the first step toward helping your child develop the kind of inner strength that Morin describes here; there are many ways you can help your child build the resilience to persevere through pain and hardship. A few key strategies include: Encouraging connections. A strong support network is helpful to someone who’s going through a difficult time. Therefore, teaching your child the importance of friends and loved ones, and helping your child to develop their social skills, is an excellent way to help them develop resilience. Teaching self-esteem and self-care. People who respect and trust themselves feel empowered to confront and solve their problems. However, part of respecting yourself is taking care of yourself—for instance, teach your child how to stay healthy, make sure they have time to do things they enjoy, and let them know that it’s OK to take a break sometimes. All of these self-care practices help build up reserves of inner strength that your child can tap when they’re struggling. Having honest conversations. Listen to your child’s concerns and answer their questions truthfully. If your child is young, often the best thing you can do is simply reassure them that you’re there to help and to keep them safe. Once they’re a bit older, usually around 12 years old, you can also share stories about times when you struggled and how you coped with those situations; learning that you got through similar hardships will be reassuring for your child. |
Mentally Strong Parents Don’t Base Decisions on Fear
Morin says that parents generally become overprotective because they’re afraid for their children, which is natural and understandable. However, that leads to another of her “don’ts”: Don’t base your parenting decisions on fear. She adds that if you’re making decisions to protect your child from embarrassment, discomfort, or failure—in other words, anything short of actual danger—then you’re letting fear drive your parenting.
This is harmful because fear-based parenting decisions tend to stunt a child’s development. Children of fearful, overprotective parents never learn to take care of themselves or make their own decisions; they grow up completely reliant on their parents’ protection. Therefore, when they lose that protection as adults, they don’t have the skills or the confidence to make their own way in the world.
(Shortform note: Morin advises that you don’t try to protect your child from anything except actual danger. You can do this more effectively—and ease your worries at the same time—by learning about the most common dangers that kids actually face, and about situations that are much less dangerous than many parents believe. For instance, it’s estimated that only about one in 10,000 missing children (that’s only 0.01%) were abducted by strangers, yet many parents are terrified of their children even talking to people they don’t know. On the other hand, being cautious around swimming pools is very reasonable, since accidental drownings are tragically common. Teaching your child safety skills, such as how to swim, will be helpful for both your child’s safety and your own anxiety.)
Furthermore, says Morin, fearful parents tend to micromanage everything, thereby stifling their children’s freedom and self-expression. This kind of overbearing parenting style often leads to frustrated, resentful children.
For example, an anxious parent might insist on choosing their kid’s outfit every day, long after the child is capable of getting dressed on their own. The parent might be afraid their child will become the target of bullies if they choose their own clothes, or they might worry about the child getting a bad reputation by projecting the “wrong” image with their clothing choices.
Fearful parents also view any small act of rebellion—for instance, if the child from the previous example were to sneak a different shirt to school—as a sign that they need to become even stricter. Since they’ve already decided that the “risk” their child took is unacceptable, they conclude that the only solution is to tighten their control and make sure their child never takes such a risk again.
(Shortform note: In addition to stifling free will and self-expression, fear-based parenting tends to make children frustrated and resentful because it’s insulting to the child. Every time an anxious parent takes a decision away from their child, they’re implying the child isn’t competent enough to make that decision. It becomes even more insulting when that decision is something trivial, like which shirt to wear to school; though the parent is only trying to help, it comes across as them thinking that the child is too stupid to pick their own outfit. When someone grows up being constantly insulted in this way, it’s not surprising that they’d become angry and resentful.)
