CHAPTER 1: ARE YOU OVERPARENTING?

When I was a child over fifty years ago,” Sam says, describing his upbringing in Central New Jersey, “I would show up at home for meals, and the rest of the time was mine either to run around with friends, go to my room and do ‘experiments,’ or ride my bike to the sports fields across town for pickup games—baseball in spring and summer and football in fall and winter. Occasionally, someone would call my parents to tell them they saw me riding my bike through a red light or report me being up to some kind of mischief, like throwing tomatoes at cars or calling up the drugstore to see if they had Prince Albert in a Can. From what I gather, my childhood was similar to my parents’, and their parents’, too. It was simple and real and uncomplicated.”

Today, in small towns and communities throughout America, in places such as Bainbridge Island near Seattle, Washington, or L’Anse, Michigan, on the Upper Peninsula, or Cape Cod, Massachusetts, kids still live like that. Their parents do not have afterschool programs for their kids. Those children go home after school and play for hours, like kids have been doing for decades, largely unsupervised and left alone to be children, surviving on their own devices and left to think for themselves. That means enjoying the pure pleasure of creating something out of nothing, as well as figuring out for the most part how to deal with mistakes and troubles—on their own, all by themselves. In places like this, where people can live life literally out of the fast lane, parents generally don’t fret about their children’s welfare, try to manage every activity their kids are engaged in, or continually text them to “check in.” Amazing. Kids can be kids—creative, conniving, and cantankerous, yet quite capable of growing up successfully, leaving the adults to pretty much do the same, but hopefully in private. Is it because parents in rural communities have it easier than those trying to navigate life in the big city? Maybe. Maybe not. The grass is always greener, if you want to look at life that way, and it always has been.

When it comes to parenting, we all have our ups and downs, good days and bad days, moments to be proud of and occasions to cringe. Despite our differences—culturally, economically, or by virtue of age, gender, or education—we all share one thing in common: overparenting. We’re all guilty. At some point or another, we’ve all gone overboard trying to do what we consider to be the right thing for our children. While our intentions are almost always admirable regarding our children, our specific actions may prove otherwise.

The traps and foibles of modern-day overparenting are basically unavoidable, especially when you consider one primary object: the cell phone. With this mobile device, we can keep track of our kids at just about any time and any place. And, if they don’t respond when we email, text, or call (or all three), it can create terrible anxiety for the parent and make the child feel infantilized and intruded upon, many times for no good reason. It’s a great example of when a concern for our children’s safety can become a need for control, and as our children get older, this can become quite counterproductive. Overparenting can also come into play because of the great pressure so many parents feel to make sure that they are doing the right thing, so that their children will be successful. This pressure can lead to overscheduling, overpraising, overtutoring, and generally overstressing about life itself.

What we refer to as “overparenting” covers a broad spectrum of parental involvement. At times, all of us may feel the need to intervene, either to help our children when they absolutely need it or to jump in and give our child a leg up on everyone else. Perhaps you don’t always recognize the difference, and a definition is required:

Overparenting occurs when someone tries too hard to manage the outcome of his or her child’s life, imposing his or her own expectations, often inappropriately, regardless of the child’s wishes and abilities.

Sound familiar? Wait, there’s more:

Overparenting violates reasonable boundaries when a parent undermines a child’s developing independence by sabotaging a teacher or coach’s authority or through unnatural attempts to manipulate institutions that might otherwise present healthy and productive life challenges.

In all honestly, we’re not quite finished:

Overparenting can compromise a child’s ability to deal with hardship and failure, can stunt the growth of self-esteem and confidence, and can lead a child to feel a warped sense of entitlement and unreasonable expectations. Ultimately, this can create a sense of failure on the part of the parent, particularly when his or her efforts to manipulate and scheme for a successful outcome do not work out.

While all of this behavior may not apply to you, some of it must be all too familiar, either through firsthand experience or from behavior you have witnessed. In any case, each of us, no matter how diligent and thoughtful we may be, can hardly avoid the pitfalls and pressures that parenting inevitably presents, which includes the daily possibility of overparenting our most prized possessions: our children.

Time-out! What’s wrong with that last sentence? It’s quite simple. While at times we may feel that our children are our most prized possessions, they are not actually your possession or your trophy, no more than a spouse is to his or her mate.

Your child is not your possession.

Get that straight right now, because it is crucial to your ability to parent a healthy, happy, and productive citizen of the world. Your child, aside from the person with whom you conceived him or her, is probably the most important, most loved person in your life, and that’s a good thing; that’s how it should be. But that’s where it also needs to stop. This is twenty-first-century America. You don’t own your child any more than you own your husband or wife.

You must recognize that while your child is supported by you—a little or a lot, depending on his or her age—an essential part of your job as a parent is to teach your child, beginning with his or her first steps, how to become independent; then, as he or she does achieve this, you must let the child go. But that’s difficult for many people, especially those who confuse letting go with not loving their child enough. Maybe it would help if these moms and dads had a simple way to determine their own level of overparenting. It’s almost impossible to evaluate our own behavior without a little outside help, an objective eye to clarify our strengths and weaknesses, so we have developed a checklist for you to use to gauge your own behavior.

How Do You Know whether You Are Overparenting?

This brief series of multiple-choice questions will give you a pretty clear estimation of how much overparenting you’re doing—or not. Hint: There is no perfect answer! And because there is not always even a “correct” answer that applies to every parent, child and situation, you must determine what’s right for you and your family. If you’re not sure, keep reading. This book should help you figure some of it out.

