Overprotective parents are raising a generation of anti-social, obese and excessively cautious children, experts have claimed.
Two parenting experts discussed the impact of ‘hovering helicopter parents’ in an article in the American Journal of Play.
The claim that today’s children have virtually no opportunity for unsupervised ‘free play’, leaving them prone to obesity, poor physical health and unable to develop social skills.
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Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children, and Hara Estroff Marano, author of A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting blame media hype about ‘stranger danger’, video games and social media for the decrease in free outdoor play.
Marano and Skenazy — who caused controversy when she let her nine-year-old son ride the New York subway by himself — say kids who don’t experience regular unsupervised playtime turn into uncreative, risk-averse and excessively cautious adults.
While many parents are worried lack of supervision will put their children at risk of injury or worse, Skenazy says they should be more concerned about the kind of kids overprotective parenting creates.
“I do what I call ‘yuppie jujitsu,’ which is that I take the critics’ fears about unsupervised play and try to turn them into fears about what happens if their children don’t play and don’t develop creativity, compassion, and communication.
“A child who doesn’t engage in unsupervised free play doesn’t develop the self-regulation that comes from hearing another kid say, ‘It’s not your turn, go to the end of the line’.”
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Marano suggests parents slowly give their kids more freedom, while still keeping them safe.
“Let the leash out gradually, allowing kids to become responsible for themselves in relatively small increments,” she said.
She suggests selecting an area where it is safe for your kids to play without supervision and then leave them alone.
Your say: Do you think children should be allowed to play unsupervised?
Video: Free parenting
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