..OF OVERPROTECTIVE PARENTS

There shouldn’t be an argument if I say that the extent amount of over-protectiveness a child grows up with is the determinant of how over-sensitive they will grow up to be. If you were born in the 1990s, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. The best of parents from back then tell their children about perpetually dangerous things, their effects and how to prevent them. The worst of them shield their children from anything that comes close to being dangerous without actually telling them what is it, what its effects are or the preventive measures for harm. There’s just this heightened sense of a looming tragedy- in the eyes of over-protective parents.

I remember when I was much younger; 10-11years old, there was this uncompleted bakery building behind our house back then. At night time, especially when there was no electricity, the building would look so intimidating; like all the darkness in the area was there only. Strange sounds of what my brother and I learnt later to be the sound of crickets and the flowing stream in the area would create this gripping fear in our minds but guess what? It was exactly this time and days when there was no electricity that my mother would send my brother and I to buy moin-moin or sugar from the house immediately after the bakery.

At first, it used to be like a death sentence. My brother and I would clench our fists tightly together; like we were going to face an executor up front. When we get to the bakery side, we would make mad dashes until we got to our destination. 

As time went on, we started slowing down anytime we got there until we were sure the area was completely safe. Mummy would tell us there wasn’t anything like ghosts or evil; that if anything jumps out of the building, it was human and we should stand our ground and talk to it! It became a walk in the park for us as time went on; sometimes, we would even pass through the building to satisfy our curiosity.

For sheltered kids however, the truth is there will be a stage when we all grow up and realize there’s no danger in the house at 2pm, there’s no evil lurking in uncompleted buildings, talking to the new kids at school hold no danger, there’s really no big bad evil ‘ojuju calabar’ that swallows children whole. Normally, parents that stress their kids about these things forget to re-orientate them that there’s no real danger in these things, consequently making their kids grow up with a stressed mind over old fears.

There’s a heightened sense of their [parents] own precarious opinion of life and thus, the need to protect their kids from tragedy. This includes forbidding them from doing something remotely fun because of imagined dangers. This may seem like a great thing at first but one way or the other, it may create this self doubt on whether their kids can take on the “Bad world” alone; because that’s how they’ve been made to view the world.

When you’re raised by overprotective parents, you’ll hardly be able to take baby steps towards adulthood without the constant anxiety of whether you’re doing something that’ll make mummy or daddy angry even though you know deep inside you that you’re doing nothing wrong. You’d check your phone every second for mummy or daddy’s call when you’re out with friends, you’d grow jittery and scared when you miss their calls. And of course they won’t disappoint, what they think is best for you is the only thing that matters to them; sheltering you from the world without knowing how cocooned you feel. You will tend to grow with a faulty or totally non-existent ability to make adult decisions by yourself. Interestingly, parents like this play the disappointment card a lot- when a mistake happens, they’re not as quick to tell you it was a mistake as they are to tell you how “it shouldn’t have been you” and how they “trusted you more than this.”

There’s also this kind of anxiety that centers around social interaction; there’s this shield from real life stressful events which isn’t a problem until it encourages continuous timidity; whereby their kids grow up, not knowing how to confront and eliminate fears. It is these actions that till now make some adults think the proper way to react to situations is through fear, worry and withdrawal. Counter intuitively, children whose kids fussed over them should grow up loved and valued but it really doesn’t turn out to be so; they believe they’re well behaved and confident of that fact, but there’s a way being wrapped in a baby shawl every step of one’s life send a message to the child that they are vulnerable or incapable of doing things on their own.

There’s one thing to want your parent’s opinion and input on things, there’s another side of feeling vulnerable or deeply emotionally dependent without their help. It may not necessarily be a bad thing to some, to others it is. Being scared when you miss your parents’ calls, not knowing how to stand up to people or bullies because your parents have been doing that all your life, is like a magnet to bullies. There’s a way this sends a message to people that one is vulnerable; gradually, low-self esteem festers. Attention is great; but the kind of attention these kinds of kids grow up with isn’t the kind that builds self-love or acceptance.

But after all is said and done, there’s a very high possibility of such kids to eventually get rebellious when they get a whiff of the excitement they’ve missed all their life. And when this happens, there’s usually a no return to the lovely kids that have been raised, consequently, it will be too late to do anything about it.