Over-protective parents 'damaging kids'
OVER-PROTECTIVE parents are being blamed for damaging the health of their children by refusing to let them engage in the same activities they enjoyed as kids.
Dubbed the helicopter parents because they are always hovering, many of today's mothers and fathers frown upon allowing their children to go outside, dig in the dirt, climb trees or build cubby houses.
But experts agree that, rather than preventing illness or injury, over-cautious parents are actually harming their children.
Olympic swimming champion Shane Gould, who has just finished a masters degree in environmental management, and Wollongong University academic Karen Malone said that helicopter parents were hurting their children's health by not allowing them to engage with nature.
They said that nature deficit disorder contributed to increased cases of ADHD and obesity, lower resistance to diseases, the slow development of cognitive skills and concentration, lower levels of empathy for living things and delayed balance and agility skills.
Associate Professor Malone said the university's child-friendly cities program gave children cameras to take pictures of their favourite parts of their neighbourhoods.
Most photographs were taken from inside a car, she said.
During our research I asked kids how they wanted to spend their time.
Sixty per cent said they wanted to play and less than 10 per cent wanted to use technology [such as video games].
Children aren't being offered enough choice. It's not the X-Box or the computer or the TV but the parents who are at fault.
Ms Gould said parents incorrectly thought they were doing the right thing by keeping a close watch on their kids.
Children need to explore and make mistakes and discoveries, she said.
When they are very young they have an inbuilt program to go under things, under bushes. As they grow, they have an inbuilt program to climb.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ne...ts-damaging-kids/story-e6freuzr-1225911091505
I'm not even a parent and I could have said this.
It's common sense.
Children need to explore and make mistakes and discoveries, she said.
Agreed - so LET THEM.
