Overparenting is a Childhood Thief

BY MELISSA ATHERTON, MSW

Our intentions are sound--more than sound: We love our kids fiercely and want only the best for them. Yet, having succumbed to a combination of safety fears, a college admissions arms race, and perhaps our own needy ego, our sense of what is “best” for our kids is completely out of whack. We don’t want our kids to bonk their head or have hurt feelings, but we’re willing to take real chances with their mental health? -Julie Lythcott-Haims

What if we -- all of us, stay-at-home parents and parents who work outside of the home -- disengaged from some of the craziness of all the external activities so as to make more time to just BE with our loved ones? -Julie Lythcott-Haims

My fifteen-year-old’s day starts in the dark. He wakes up at 4:00 am (which by the way, is still NIGHTTIME!), chokes down a power bar, then heads for the first swim practice of the day. At 6:45 am, he sprints out of the pool, showers (we hope), then devours a dry PB&J on the car ride to school. He spends seven hours “doing school,” then heads back to the pool for his afternoon practice. During the car ride home, I goof up and ask him school questions: How was your day? Do you have a lot of homework?  I know he hates this! He wolfs down dinner, studies for three hours, then goes to bed, knowing he will do it again the next day. He loves swimming, and his swim friends are like family; he cannot give this up. But he also wants to do well in school. He is not much different than any other Lake Norman teenager who is desperately seeking balance.

My son’s school, Hough High, has approximately 2,800 students. The “cul-de-sac” rumor is that UNC Chapel Hill, the “Gold Standard” college, has a quota system requiring Hough students to be ranked in the top five percent of their class. The school counselor says the top students take up to ten Advanced Placement classes. TEN! And this is just to get into a STATE school! Students know they need to be ranked in the top thirty-five, so they take AP classes and honors classes instead of studying topics of genuine interest. Instead of cooperating and encouraging each other, the students are like crabs in a bucket, climbing over each other to get to the top. Just when they think they have clawed their way to the top of the bucket, they find out students passed them in ranking by taking ONLINE classes over the SUMMER! We, the well-meaning parents, respond by “helping”; we get tutors and college admission specialists and SAT classes.

The arms race continues. Students know they should probably be volunteering more often, but when? They already “do school” for 35 hours per week and participate in extracurricular activities twenty hours per week. They have the equivalent of two part-time jobs! They really should try to carve out some time to save a small village, cure a disease, or invent something. Maybe they can do that on Sunday? Whoops! Sunday is taken...They attend church, compete in travel sports tournaments, attend college fairs, and birthday parties. What happened to Sundays? Family time?

They are exhausted. We are all exhausted.

So what can we do?

School Leadership Teams (SLT) from Huntersville Elementary School, Bailey Middle School and Hough High School tackled the issue of overparenting, overscheduling and student mental health at a joint meeting Tuesday evening at Hough.

The leadership teams consist of parents, principals, counselors and teachers. SLT members were asked to read How to Raise an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims, a former dean at Stanford University. The meeting goal was to increase awareness of the relationship between overparenting, overscheduling, lack of a sense of purpose, and teen depression/anxiety. According to faculty SLT members, this is an enormous and increasing problem in our schools.

Educators and counselors at the meeting explained that stress starts at a very young age. An SLT faculty member stated that elementary school is a “magical place until third grade.”

What is happening to our third graders? The magic ends when testing, grades, end-of-grade exams, and honor roll begins. The stress is very real for these eight-year-olds and it only gets worse as they become teenagers. Author Julie Lythcott-Haims argues that overparenting fuels childhood anxiety and depression. Constantly striving for perfection, parents are creating a “checklisted childhood” by: preventing mistakes, protecting feelings, giving participation prizes, intervening in relationships, redshirting kindergarteners for sports, doing their children’s homework, hiring tutors and college counselors, pushing for highly-selective colleges, and sending excessive emails to teachers.

Recognizing unhealthy parenting behaviors is essential for helping our children become confident, resilient adults. One humble, brave SLT parent stood up and admitted, “We are all guilty of everything they say in this book.”

The approximately fifty SLT members broke off into small groups to discuss relevant topics: changing times, teaching children how to handle failure, teaching independence and self-advocacy skills, and how to have balance in their lives. Group leaders then presented suggestions to help parents, teachers and administrators tackle the issues.

Suggestions for the schools included: end class ranking, limit the number of Advanced Placement courses permitted, encourage students to consider lesser-known colleges, stop having projects and homework assignments during school holidays or breaks, and increase access to study hall. Parenting suggestions included: reduce the amount of extracurricular activities, reduce the focus on grades while increasing the focus on learning, increase awareness of excellent college options that include smaller schools, less-selective schools and community college, and encourage children to consider the best personal college fit. Parents were encouraged to spread the word by “speaking up in the cul-de-sac conversations” and find an “accountability partner.” An SLT member recommended telling our children, “It’s okay to get a B.”

Lythcott-Haims would agree with the recommendations made by the SLT.  How to Raise an Adult is full of parenting tips for raising resilient children: give choices, show love, build character, let kids fail, teach street smarts and life skills, stay in a committed relationship, require chores, stop handling school problems, allow children to speak for themselves, allow unstructured free time, enjoy nature, stop using our children as a tool to market ourselves on social media (the “humble brag”), keep an open mind about colleges, eat dinner together as a family, be present, and build a community of like-minded adults.

Reading the book and attending the SLT meeting affected me deeply. I left the meeting asking myself: What can I do to help restore my son’s childhood? How can I be a better parent? I found a like-minded friend to be my accountability partner. We agreed to help our sons scale back on their course load next year. I am encouraging my son to think beyond the “Gold Standard” and consider colleges where he can find success and happiness. And our family is taking back Sunday.

Recommended Reading:

How to Raise an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims

Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life by Bill Deresiewicz

David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell Alternative

College Search Tools:

www.ctcl.org (Colleges That Change Lives) www.alumnifactor.com (The Alumni Factor) www.fairtest.org (The National Center for Fair & Open Testing)

Crisis Resource:

www.davidsonlifeline.org (“Supporting suicide prevention and mental health awareness in our community”)