In the worst case, they unintentionally teach their children a fear of failure. An expert explains what lies behind the “lawnmower parenting” method of parenting.
Tow truck parents and lawn mower parents have one thing in common: They want the best for their childBut that is exactly what can become problematic. “That is when parents plow over all the obstacles in their child’s life like a lawnmower,” says psychologist and educator Jenny Grant Rankin BuzzFeed News Germany from IPPEN.MEDIA.
“Such lawnmower parents are harmful to their children,” she warns. The term comes from the fact that lawnmower parents “drop everything”, even work, to get homework that has been forgotten at home and quickly bring it to the child at school. Similar to Helicopter parentsBut what is so worrying about this?
“Lawnmower parents can trigger anxiety in their children”
Rankin is a member of the American Educational Establishment (AERA) and the gifted children’s association Mensa. She has written several books on education and explains what the problem with lawnmower parents is: “When we raise our children, our job as parents should be to prepare them for a future without us.” Parents should only “give their offspring guidance,” she says. BuzzFeed News Germany.
“Children should learn to deal with problems and make decisions independently, without their parents interfering.” This is the only way children can develop the so-called “grit” that will help them to be successful later on. “Grit is more valuable to children’s development than their parents’ financial situation, more valuable than intelligence. And they only develop this grit if we let them fight their own battles,” she says. This starts with playing, where many parents always let their children win. “That can cost them their jobs later on,” warns the educator from Laguna Beach (California).
“Children of lawnmowersParents have more difficulties in the workplace later in life because they are more likely to blame their problems on others,” she says. “Lawnmower parents can cause anxiety in their children,” Rankin says, because they do not learn to deal with defeat and are therefore more likely to develop depression or anxiety disorders as adults. Being a lawnmower parent therefore has “significant effects” that last for a long time, even decades after the children have left home.
More and more lawnmower parents: “They try to compensate”
Rankin feels that lawnmower parents are becoming more common rather than less common. Why? Because parents are “overcompensating” and putting a lot more pressure on themselves than parents did 50 years ago. “I think today, at least here in the US, there are a number of problems that are getting worse. For example, social media has a bad influence on the self-esteem of children and young people, there is a lot of negative stuff going on in the world,” she says.
“Parents who didn’t experience many of these things as children try to compensate for that and don’t want their child to experience any of that negativity.” In her opinion, this desire to spare children from negative emotions didn’t exist 50 years ago. Perhaps one of the main differences between millennial parents and boomer parents, she suspects. Divorced parents are particularly at risk of this parenting mistake because they want to spare their child further trauma. “To a certain extent, that’s OK, but many parents go too far,” says Rankin.
#Harmful #parenting #methods #trigger #fears #children