  1. Do you sacrifice your own social needs simply to attend to your child?

A. Sometimes.

B. All the time.

C. Rarely.

D. I have no social needs of my own, or, if I do, they revolve around my child’s schedule.

  2. Are your happiness and self-worth tied up solely in your children?

A. Sometimes, but isn’t that true of all parents?

B. It depends on what else is going on in my life. Let me check my calendar.

C. No, absolutely not.

D. Yes—although it’s hard to admit, I am only as happy as my unhappiest child.

  3. How often do you do your kid’s kindergarten project?

A. Never.

B. Usually, especially if it’s late at night and it hasn’t been done yet.

C. Always. Aren’t we supposed to?

D. Sometimes. If he asks, I’ll supervise.

  4. Do you feel bad if your kid’s third-grade science project looks inferior to the ones that were done by parents?

A. Not really.

B. Of course! It’s embarrassing, and people will think I’m a bad parent.

C. Sometimes, especially if the teacher seems to reward those kids whose parents helped.

D. No—as long as my kid doesn’t care, I’m fine.

  5. Whose fault is it if your child is not admitted into his or her college of choice?

A. The high school—in particular, the guidance counselor.

B. The college, because it didn’t appreciate my child’s gifts.

C. No one is at fault.

D. The College Board, for making these tests so freaking important!

  6. What should happen if your ninth-grade child is struggling academically?

A. Switch to a different school.

B. Call the school and demand new teachers.

C. Encourage your child to speak with his or her teachers.

D. That’s impossible. My kid’s a genius, but they are not testing him correctly.

  7. How often should you be texting your child during the school day?

A. Only when I really miss him.

B. Two or three times, but not during lunch. I want her to eat!

C. Never.

D. It’s a two-way street with my child. I like him to initiate our daily texting.

  8. If your seven-year-old is being bullied on the playground, what will you do first?

A. Confront the bully’s parents after school.

B. Speak with your child and get his or her account.

C. Punch out the bully and ask questions later.

D. Ask the teacher on duty what is happening, why, and how it can be stopped.

  9. How much “down” time do you allow your child?

A. None. The world is competitive, and there’s no time for that.

B. “Down” time means community college instead of an Ivy League school, so none of that.

C. Here’s a stick. Go play in the backyard.

D. I make sure that my kids have time to relax every single day.

10. What will you do if your child graduates from college and can’t get a job?

A. Call up colleagues and get one for him.

B. Give him an allowance and tell him not to worry.

C. Go to his job interviews with him and try to seal the deal.

D. Offer him ninety days of home therapy.

11. Do you still pay your twenty-six-year-old’s cell phone bill?

A. How else will she get the family plan discount?

B. It’s the only way I know that she will call me.

C. No. She can talk to whomever she wants on her nickel.

D. I’ve been doing it for years. Why would I change a good thing?

A Color Code for Parents

Like the color-coding system that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) once used to signal specific threat levels of terrorism and announce its responsive course of action, we might also use this system, thanks to the suggestion of a school counselor in Texas, to delineate a spectrum of parental behavior that ranges from absolutely healthy, to not-so-much, to sick, to downright worthy of an urgent visit to the emergency room or psychiatric clinic. Almost every parent, depending on the situation, moves between the green, yellow, orange, and red zones at different times in their child’s life. Some parents seem to be always in a crisis mode, and to them everything is seen as a cause for alarm, if not a potential threat to their child’s success in the world. In the same manner as the TSA, these colors seem like a reasonable way to evaluate one’s level of overparenting, from caring and supportive, to worried and confused, to desperate and out of control.

Green

A parent is confident and caring, and able to foster the development of resilience, independence, and freedom in his or her children.

Yellow

This is when caring becomes controlling, when a worried parent moves in to actively intervene in situations in an effort to affect the outcome.

Orange

As a parent becomes worried, often for no apparent reason, he or she becomes manipulative and even more controlling, trying to take charge of the school, the teachers, and anyone else he or she can reach. At these times, the parent will often be seen as mean if not downright nasty.

Red

This is when a parent’s behavior simply gets out of control. While a real crisis may demand an extreme response—for example, when a child’s survival is at stake—we all too often see parents reaching this level of behavior when it is not warranted. When a parent is out of control, when he or she becomes “crazy,” this can create damaging consequences for the child and the relationship with his or her parent.

Your level of overparenting is subject to change based on your anxiety, intelligence, self-control, ability to reason, capacity for discretion, and threat level. There is an extensive history spanning many decades of what degrees of parental involvement and behavior are deemed to be appropriate.

According to The New York Times, Diana Baumrind, a clinical and developmental psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, has found that “the optimal parent is one who is involved and responsive, who sets high expectations but respects her child’s autonomy.”1

Active parents like these define the best aspect of what “controlling” can be, an ideal balance of caring, discipline, and respect. Their children will thrive academically and socially, as opposed to children of parents who are either permissive and less engaged, or controlling and too intense.

It’s a challenge to find the best mix, and it depends on many factors. But there are many warning signs to consider that can help you identify whether you might be overparenting.

Parenting Archetypes

In order to fully understand the variety of behavior and personality traits that define the world of overparenting, it is important to identify who these archetypes are, what they do, and why they do it. Clearly, we will not list all of them, as not even Shakespeare could include all of society’s archetypes in any one play, but the characters that follow should help you identify where you fit in the collection. While some of these archetypes overlap somewhat, we’ve divided them into five distinct categories: guardian angels, type-As, buddies, producers, and accessories. Please remember that most parents may overlap categories. Just as one size does not fit all, one person may not personify one archetype alone.

GUARDIAN ANGELS

These parents are perpetually hovering nearby, always ready to jump in to protect or facilitate anything that may happen to their children.

The Protector

Who They Are: Like the negotiator and the intervener, these parents are afraid that their children will be hurt, be disappointed, or, even worse, fail at something. With that in mind, they will do almost anything to protect their children from that type of outcome. They will go so far as to lie, manipulate, and cover up for their children so that the children don’t have to deal with the consequences of their behavior.

What They Do: A protector will usually just listen to the child’s version of whatever incident has occurred, take that story at face value, and then go into defensive or attack mode. At that point, this person will attempt to protect the child from what the parent—and the child—perceive to be the consequences of the child’s bad behavior. Even if the child’s story is incorrect and offers a distorted view of what happened, which is often the case if the child is “fudging” the facts, the protector will take action. He or she may approach the head of the school and tell that person what the child said, as well as that the teacher is bad, and what the teacher did wrong to cause the child to act inappropriately and to be unfairly subjected to negative consequences. The protector will usually accept the word of the young child over the professional report of the teacher and the school.

