Too Much Parent Involvement?

Thursday 09 Feb 2012

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Too Much Parent Involvement?

Too Much Parent Involvement? Can It Be?

When a parent is involved as a coach to children, it’s an appropriate role. When the coach runs onto the field to be a player, that’s when the parent involvement lines are being breached.

Yes, there can be too much parent involvement. When parents become so wound up and wrought up about their child’s admission to college that they write and then type their children’s essays for college, that is too much.

When parents stay up all night completing science fair projects (while children sleep), that is too much.

When parents become so protective of children that any rejection they suffer (including a low grade) feels like a personal rejection that is too much.

Today, so much more depends on school and success in school than it used to. We are a grade-driven, credentialed, SAT society. It follows that we are more anxious about our children doing well in school.

How can we keep a sense of balance about the line between too little involvement and too much? How do we know what is just right? It’s not easy.

In this age of terrorism, as well as concern about the possibility of low grades, the danger of over-involvement of parents is that it can result in over protection of children. This can be a deterrent, not a help, for growing up.

Parents want so much for their children to succeed. Many parents today want very much for children not to suffer, not even to be disappointed.

Source: http://teachers.net/gazette/APR09/rich/index.html; Dorothy Rich; April 2009

Join the conversation
What do you see as the line to be drawn between involvement and over-involvement? When do you know you’ve stepped over that line?

Comments (3) Comments are closed

While I think/hope that most the parents understand that the purpose of the child doing the work is so they learn by the process exactly what they need to do to be successful in life, all too many parents make it about themselves. By "living vicarously" through their children, they feel they are making up for any failures they had in their childhood/academic career. This only teaches the child that it is wrong to fail even if it taught you a lesson. While it pains me to see my children fail, I realise that by doing their work or sheltering them during their entire childhood, I am not letting them learn the life lessons they need to thrive in adulthood. Will they be able to stand on their own two feet as an adult, much less raise self-sufficient children of their own. I hope more parents come to realise that not every failure is a loss. I have learned a great deal from every one of my failures, at the very least that I should have been more prepared.

I think the line is when you take over and do the child's task for her. My daughter had a science project to do for the science fair. She was in second grade. I let her do it all herself, with just a little guidance from me. When we took it to school, hers was one of the only projects that looked like a 7-year-old completed it. She was so proud of the work she did and what she had learned. Other projects were so fancy, with big words - it was obvious that the parent did more than just coach the child. As far as I'm concerned, they stepped over the line.

As a child of an involved parent, I would warn parents that they need to be helpful but not forceful. When forceful kids loose an interest in the activity, no matter what that activity may be.