Watch: Raising successful kids without overparenting

Backing off from parenting isn't what is being asked for, she appeals. However, she requests to stop micromanaging and directing their life at every little step.

Representative image (Source: Dreamstime)

Most parents swear by the fact that their kids can’t be successful until their parents guide them, direct their life and take decisions on their behalf. The present style of parenting is interfering in the lives of children so much so that they can’t develop their own personalities. Julie-Lythcott Haims, the renowned author of ‘How to Raise an Adult’, talks about the need for parents to realise that their kids are not a ‘bonsai tree’ which needs clipping to form into a perfect shape, but wildflowers who need love and care. As parents, one must try to provide a nourishing environment for kids to grow up into responsible adults. The ‘Checklisted-childhood’ is creating hindrance in their later successful life.

She focuses on the constant tiff going in the minds of parents that their child needs to seek admission in the best-branded college and school to become successful. We, as parents, are snatching free time from our kids, claiming every situation as a make or break moment. Thus, the children become older before their time. However, we must allow some time for the kids to grow individually, exercise their brain, execute their plans and experience the consequences. This will lay a wider ground to learn and grow.

She cites an example from the Harvard Grant study, on how a child becomes a successful professional and how happiness in life requires a love of people.

She outlines the fact that we provide such a sheltered life to children that it becomes too hard for them to come out of their shell. Our love and concern are more towards scoring the A’s in life than concerns about their mental health. Hence, kids are plagued by anxiety and depression. And we all have been live witness increasing number of cases of depression, isolation and anxiety attacks.

Backing off from parenting isn’t what is being asked for, she appeals. However, she requests to stop micromanaging and directing their life at every little step. Let us allow children to develop into their glorious selves and not pressurise them to become what we want.

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