Why: If parents have a holier-than-thou attitude about their own position in the world, they may simply avoid digging deeper to understand the position of the school and/or the teacher. They may also mistrust the school or the system with which the child is involved and will quickly blame or find fault with anything having to do with that system. It’s often easier to just take the word of the child, assume that he or she is right, and make others fix the problem. Conveniently, this spares the protector, much like the blamer, from holding himself or herself accountable for the child’s behavior and his or her own ineffective parenting. It also preserves the child in a positive light, and keeps the child from being upset, which can be very important for parents who choose this behavior.

Example: Alicia, a Midwestern mother of two, has just moved to a new neighborhood and enrolled her kids in the local middle school. Her son, Danny, doesn’t like his new school and is lashing out at other kids and his teachers. When his teacher contacts Alicia to describe Danny’s behavior, Alicia is deeply embarrassed, and instead of apologizing, looking for solutions, and trying to understand what is happening with her son, she puts on a defensive front and points a finger at the other children and the teacher. The next day, without having discussed any of this with her son, she marches into the school and demands that Danny be moved to another class.

The Hyper-Protector

Who They Are: These parents are seemingly “normal” and begin their parental lives with average concerns for their children’s safety, but soon enough they are running interference for their children at every corner, in essence trying to protect them from every potential life risk.

What They Do: Much like interveners and micromanagers, hyper-protectors overreact in many situations, usually before they occur, and then respond by trying to keep their children from participating in typical childhood activities, such as riding school buses, playing in local playgrounds, and enjoying sleepovers, just to name a few.

Why: Hyper-protectors look around at the world, and all they see is its instability and pending dangers. Often this behavior can be triggered by a traumatic event happening to another child or the media picking up on an event involving another child somewhere else, which makes these parents nervous. They may also be trying—unrealistically—to preserve their children’s first phase of life, when they were essentially dependent on their parents for everything and their parents reveled in the feeling of being needed.

Example: Mo and Bette live in a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland, which has seen its share of crime over the years. However, Mo and Bette don’t live on the set of The Wire. Their children attend a private school, and their neighborhood is quite safe. But Mo and Bette cannot relax, and they have hired a driver, who essentially functions as a bodyguard, to escort their children to and from school, as well as to every playdate, sleepover, and sporting event. The “driver” even takes a seat on the daughter’s basketball team bench during games. This constant surveillance and watchdogging is causing a terrible rift between Mo and Bette and their children.

The Intervener

Who They Are: They are related to the negotiator, in that they seek to represent their children when conflicts arise with teachers, coaches, or tutors. Unfortunately, they often jump in and make demands without a full understanding of the situation, which includes taking their child’s word for what has or has not occurred as it relates to the event for which they are intervening.

What They Do: Much like negotiators, these parents just can’t keep their noses out of their children’s business. Interveners will often sneak into their children’s school to manipulate or pitch for their kids, but they don’t want their kids to know that they have tried to intercede. This type of behavior has inspired the term “stealth parent.” Even when their kids are upset and tell their parents not to intervene or that they will work it out themselves, these parents do it anyway—because they just can’t help themselves, thinking that is what “good parents” do, or because they know that their children will not be able to express themselves as well as the parents do.

Why: These parents often intervene because their kids are “afraid of retribution” if they actively disagree with a teacher or coach about something meaningful to them. Rather than encourage and support their children to stand up and speak for themselves, interveners choose to communicate on their children’s behalf, depriving them of the opportunity to become self-confident problem solvers and effective negotiators in their own right, which are life skills they need to develop. This does not necessarily mean that parents should never intervene, but they should give their children the opportunity to try to work it out first on their own.

Example: Dan, a father of three from Lansing, Michigan, is worried about his youngest child, Angel, who loves to play the drums but is not terribly adept at holding a beat. She would like to join her middle school’s jazz band someday, but it’s quite clear to everyone, Angel included, that she needs much more practice before she’s ready to play in public with other students. Angel has a good sense of humor about her struggles, but Dan feels that the school’s music teacher should be reaching out to her. In fact, he pressures him to hold an audition for Angel, even though she doesn’t want it. This forces both Angel and the music teacher into an awkward and painful situation. Sadly, it’s not long before Angel gives up the drums entirely.

The Anxiety Maker

Who They Are: These are the parents we see everywhere, constantly phoning and texting, checking their watches to make sure that they are on time and that they do not miss an activity or contact from anyone about their child. If they have young children, they will be holding their hands everywhere they go, as if a wind is about to blow the children away and they will never be found again.

What They Do: Anxiety-driven parents—most of us can sometimes fall into this category—often do not allow young children to use age-appropriate playground equipment without an adult close enough to physically hold them. Some parents even will put a tracker on their children at a nursery school or another lower school, just in case something happens to them. They will prevent young teenagers from going out with their friends, even to safe places, such as movie theaters or malls, without parental supervision, because the children are “not old enough” or “something might happen.” Some parents go so far as to check on their seventeen- or eighteen-year-old children when they are hanging out at a friend’s home. Some will even put trackers on their children’s cars. They may call and check on them hourly, barrage them with texts, or contact the other child’s parents to see what they are up to.

Why: These parents may have high levels of anxiety themselves, and this causes them to overreact, especially when it comes to their kids. Their anxiety often causes their children to become anxious when there is no reason for them to be, and sets up children who may become untrusting of themselves and others, just as their parents are demonstrating with their behavior.

Example: Joan’s daughter is in her last year of high school. Joan is in a tizzy, worried that her daughter may not get into the college of her choice. Two or three times a week, she calls the guidance counselor and asks her to remind the prospective colleges about her daughter, but she does not spend nearly as much time ensuring that her daughter is doing her homework, something that will have a more significant impact on her getting into college. Joan is also anxious that her daughter’s self-esteem will suffer if she is not selected to be this year’s homecoming queen.

TYPE As

These parents are driven in every area of their life. Their home life and involvement with their children is just another part of that.

