Today's post is more about helicopter parents, hyper parents and all the other types of parent induced helplessness that abounds today.
I call such things Parent Induced Helplessness Syndrome (PIHS, pronounced "piss").
Its a condition whereby children are so over-dependent on their parents, teachers or other adults to make even the simplest decisions that they are psychologically incapable of doing so, even when they become adults. And if they do make decisions, its often the wrong ones.
Here are some examples that everyone has heard of:
Kids who need their parents to canvass or sell on behalf of scouts/guides/brownies/campfire girls, etc. because they are too lazy or otherwise involved with the internet or organized activities to do it themselves.
Parents who do their kid's school projects or homework for them because they want them to get "good grades". This is self-explanatory.
Parents who schedule their kids' lives from the age of 6 months until they are 16 or 18 with constant involvement in sports, arts, music, dance and other structured activities so that they "will not miss out". Let them find out on their own what they are interested in, do not force these on them. No-one will ever mis out if they are not interested in the first place.
Parents who never let their kids run around outside with the neighborhood kids because "its too dangerous outside". The real facts are that your kids have around a .000001% chance of being snatched from your neighborhood and an 85% chance of them being abused by either a family friend of relative. Give your kids the benefit of the doubt when it comes to street smarts. Billions of kids have lived in their neighborhoods before yours have and never got snatched. Its only the rare ones who do.
Parents who accompany their kids to job interviews. If I were an employer and saw this, the kids would never get hired. I wouldn't even interview them, because their parents would answer all the questions and it shows no independence on the part of the kids.
Parents who accompany their kids to university and college orientations and the like. Like the job interviews, I would never let the kids into the schools until they showed initiative. I would always suspect that their parents were secretly doing their homework for them.
Parents who use cell phone GPS systems to track their kids movements 24/7. If you don't trust your kids, who do you trust?
Parents who refuse to set boundaries for their kids and yet never let them know right from wrong. Kids need boundaries and discipline to be shown what their physical and mental limits really are. That is the role of parents and educators. Kids are not in charge of the adult world for good reason; they can't handle it most of the time.
Parents who structure their every day around their kids' needs and activities so much that they (the parents) burn out. You do not need to spend all of your waking time with them to know where they are or what they are doing. You only need to trust them to do what is right for themselves.
Parents who force their kids to socialize at all costs, even if they really don't want to. Kids will socialize when and where they will. You cannot force introverts to become extroverts just as you cannot physically change their eye colour. They are who they are and forcing social skills on them is only going to warp them into something they are not going to be.
Parents who never have any time to educate their kids about morals and ethics, leaving these up to the ineffective school systems. Ethics and morals are taught by example, not by textbooks. If you are not demonstrating these to them every day by your own conduct and decisions, you are not doing your job as a parent.
Parents who lavish too much attention on their kids, caving in to their every need, no matter how outrageous. If you are not the parent, then who is? Are they in charge of your bank accounts?
Parents who want to be their kids' "best friend" instead of being the authority figure. Best friends do not impose discipline or boundaries like parents have to. Best friends let each other do what they want, when they want, no matter what the consequences are, even if it means jail time, physical injury or death.
Parents who let their kids call them by their first names (as well as other adults). This is a serious lack of respect being shown. Like wanting to be your kids' best friend, you are telling them that they are equals in responsibility and maturity. But that won't be the case until they grow up (if they ever can).
Parents who let professionals interfere with their natural rights as providers of discipline, order and safety in their kids' lives. The many doctors and other experts in child care do not see how they are interfering with the natural course of events. They see dollar signs when parents come to them with problems, not children doing what comes naturally to them.; testing boundaries.
Parents who never use reasonable force to discipline their kids. All criminal codes allow for parents to use reasonable force when disciplining their kids. That means they can be spanked or slapped on the wrist when young enough to know that what they are doing is not good for them. They can be given curfews or denied privileges when older. Other species of mammals always use such measures to keep their young from harm's way or to teach them the social order. People have been doing this for countless generations, so why did we stop?
Parents who buy their kids' affection with gifts all the time and for no reason. Not only does this give them a sense of entitlement far out of proportion to who they really are and what they deserve, but it doesn't teach them the value of money. They do not "need" anything more than the basic necessities of life. iPods, iPads, cell phones and other luxury gadgets are never going to be necessities, ever. The same goes for designer clothes, designer shoes, bikes and other items that cost a lot of money and are trendy.
Parents who have no boundaries or discipline themselves. Kids generally mimic what they see their parents do, if they can. Career criminals often have career criminal kids. The same goes for the generations on welfare.
Its probably not fair to single out parents in this mess all the time, but who do kids usually spend most of the time with, other than peer groups and teachers? Their families and parents.
Purely and simply, everyone knows some kids whose lives are messed up in one or more of the above ways and the current generation of twenty-somethings and teens and tweens know no other way of being. Many of them are from affluent middle or upper class families with a few from lower class families.
The constant trait among them all is an unwillingness to understand that they are not the "precious snowflakes" their parents have made them out to be and the world does not and has never owed them a living.
Nope, what the last 30 years of liberal parenting has done is create what I call Parent Induced Helplessness Syndrome, where every major and many minor decisions made by kids have to made by their parents or with so much parental involvement that they are really not making the decisions at all. It is increasingly apparent that few of these "precious snowflakes" have the critical thinking skills or decision making abilities to do much on their own. And when they do, its usually the wrong things with the wrong results.
Parent Induced Helplessness Syndrome (PIHS pronounced "piss") is a very real problem and one that the experts are not going to cure anytime soon. They are too busy making money by interfering with parent's rights to even study it.
So parents, stop doing the trendy helicopter/hyper parenting thing and ask your grandparents (unless they were hippies or New Agers) how to take control over your household and prevent this common and dangerous social disease from spreading.
Go back to a time when parents were parents and kids had few options but to obey you and knew their true boundaries. Generations upon generations did this before you did, so do it, for your children's sake.
