Encourage children to pursue their passions

Over-parenting, a relatively recent style of parenting now known as "helicopter parenting," means "being involved in a child's life in a way that is over-controlling, over-protecting, and over perfecting," according to Ann Dunnewold, Ph.D., author of "Even June Cleaver Would Forget the Juice Box." (Parents.com 2013).

According to psychologist Michael Ungar, head of the Resilience Research Centre at Dalhousie University, "This is not a strategy for long-term well-being. It is always better to empower children to make good choices for themselves rather than having them remain dependent on parents to sort out problems for them." (Psychology Today Jan. 31, 2014)

So over-parenting is not helpful. Neither is under-parenting, especially from the perspective of talking with children.

According to The Economist (July 26, 2014), "researchers at the University of Kansas found that children in professional families heard on average 2,100 words an hour. Working-class kids heard 1,200; those whose families lived on welfare heard only 600. By the age of three, a doctor's or lawyer's child has probably heard 30 million more words than a poor child has."

A case can be made for a third type of parenting, perhaps best described as "creative" parenting. Writing in the New York Times (January 31), Wharton School professor Adam Grant says, "Creativity may be hard to nurture, but it's easy to thwart. By limiting rules, parents encouraged their children to think for themselves."

Citing the work of psychologist Benjamin Bloom, Grant says that parents of creative children "responded to the intrinsic motivation of their children. When their children showed interest and enthusiasm in a skill, the parents supported them."

Grant concludes, "If you want your child to bring original ideas into the world, you need to let them pursue their passions, not yours."

My takeaways? More conversations, less rules and more support for your kids as they pursue their interests.

By Peter Herbst | For The Jersey Journal The Jersey Journal
on February 03, 2016