Parents who mollycoddle their children should be wary of the consequences of this practice. While moms and dads could not help but provide everything their kids need and shield their little ones from everything that they perceive to be bad, a new book disclosed that such may not be beneficial for the children in the long run. In fact, a US parenting expert shared that exposing kids to the effects of failure should not be shunned by parents at all.
"What we're seeing now are almost adults who are so freaked out by real life that they are practically incapable of dealing with college," explained Jessica Lahey, the author behind "The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed," according to The Telegraph UK. She went on to say, "In all our attempts to get them to further education, we're breeding kids who don't know how to write an email to a teacher and will ask their professors to reschedule things around their vacations - and it's really detrimental to their lives."
Lahey further explained that the overprotectiveness of parents nowadays are instilling fear among their children that success might be out of reach on their own, so seeking help from outside forces should always be resorted to. Hence, moms and dads should teach their kids to become more independent and self-reliant in an effort to build their confidence and self-esteem. While the struggle to achieve independence might pose a lot of ups and downs in their children's lives, mothers and fathers should learn to let go and allow their kids to experience failure and defeat.
"Parenting for dependence simply doesn't work: the child will sacrifice his or her natural curiosity and love of learning at the alter of achievement," wrote Lahey in "The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed." She also pointed out that providing rewards might not be the best way to teach kids the value of success. "The problem is that bribery does work - sometimes. It just doesn't work as a long-term system," she shared.
Lahey went on to add, "If you think of the seal and the herring circus analogy, the show is over when the herrings are gone. Similarly with kids, if you're dependent on giving them rewards, what happens with inflation, when suddenly you're into $60 Nintendo games? Also they'll reach a point where they don't care enough about those rewards to do what you want. So intermittent rewards work better than a reward every time."
