In Babies and more We have repeatedly talked about overprotection, and we have done so because we all agree that overprotecting children can be negative, because parents become stewards and / or make the decisions of their children and children do not develop the autonomy necessary to grow as people.
Now, the problem is that defining overprotection is very difficult, because where some see an excess of protection, others only see affection and where some see logical care, others see neglect. Today we are going to talk about it because recently it has been known that the social services of San Vicente, in Alicante, are intervening every year in some 30 cases of children who must be "saved" from their overprotective mothers.
Truancy as a clue to overprotection
Apparently there is a 'School Absentee Prevention Program' in the area, whereby schools notify when a child is absent too much at school. Apparently, according to Marino Martínez, head of the municipal area of Social Services of San Vicente, the parents end up not taking the children to school to avoid problems.
Faced with this situation, they intervene "at an early age because then nothing can be done. Even sometimes it is necessary for a person to separate them and do a handsaw job".
That is, they intervene when children are 3 or 4 years old, which I personally do not understand because a child, until 6 years old, has no obligation to go to school. Until then, the school is an educational service offered to families, totally optional. It is true that once you enroll the logical thing is to take it. The child is occupying a public square and it is the right thing, but as in the end what should always prevail is the child's well-being (that he goes to school because it is useful, learn and help him develop), there are children who are better not going, or going occasionally, that going in a forced way to fulfill a schedule.
Yes, I'm talking in a way about Aran, my 5-year-old son who went to school last year only when he wanted to. According to our decision, the social services in the area should have acted, because we protected him from other children, from the teacher or I don't know what, depriving him of the ability to be autonomous.
However, as we approach it, we protect you from your own maladjustment, we protect you from the feeling of abandonment by your parents and grant you the autonomy and freedom enough to decide when to go to learn and when not to go. The funny thing is that he was going more than we thought he was going to go and now, that he has one more year, he enters every day running happily to class.
Overprotective parents raise geeky children
In Martinez's words, perhaps somewhat unfortunate, overprotected children miss class more for the following reason:
They do not wear them because they say that others beat them, mess with them or harass them. What happens is that your child is a geek because they have not let him grow ... Let him fall and get up; the child should not be given the fish, but a rod because, if not, the other boys see that their child is rare, fragile and therefore interact negatively with him. And as he does not know how to defend himself, he maintains a defective relationship with the peer group, is excluded from the group, he is not invited, for example, to play football.
Completely agree on the cane, not so much in the rest. You have to teach children to fish, but do not force children to fish. "I teach you, son, that this will help you, but if it doesn't work out for you now, I'll be by your side to help you every time you try. Meanwhile, we can eat the fish I fish." Because some children learn to fish right away and others have a harder time. Because some children are very skilled in the relationship with their peers, and others are not so much. Because some children are very "long", rogues or even wicked and the problem, it seems, are those who being more noble, simple and educated, do not know how to defend or do not want to have to defend themselves.
No sir, no child deserves to be called a geek and no sir, in schools you have to try to understand the difference and accept all partners both for their skin color and for their behavior, to see if now it is going to turn out that everyone has to behave the same and to see if now it will be normal and logical for other children to "interact negatively with a child", to be hit and put aside because they consider it different.
Pathological cases?
Eye, I do not say that there are no pathological cases, really distressed parents who prefer that their children do not go out and children who really end up having trouble not being able to make their own lives. Parents who dress their children when they are able to do so, parents who continue to bottle or pacify them when the children already go to primary school, parents who prevent their children from going to parties with other children, or to school, so that it does not happen nothing, parents who decide everything for their children so they can't go wrong. So, day after day and year after year.
There are, and it is logical that in cases like this you intervene trying to help children and parents, so that the child can live his own life, can make decisions and can think. And with thinking I mean having problems ahead and, instead of looking at dad and mom to solve it or tell him the solution, start reasoning and try possible solutions.
Now, in such cases, which are probably very punctual to almost 30 cases a year, it seems to me that there is a big difference and possibly the term overprotection is being abused because it is not being understood that children cannot and should not be the same, that many need more time than others to understand the changes and that it is not normal or logical that there are children who are not related to other children because they are considered rare, fragile or different.
In any case, if it happens, the work must be done on the whole group, both to help some to relate to others and to teach others to appreciate and understand that we should not all be the same.