The Overachiever

Who They Are: The overachiever is typically a highly educated, professionally trained mom who has quit her job and now devotes herself full-time to parenting, focusing like a laser on her only child because she has “just one chance to get it right or make it perfect.” This means, based on her own exceptional achievements, which she feels that she has given up to raise her child, she has extremely high expectations for her child’s academic outcomes. It becomes particularly trying for the overachiever and her child if the child is not as gifted as the parent feels he is, or at least should be.

What They Do: These parents will have their children take standardized tests, such as the PSAT, up to five times so that they will get a better score. These parents are convinced that this type of pushing will give their children a step up on the academic ladder. These parents often want their children to go to the college of their choice and direct their children’s application process in that direction, not seriously considering what would be a good fit for their children or even what the children may want. When a guidance counselor asks a child of an overachiever where he or she wants to go to college, the answer may often begin with, “My mother thinks I should go to . . .”

Why: These parents are as keen to be successful in parenting as they have been at their work, and their success is measured by their child’s performance. They would feel inadequate as a parent if their child fell short in any of the endeavors they deem important, whether those are in the classroom, on the field, or in a concert hall. They assume, and possibly even announce, that their child is special and more intelligent than other children, and because of that, they push their child all the time to make sure that their claims will not be proven wrong. Because they chose to back out of their careers, which they later view as “their sacrifice,” these parents obviously have a hole to fill in their lives, and they all too often mistakenly try to fill it by placing unreasonable expectations on their children.

Example: Mimi, a self-acknowledged helicopter parent, is very well educated and was a successful business executive until she stopped working to take care of Cindy, her only child. She immediately began managing all of her daughter’s activities, scheduling her life as if she were her supervisor instead of her mother. It wasn’t long before Mimi became supercritical of Cindy’s first teacher and tore her apart at a teacher-parent conference—in front of Cindy. In the absence of her own career challenges, Mimi is running Cindy’s life as if she were a small company.

The Controller

Who They Are: Close relatives to the micromanagers, these parents often admit that they are “control freaks” and are proud of it, and may not necessarily see that as being a bad thing when it comes to focusing on their children.

What They Do: When their children are faced with choices, these parents tell their children what to do rather than guide and teach them ways to cope and choose. They insist on making most of the decisions related to their child, such as school subjects, clothing, friends, essay subjects, and which college to apply to and attend. In some cases, this need for control can lead to parents’ restricting their children’s activities, friendships, and modes of travel. Even when their children are quite young, controlling parents give them constant instructions, even in public places, but often from afar, rather than up close, which further ensures the child’s cooperation. In other words, the children are hearing, “Don’t touch that,” or “Sit down,” or “Move away from that lady,” or “Don’t touch that” (again and again).

Why: Why are control freaks control freaks? Good question. Some people have trouble trusting themselves, and consequently they are not able to trust their own children or most other people in their lives. Others may have previously experienced an especially upsetting event or loss, which led them to decide that if they could manage every aspect of their life, they would never have such an upsetting thing happen again. Others become control freaks with their own children because their parents neglected them during their childhood. As a result, they want to try to undo the fallout of that experience by being a superparent. Naturally, they often overcompensate.

Example: Diane, a ninth-grade parent from New York City, demands a meeting with everyone at school—teachers, administrators, and specialists—because according to daily reports posted online, her daughter is not doing her homework. Diane brings her daughter’s tutor to join the twelve teachers and staff in attendance. While the tutor presents the entire agenda, holding the school accountable rather than Diane’s daughter, Diane says nothing. Neither does her daughter, who is learning fast that if she doesn’t do her homework, Mom will save her. This is an excellent example of underparenting your child and overparenting your school.

The Negotiator

Who They Are: Not surprisingly, these parents consider everything in their lives—and the lives of their children—to be negotiable. That means that they are afraid or unwilling to let their children deal with a difficult situation or the consequences of their behavior on their own. As a result, they will negotiate for their children, thinking that they are helping them.

What They Do: Parents visit school offices, often without an appointment, to try to negotiate a change in their child’s schedule, to select a new teacher, to negotiate a higher grade, or even to influence the recommendation that a teacher will write for the child. By placing such demands on educational institutions, they compromise the ability of the administrators and teachers to do their jobs effectively. This behavior also gives their child the idea that there are no absolutes and that rules are meant to be broken. These parents act as if whatever they want for their child is obtainable by their negotiation, and this gives the child a sense that the parent is all-powerful. This undermines the child’s ability and incentive to learn to do things and take care of things for himself or herself.

Why: This behavior occurs regularly, and is not necessarily precipitated by a complaint from the child. Parents may intervene simply because they are unhappy or feel that their child’s situation needs improvement. They consider it to be their obligation—if not their right—to smooth the way through for their child and deliver optimal results.

Example: Jane, an ambitious entrepreneur in the deep South, makes a habit of confronting her child’s teachers about their homework assignments, complaining that they take too long and don’t leave enough time for social obligations. She offers excuses, tries to elicit sympathy, and often ends up demanding concessions from the teachers, even though her child clearly has no serious health issues or a demanding family situation that is preventing the work from being completed. When a teacher doesn’t agree to Joan’s demands, Joan goes straight to the office to solicit cooperation from the principal.

The Micromanager

Who They Are: Micromanagers are parents who are too involved with their children’s lives and can’t let them deal with problems they have at school, with sports, or in any other aspect of their lives. They feel that if they prop up their child every step of the way, be it in sports, theater, or academics, he or she will never flirt with failure or experience anything short of achieving an optimal and constant level of success. The only way to guarantee that is to micromanage every aspect of the child’s life.

What They Do: They tend to not let their children stumble and fall or get confused or frustrated about anything. As a result, they micromanage everything, including their child’s behavior, activities, and choice of friends.

Why: They can’t bear yielding control of every outcome of their child’s life situations. Micromanagers are fearful that if they do not determine every outcome, it most certainly will have bad consequences for their child. It’s as if they don’t trust themselves, first of all, and therefore they cannot fully trust their children to make good choices that produce healthy and positive outcomes.

