Eyebrows are bound to be raised when a mother says that her children are not the centre of her world. A mother from South Dakota recently strongly criticized helicopter parenting and wrote that parents must allow their kids to learn to handle difficult situations on their own.
Stephanie Metz, the 29-year-old mother, ranted about helicopter parenting in her post 'Why My Kids Are NOT the Center of My World.' It attracted over 900 comments, some praising her while some criticizing her thoughts.
The inspiration to her post was her 4-year-old son who thought of taking an action doll figure to school for show-and-tell but later decided not to do so thinking he might get into trouble.
She wrote that modern parenting made her "crazy." "The young generations of today are being taught that they shouldn't have to ever put up with anything doesn't make their hearts feel like rainbow colored unicorns are running around pooping skittles onto piles of marshmallows. Modern parenting is creating a generation that's not going to be able to function in society."
Stephanie continues giving a piece of advice to all the parents. ''The main message is 'don't be afraid to parent your kids.' They need to deal with some hardships," she told the Associated Press. She added that it is not the parents' job to be their kids' friends and make life easier for them.
According to her, current parenting styles make children vulnerable to be victims of certain situations such as bullying and harassment as they lack proper decision-making abilities. "It's gonna create a big problem when they have to go out into the real world and deal with those things," she wrote.
Agreeing with Stephanie, bullying expert Paul Coughlin told the Associated Press that over-parenting makes children "fragile." He explained that general fights do not add up as bullying and some studies showed that children experience bullying during their growing stage. However, it does not have much harm on them. ''This over-parenting also is almost a perfect storm for creating serial targets,'' he said. ''Over-parented children are more likely to be serial targets than non-over-parented children,'' he said.
