ShareThisI'm not known as an overly protective parent. Yes, I believe in bicycle helmets and seat belts, and life jackets when my kids are on the water, and on it goes. But the panicked overprotectiveness I see so many parents exhibit, toward their young children in particular, frustrates me.
All the more so when I contrast it to what I observe too often during the teen years. When things get really dangerous. I've seen parents who are oblivious to, or afraid to face head-on, issues like their teens and sex, drugs, pornography on the Web and driving irresponsibly, to name a few. I'm especially tired of parents rationalizing a hands-off approach during their child's most dangerous years because their child gets good grades. So what?
Anyway, I'm convinced that too many of us, when the stakes are the highest, back off the most.
Not my friend Gail (names have been changed to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent). Here's her story:
Gail and her husband are great parents, and they have never been the "helicopter" sort. Most importantly, more than anyone else I know, Gail gets that her children are, well, wonderful little sinners. She understands that "foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child," as the Bible says.
So, when Gail's daughter Sarah, a high-school junior, recently wanted to join a "girls' sleepover" at Jeanne's house after a school dance recently, Gail said no. At the pre-dance party with all the girls and parents, the other kids were begging Gail to let Sarah join the sleepover.
Gail stood her ground, not least of all because she had been a high-school junior (we were classmates) and she knew what we all knew: that after-dance sleepovers, at best, involved little sleep; at worst, they meant the girls sneak out and get into trouble after the exhausted host parents went to bed.
Even Gail's husband quietly suggested that she change her mind. Gail said no. I'm not sure I could have stood up against all that.
She's so glad she did. A week or so after the dance, it turned out no "sleepover" ever existed. (Did the other parents even call the ostensible sleepover-host parents ahead of time?) Rather, the girls, and boys and alcohol, had sneaked into another parent's second home an hour away from the dance and partied the night away.
Think of what the consequences could have been.
When the owners finally discovered what happened, they rightly called every parent of a child involved to let them know what had transpired. Guess what? One parent reportedly said, "Oh, we know -- we (somehow) figured out where our child was about 1:30 in the morning, and went and picked him up." What? And they didn't break up the party and alert other parents? Apparently not. Who wants to interfere or make judgment calls these days?
Most interesting is that, in retrospect, Gail remembered that Sarah hadn't really pushed to join the "sleepover" nearly as much as the girls were begging Gail to let her join it. Gail has little doubt that Sarah -- who had known about the plans but didn't tell her mom for fear of getting her friends in trouble -- was relieved to hide behind her "overprotective" parents, and stay out of a very dangerous situation. Now, that's what a mom and dad are for.
It really does take a parent. I'm beginning to think that's especially true during the teen years.
(Betsy Hart hosts the "It Takes a Parent" radio show on WYLL-AM 1160 in Chicago. Reach her through betsysblog.com. For more stories, visit scrippsnews.com.)
FROM THE HART