Example: Samantha, a stay-at-home mom from Tampa, Florida, is upset because her eight-year-old son is having trouble in school and has not been testing as well as he has in the past. When his first-term report card arrives at home with less than optimal grades, Samantha immediately calls the school principal, jumping over her son’s teacher to lodge her complaint and see what will be done about the problem. She initially attempts to scapegoat the teacher rather than explore any other reason for her son’s struggles.

While this may not demonstrate micromanaging in its classic form, it is a good example of parents’ trying to manage their families like they might manage an office, challenging the top person right off the bat rather than pulling back and conferencing with the person who knows their child best.

In this case, it turned out that Samantha’s son needed glasses, and once he adapted to wearing them every day, his grades improved and his mother relaxed—at least for the time being.

BUDDIES

These parents want to be their child’s best friend, if not a co-child with their own kid.

The Best-Friender

Who They Are: These are parents who often do not have enough going on in their own lives, crave the companionship of their children, and may see themselves as their children’s best friends and pals rather than their parents.

What They Do: These parents constantly inject themselves into their children’s daily activities at school and in the rest of their lives so that they can remain a steady presence in all of their child’s interactions.

Why: Because they feel unappreciated and left out when their children do not share everything with them, it’s probably safe to say that these parents are lacking a challenging career and/or a fulfilling social life of their own. Besides what’s lacking in their own lives, they feel that if they are their children’s best pals, they will have a better understanding of their children and can always be in place to intervene effectively on their behalf. Then, they hope that their children will be grateful and acknowledge their wonderfulness, thereby validating the parents as a worthwhile part of their lives. Being a buddy means that one doesn’t have to be a parent who makes hard decisions that the child may get upset about. Instead, these parents hope that they can talk their children into something by being their “pals.”

Example: Sylvia has two daughters, one twelve and the other fifteen. When each of them first created a Facebook page, Sylvia insisted that they “friend” her so that she could monitor their activity. Her kids understood the situation, but now that they are both older, they wish that their mother would stop constantly “liking” everything they post and refrain from posting almost daily pictures of them as little girls.

The Assister

Who They Are: These parents are a variation on the protector, as they will go to any length—at any time—to help their child avoid dealing with any unhappiness or troubling life situations. They are ready to rush in and help, no matter what the request is or how inconsequential it may be.

What They Do: Assisters will drop whatever they are doing and rush to school simply because their children call, asking the parents to deliver something that the children have forgotten, whether it’s lunch, a homework assignment, or a soccer uniform.

Why: This behavior could be motivated by parents’ fear that they will become irrelevant in the lives of their children or that they will have to deal with reality and hardships, in many cases exceedingly minor ones. Too many parents do not have lives of their own. They are seeking to be “buddies” with their children in ways that are unrealistic and unhealthy for both parties.

Example: Chris is a real-estate agent with one child in the seventh grade of a large public school. Chris makes a habit of stopping by the school every afternoon to check her daughter’s locker and make sure that she has what she needs. Sometimes, if her daughter has rushed out in the morning without her lunch, Chris will drive over and knock on her daughter’s classroom door and stand outside, waving it to get her attention. In the evenings, Chris always helps out with her daughter’s homework, to the point of often completing it for her. “We did it!” she says, as if it were supposed to be a team effort.

The Spoiler

Who They Are: These parents consistently do too much for their children—at any age. To make matters worse, they often expect other adults to also indulge their children and will try to shame them when they don’t. The spoiler buys expensive presents for their children or takes them on exotic trips without any regard for teaching them the value of work, commerce, and consumerism. Once a trip has been planned, even if the child misbehaves, the parent often feels obligated to go on the trip with the child, further ignoring the idea of teaching a child the consequences of his or her behavior.

What They Do: Spoilers will do just about anything to accommodate their children, eager almost beyond reason to make their lives as easy and pleasurable as possible. They don’t want their children to feel frustrated or hurt in any way, much less delay any aspect of their gratification. This sounds OK. We want the best for our kids, but what happens when a child has to survive in the real world, beginning with the daily culture of a kindergarten class? Is it any wonder that early education specialists have to spend almost as much time minding parents as they do them.

Why: Reasons vary, but parents who are extremely busy and focused on their own business and social lives don’t often spend significant time with their children. To assuage their guilt, they treat their children with expensive presents or trips instead of spending time and actually doing things with them. What this usually adds up to for the child is a crowded closet and an empty heart.

In other cases, spoilers, who may have missed something in their own lives growing up, try to overprovide what they did not get. This can also become a way to control their children by giving them things, which in turn helps the parents feel needed and worthwhile. With older kids this takes the form of buying them things that they could not afford on their own and continues their dependence on their parents. This approach often backfires, as children grow up feeling entitled and may flaunt their stuff as a way to gain acceptance, but, in fact, this serves to distance them from their peers, and may well stunt the natural growth of their independence.

Example: “I wake my son up three times every day to make him get out of bed,” says Ingrid, a Swedish mom of a university student. “I wash his clothes and cook all his meals. I feel like I am needed and that is nice—to feel important. I’m not sure how that’s working for my son, but it makes me feel good.”

The Smotherer

Who They Are: These parents take the archetype of best-friender to another level. They try to constantly be with their children. If they could attend school, sleepovers, and every school trip with them, they would, no matter how old their children may be. They are the ones who insist on being chaperones on school trips, volunteers in the library, and monitors at school dances. As their kids get older, this becomes a major cringe moment for them.

What They Do: Teachers report that they’ve seen parents become far too involved in their children’s play and friends, especially when there is even a mild dispute. When these teachers tried to encourage the students to work things out themselves without involving their parents, the children told them that their parents would decide what they should do. Some parents have been known to come to school, find the other child, and have a word with him or her.

Smothering parents are also known to sit in public places with their adolescent children and maintain constant monitoring, not leaving the children with any anonymity or lack of supervision.

Why: For some reason, these parents do not trust their children to be their own people, as if they couldn’t possibly be autonomous without the involvement of their parents. They may feel that they did not do a good enough job raising their children so that the children would have internalized their values, and that without their input the children would be unable to navigate on their own.

