I also agree with some of the commenters that hyper-parenting is necessary to some degree, especially in early childhood, and in fact simply unavoidable. To that I would add that if parents indulge in hyper-parenting behaviour into high school, they are in for some serious backlashes from the very people they are trying to help/protect. the story about the parent meddling in high school or university is ridiculous – have you seen ‘a serious man’? It’s got quite a scene there on what happens when a south korean gets a failing grade in college (and fairly accurate I can assure you).

another area in contemporary society in which we see hyper-parenting and peer pressure running rampant is sports. you find success stories around but more failures. parents pushing their kids to become these little super-humans by age 8. Competitive hockey dads and soccer moms abound, and it can’t be too great for the kids.

Anyways, interesting read.

My husband teaches at a college, and one student’s parents are threatening to sue the school over her failing grade. From what I’ve heard of the school’s side of the story, they’re way out of line and she deserved the failing grade — but the mother in me relates to that fierce need to protect her cub and I can see how it might come to that. (A $4000 birthday party? Not so much.)

It really is hard to decide what the right balance is, isnt’ it? Between providing enough exposure to generate an interest or develop a certain level of skill to just plain killing ourselves with a hectic schedule.

If you’ve got a family with three children and each child only does one activity — that is still a ton of scheduling! My parents had four children and to this day I have no idea how they afforded it, let alone managed to schedule it all!

Special thanks to the insights from teachers! I do recall wondering about the poor JK teachers who only had the kids for 1/2 day but must have spent at least 1/2 of that time helping them in and out of snowsuits!

I have not yet seen the documentary and am trying desperately to see if I can download the full version somewhere. I’m looking forward to watching it, it’s a very interesting topic and one I am also very fascinated in.

And I can relate to Stefanie – I am also a teacher and find myself expecting a lot of my kids. I taught them how to put on their own snowsuits and boots long before they could read or print their names. As a teacher it drives me nuts when kids stand there in kindergarten waiting for you to put their snowsuits and boots on for them – just assuming you will do it b/c it is done for them at home. Children need to be taught independence at a young age – it is crucial for their personal development.

Great commentary!!

Yo! I found you through Andrea’s blog and while I was going to comment on hers, I’m not going to comment there now because I only have a few minutes and I want to say, “Wow! Glad you’re back! Glad you are writing here! Missed you, and we should really do COFFEE!”
Um, must have taken too many of my cat’s uppers, huh?
Guess what we have? A baby! Rachel – born Oct. 7th. I will muddle around here and see all your news. Mine is that everything is much better.

Big Hugs,
Heather Ann
P.S. – Will almost has two front teeth. Any front teeth happening at your house?

Thanks for the visit! I’ve still been thinking about this and kind of feeling like re-writing my post. But I don’t think that’s “allowed”? I just can’t stop thinking about this documentary! (And another I saw on the same vein where a father attached a GPS tracker to his child every morning before they went out to the bus stop, as well as a woman considering implanting a GSP chip under her child’s skin so she could always know she was safe and not abducted.)

I wanted to add that I think overindulgence to young children probably does no harm whatsoever — like the baby who had the $4k birthday party … the baby doesn’t care or will likely remember it … so what’s the harm?

And I hear you on the bullying front. My DD has already had to deal with this lately. It breaks my heart and if one designer shirt is going to help her fit in … what harm, right? But really, one shirt is not going to help her fit in. Kids can sniff out someone who is more vulnerable or a bit “different” I think. Must be an instictual thing left over from the tribal days!

I guess though it’s when this kind of ultra-focus on one little being continues throughout a lifetime, the child grows up feeling entitled as well as unable to cope without all of that parenting shine focusing down on them.

Maybe this next generation (our toddlers!) will have less coddling. Like Douglas notes, many parents are rejecting this hyper-parenting (I know my hubby, as example, has no hyper-parenting tendencies whatsoever). I do still see it around in parents of my age. These are nice kids and nice parents — but, like Douglas suggests, they are parenting their child as if the child is a project to succeeed at, not a person.

Another thing that I’ve been thinking about is the demographics around this hyper-parenting. The doc mentions middle- to upper-class. But it also featured mothers who had left their employment to be stay-at-home mothers … perhaps hyper-parenting requires, at minimum, one stay-at-home parent who has the time to focus on the child so much!

I’m sure I will continue to think about this …

Julie