Example: A Montessori school in the Northeast that we’ve observed is typical of most schools. It has a strong parent base of volunteers for academic and nonacademic programs. In fact, the willingness of the parents to get involved became a problem last year when the school had no choice but to cancel a field trip because too many parents volunteered to chaperone. The school could not accommodate such a large number of chaperones, and because no parent agreed to withdraw, it was cancelled.

PRODUCERS

These parents view their children as products that they are turning out into the world.

The Consumer

Who They Are: These parents are usually found in private school settings, where they equate everything about their children’s “success” with the fact that they have picked the school, are paying the school, and have clear expectations about what results they expect for their money.

What They Do: For these parents, creating the “perfect” child means choosing (or using a consultant to choose) and then paying for what they perceive to be the best approach to produce the outcome they want for their child. Then, they expect the school to do it all from there, which means that the parents should have immediate and unfettered access to the school director, and to the teachers who are supposed to make it easy for their child, independent of the child’s input or effort, because in their view the results should be equivalent to the money they have spent on tuition. This becomes an even bigger issue if they become board members of the school, where they feel as if they can demand anything, at any time, including no consequences for their child’s bad behavior.

Why: Over the past two decades, there has been a huge shift in parental entitlement, and it’s not only prevalent in the private school sector. It is happening everywhere. Public school parents, aware that, as taxpayers, they are paying the salaries of their children’s teachers, may make unreasonable demands beyond the normal range of professional and ethical accountability. Lower-income families may push hard to get their children into a charter school and then try to equate their children’s success with the value of their vouchers. This consumer mentality on the part of the parents may be caused in part by an erosion of school authority as well as the hyped-up demands of our ever-intensifying consumer society. This can cause a considerable lack of respect for school administrators and teachers. In fact, there seems to be a view today that education is just another commodity and that a parent should be able to make demands, however outrageous they may be, of the product that is offered and the results it produces. Unfortunately, this leaves out an essential human element and does not allow for the ups and downs of child development.

Example: A private school director from southern Connecticut has heard the following on numerous occasions:

“I am paying good money for my kid’s education, and I want you to take care of everything he needs and be accountable for what I paid for. That also means that I should be able to call the school and have you answer me whenever, and for whatever I want.”

“These parents are essentially referring to their children as ‘my product,’ which is a strange way to think about your child, unless you view the whole process from a consumer’s angle. Consumerism is dangerous because of parents who donate money to the school beyond tuition costs and then think that their kids—and they—should get special privileges. Like, even when their kids get into trouble and should deal with the consequences, the parents say, ‘You have no loyalty,’ as if donating money should get them special treatment.”

Example: A parent and school board member was upset when her child was not allowed to play in a football game because he had previously failed a test. The parent called up the headmaster, pointed out how the family had been at the school for two generations, the son was a full-fee student, and, as a board member, she had paid a lot of money and had a significant amount of clout to affect the principal’s job, particularly if her son did not get to play.

The Blamer

Who They Are: These parents are unwilling to let their children experience unpleasant consequences as a result of their actions and tend to be unwilling to look at their own parenting as one of the reasons why their children got into difficulty in the first place. Instead, they blame everyone else except themselves and their own children for most if not all of the problems that arise.

What They Do: They will fight for their children to have what they want rather than tough it out and face the appropriate consequences for their behavior. This means that the children do not have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and be able to move on and do better, when and if the situation arises again. Depriving children of the chance to face difficulties on their own will not do the children any good. Their first response will probably be to get mad at their parents for trying to “help.”

Why: As parents, we all want to control the environment we live in, hoping to create the most pleasant circumstances possible for our children. However, the real world is not always so kind or forgiving or accepting, and we cannot control it anywhere near as much as we would like—–for ourselves or our kids. To say, “My kid should never be frustrated or confused” may be a fine sentiment, but it’s not terribly realistic. So when a child becomes frustrated or confused, the best thing we might do for them is have them look first in the mirror and ask “Why” because in many cases they themselves are at least partially responsible for their predicament.

Example: A public high school administrator describes a chronic problem of parents’ jumping into a conflict without knowing the full story of their children’s behavior:

“One of our students was caught smoking cigarettes in the bathroom. Naturally, a teacher had him sent to me. He tried to excuse himself by complaining about how stressed he was at school and how smoking was his only relief. When I pointed out that it was simply against the rules of the school—for everyone—he blamed our school for making his life so difficult. As soon as we finished our conversation, with his emotions still high, he called his mom and gave her his slant on our conversation. Not two minutes later, she called me, expressing her deep concern and frustration about what had been discussed with her son. As is too often the case, this parent was blaming our school for her son’s problem before even asking for my objective side of the story.”

Besides getting the facts wrong because she bought into her son’s apparent lies, this parent was blaming the wrong person. In fact, she was making excuses for him instead of seeking the truth and holding him accountable for his actions. Perhaps the mother was also a smoker and felt as if the school was indicting her as well as her son.

The Delegator

Who They Are: These are often overly busy parents (see consumers) who view their child as just one of the many projects they are responsible for in their lives. They expect all the big issues to be dealt with by someone else, be it the school, the nanny, the coach, or the tutor. It’s as if they imagine that they can actually outsource their role as parents.

What They Do: They delegate nearly all responsibility for their child to schools, athletic teams, tutors, and babysitters. Some refer to this as “absentee parenting” or “outsourced parenting.”

Why: These parents have other priorities, such as work, golf, social obligations, and indulgences, which supersede being directly involved in their child’s life. If they were asked, they would say that their child is important to them, but in reality, they think that the other things that they are doing are just as valuable, if not more so. This may be caused by something that happened in their childhood, for example, having neglectful parents of their own, or because of unusual demands they are experiencing at work. For others, it is simply that they are self-centered and cannot put someone else first, not even their own children.

Example: Norris is a high-powered lawyer with a teenage son, who he sees as a candidate to take over his law firm in the future. He has put together a staff of drivers, tutors, and trainers to make sure that his son is never late to school or any extracurricular activity (of which there are many) and has hired a personal assistant to submit weekly reports on his son’s productivity.

The Disrespecter

Who They Are: These parents are a variation on the blamer and the consumer and have a tendency to act badly toward the people who are most responsible for raising their children. They tend to view themselves as high-status people, and therefore all the people they hire or who work for them, from their children’s teachers to nannies to coaches, are treated as people who do not know what they are doing or are not doing it well enough. Subsequently, the parents criticize these other people to the point of disrespect, rather than appreciating what they do for their children and their families as a whole.

What They Do: These parents tend to view no one as being as important or as wise as they are, and instead of looking at the big picture, they focus on every reason they can find for why things are not going as they expected for their child. Rather than looking for what they can do to make the situation better, or how they can work together with others to improve things, they focus on the shortcomings of everyone else, which leads to disrespectful behavior directed at teachers, school staff, tutors, coaches, and nannies. When children observe this behavior, it can encourage them to also disrespect authority and the roles that these other important adults play in their lives.

Why: Simply put, many of these parents are self-centered, if not downright narcissistic, which may come across as a superiority complex. This behavior is often driven by ignorance, as these parents often have little to no firsthand knowledge of what a teacher does in the classroom, what is involved in being a full-time nanny, or how complex and challenging it can be to coach child athletes, especially those with type-A personality parents.

Example: “I am paying you! Therefore, I can disrespect you.” What goes without saying is that “I know more than you, even though I have never done what you are doing.”

In fact, when parents adopt this stance toward anyone playing a role in their child’s life, they are essentially disrespecting their child.

ACCESSORIES

These parents view their children as so important that anything they do in life is just to enhance or embellish their children’s lives and activities.

The Cheerleader

Who They Are: These parents can be seen at every school play, afterschool activity, science fair, soccer game, and car wash. They’re the ones endlessly applauding, heaping praise, and cheering the loudest, particularly for their child. These parents even carry around a daily calendar of their children’s schedule, not their own, because everything in their life revolves around their children. (Some might call these parents “accessorizers,” as they essentially become an accessory to their child’s life.)

What They Do: Modern-day cheerleaders go to almost every function that involves their child, both in and out of school, seven days a week, year-round. They become an accessory in their child’s life. Some parents may even wear matching clothing and attempt to incorporate their children’s jargon into their natural speech. In the “olden days,” parents rarely attended their kid’s activities and wouldn’t be caught dead copying their clothing habits.

Why: Are parents afraid that they will miss something? Could the same syndrome that drives parents of newborns to photograph every other breath their baby takes be causing cheerleaders to scramble their schedules to accommodate everything their child is doing? Or are parents simply afraid of feeling guilty if they should miss a game or two, especially if their absence would be pointed out by an overzealous parent who can’t help noticing when another parent misses an event. Often these parents did not have the opportunity as children to excel at similar activities, or the child is fulfilling a vicarious wish of theirs. They may bask in the child’s activities, and in a reverse manner, hope that the child’s prowess will rub off on them and make them seem cooler because they have a child who is engaged in a cool activity.

Example: Simon and Dee used to play soccer in college. Now that their two boys are old enough to play youth soccer, they have thrown themselves into the mix of a hectic schedule of weekend competition and weekday practices in their New England suburban community. Simon and Dee, who own a gardening service, attend each and every practice and game—or at least one of them does. They not only create a large presence by cheering on their boys; they also make a habit of steadily sharing their opinions about soccer—and their boys’ prowess—with the coach. This endears Simon and Dee to each other, but the charm just about stops right there. The coach tolerates it because Simon and Dee bought the team uniforms, but their boys are beginning to get harassed by some of the other kids on the team, who think that they should get to play as much as Simon and Dee’s sons do.

The Carpooler

Who They Are: These parents drop off and pick up their children every day from school.

What They Do: They meet for coffee after dropping off their kids at school in the morning or assemble in the long line outside of school anywhere from fifteen to thirty minutes before the closing bell. In warmer climates, parents leave their cars and gather together to discuss the current state of the school, which includes gossiping about teachers, administrators, grades, and sports. These conversations invariably lead to teachers being judged (often unfairly) and even blackballed, rumors about school personnel, and some children being scapegoated, particularly those whose parents are not active in the carpool zone.

Why: This usually occurs when parents have too much free time and not enough other interests in their lives.

Example: Melody and Bill meet in their cars every school day afternoon outside their children’s elementary school. Melody, a stay-at-home mom who runs a graphic arts business from her living room, is anxious about her daughter’s progress in reading and writing. Bill, a single father with his own contracting business, feels the same way about his daughter’s first-grade experience. “Why aren’t our kids doing better?” they both ask. (For the record, it’s October.) Soon, they agree that it must be the teacher’s fault. They talk up their theory with other parents, and before long their children’s teacher is being raked over the coals in a PTA meeting—unnecessarily—because the children are not yet reading and writing at an acceptable level. Sadly, the bullying does not stop, and the teacher—a reading specialist and district mentor— resigns.

The Trophy Giver

Who They Are: These parents will admit that all children are different, with varying abilities and passions, but feel that all children deserve equal treatment, especially when it comes to recognition and awards. These parents want their children to be involved in a lot of activities and to be good in what they want them to be good at, but they want them to be appreciated even if they do not particularly excel at an activity. In essence, they don’t want anyone’s feelings to be hurt, although even the kids themselves know who is good and who is bad at any activity. But these parents insist that everyone should get a trophy, even if they don’t do anything but show up.

What They Do: These parents push for their kids to be in sports or onstage, engaged in theater and/or music projects, as well as anything else that comes along. Then they expect their children to be “winners,” with the requisite trophies and prizes, no matter how good or bad their performance may have been. If it has been clearly poor or lacking “championship” form, parents will want to spare their children any hurt feelings or threats to their self-esteem. No matter what, their children must be acknowledged!

Why: Some parents are still trying to re-create their own childhoods by seeking the trophies they did not get when they were kids, or are trying to make up for their own hurt feelings when they did not get something they wanted. Others are living vicariously through their children, whom, again, they are trying to protect from the hurt feelings that come from reality and life. In either instance, they are not giving their children a realistic view of the world and the opportunity to accept their own shortcomings, appreciate the strengths of others, make choices in what they want to do, and develop their own positive self-esteem.

Example: Benjy is nine years old and plays soccer in a large suburban community. He’s not on the A-team or even the B-team, and is essentially a benchwarmer on the C-team. But he’s content to be part of a team and enjoys the outdoor exercise and camaraderie. At the end of the season he receives a trophy at the team banquet. On the way home, Benjy is perfectly happy, until his parents ask him how it must feel to earn his very own trophy.

“Uh, I don’t know. I left the trophy there. What do I need it for?”

His parents are aghast and turn the car around to go back and retrieve the trophy.

“I don’t want the stupid trophy!” Benjy says, laughing. “I suck at soccer.”

“Benjy!” his father snaps. “You do not suck. Don’t you dare say that. You earned that trophy, just like every other boy on the team.”

“That’s right, Benjy,” his mother adds. “You’re a wonderful soccer player.”

“It’s OK, Mom,” says Benjy. “Don’t worry, Dad. You can have my trophy.”

The Maturity Killer

Who They Are: These are the parents who ignore developmental changes in their children, treat them effectively as babies or as if they were younger than they are, and do not encourage a proper process of maturity. (See smotherers and protectors.)

What They Do: These parents carry a five-year-old instead of having him walk, cut up a ten-year-old’s food in a public restaurant, do not allow their sixteen-year-old to get a learner’s permit to even begin to get driving experience, forbid their high-school-age children from watching Saturday Night Live, and cook all meals for their twenty-five-year-old son who still lives at home.

Why: In the guise of protecting their children from the real world, these parents are determined to keep their children from becoming independent, successful adults. This may keep them “in the fold” where they can be controlled, and that is usually because these parents do not have faith in their own children, which may indicate that the parents do not have any confidence in their own ability to parent appropriately.

Example: Cynthia is a mother of nine living in Salt Lake City, Utah, and her story is inspiring in a good way. Seven of her children have left home to serve on Mormon Church missions. She has had to let go of each one of her children as they venture out into the world on their own.

“It’s easy to spoil your children,” she says, “and hold on to them beyond the right time, but in the end it’s not healthy for them. It stunts their growth! They must experience the world on their own. As the saying goes, that’s the circle of life.”

Hands On/Hands Off

It should be clear from examining these archetypes that parenting is complicated but that separating ourselves from our children is vital, as is recognizing that, from an early age, they are independent beings. Despite how many of us act and what many of us may think, our children are not extensions of ourselves. Each of them is his or her own person, no matter what stage of development the individual is at. This means that children need to be given the space to try out things and experience failure as well as success. That should begin at any early age, certainly by the time they go to school.

But many parents have a hard time accepting that growth in life involves struggling and that their children’s trials and tribulations, including the experience of failure, are an intrinsic part of the process of learning to succeed in life.

Morgan, a stay-at-home, first-time mother, had separation issues motivated by the anxiety she felt about her daughter starting school. When Morgan’s daughter began kindergarten, Morgan accompanied her to school, like most parents do. During the first week or two, she joined a handful of other parents who lingered in the classroom for the first thirty or forty minutes. But while the other parents eventually learned to take leave of their children at appropriate times, Morgan’s separation anxiety made her stay longer and longer. She tried to laugh it off, telling the other parents that she was just so worried that her “clumsy” daughter might fall or bump into something and get hurt. Quite unremarkably to everyone but Morgan, her daughter was fine and so easily engaged in the minute-to-minute activities that she didn’t seem to notice her mother hanging around and fretting. Finally, after weeks of tolerating her presence, the teacher confronted Morgan and suggested that she leave her daughter—and the other children—some breathing room. Morgan broke down in tears and admitted to the teacher that not only did she have nothing to do all day at home without her daughter, but she also couldn’t stop worrying that something could happen outside her watch. She went on to admit that her mother had also had separation anxiety when Morgan was first left at school.

For many parents, letting their children go out into the world goes against the grain of what they have been led to believe is successful parenting. Today, an entire profit-driven industry exists that is essentially scaring parents into “doing whatever it takes” to guarantee that their child enjoys every possible advantage. As a result, this raises parents’ stress levels, creates unreasonable expectations for their children, and makes their children anxious as well. This, in turn, makes it hard for children to learn how to relax and be themselves. Morgan is well on her way to becoming a shining example of a parent who can’t let go.

Less Protection, More Communication

If parents want their children to grow up to become independent, confident adults, they need to practice a bit of what we like to call “benign neglect.” It requires a simple attitude adjustment—an easing of the mind and a pulling back on the reins of parental control. That begins with allowing your child to experience a certain amount of frustration and to discover that he can recognize a problem and then fix it by himself, without your active and intrusive intervention. It extends to allowing siblings to fight with each other as they are naturally inclined to at times, and then resolve it on their own. You’ll be better off—as will they—if you don’t intervene all of the time. Let them work things out. As long as there is no one bleeding, it’s probably OK.

But if you can’t help yourself—if you suspect that you are being excessively protective, fearful, and inhibiting—try confirming your doubts by asking another parent for an opinion, particularly one who has had several children who seem to be doing well. Reality checks are good! You’re not obligated to follow the advice, but seeking it will help you make a better decision on your own.

With that conversation in mind, you may be better equipped to first observe and then communicate with your child. Start with a simple question and then listen to his or her answer. Depending on the age and personality of your kid, you may not get much. That’s OK. You gave the child a chance, and that’s what’s important. You can explain your concerns, whether they are for your child’s safety, grades, or choice of friends. As long as those concerns are not presented as an indictment and do not reek of any automatic lack of trust in your child’s competence, you can engage in an open discussion, exploring the situation and offering whatever advice you deem necessary. But the key is listening to your kid!

Surely you know your child better than most anyone else and are the best judge of what activities are acceptable in terms of safety and what behavior is allowed. What is safe and acceptable will always be a bone of contention between parents and children, but the important thing is for parents to realize that sometimes they just need to let go and get a life.