Are you mollycoddling your kids too much?

Location, Location, Location’s Kirstie Allsopp has hit the media spotlight after allowing her then 15-year-old son to travel across Europe for three weeks with just a 16-year-old friend. She thinks the world is becoming too risk-averse. KRISTIN WARD of Parenting Place shows us how to tell if you’re too risk-averse with your parenting and why it matters.

Kristin, a parenting coach with Parenting Place, says she wouldn’t be comfortable giving her child the level of freedom Kirstie Allsopp gave her son, but despite that, says many parents are reluctant these days to give their children independence, and permission to do tasks out in the community by themselves.

“Kirstie Allsopp’s story is a pretty extreme level of independence and freedom at a young age, and not something that most parents would be comfortable with,” she says.

However, she says that in his new book The Anxious Generation, social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt argues we’re over-protecting kids in the real world (overestimating the risks) and under-protecting them online (underestimating the risks).

“If we think about it, we are often not allowing our children to do things that we ourselves were doing at our children’s ages. For example, riding bikes or skateboarding around the neighbourhood, walking to a friend’s house, going to the playground unsupervised with a couple of friends, going to movies without parents.”

Kristin says that allowing kids to take risks when they’re young helps them learn their boundaries in a safe way, rather than without you knowing as teenagers. She says kids thrive when they’re challenged, but not threatened and when they’re allowed the opportunity to handle as much as they can without being overwhelmed. Experiencing succeeding, or failing, on their own is an important part of growing up, she says.

“Children whose parents have allowed them to develop responsibility and independence thrive at home and school,” Kristin says.

Why letting our kids take risks matters

Eventually, our kids will have to operate by themselves out there in the big wide world. As Kristin says, they’ll be out doing things with their mates and making their own decisions and they will invariably be taking risks.

“If they haven’t been exposed to a healthy level of risk, they may not have developed the confidence or skills they need to assess risk, stay safe, control their impulses, or get out of tricky situations.

“‘Letting go’ a bit as children get older will support them to grow in confidence. Kids absolutely buzz when they are trusted and allowed to do independent tasks without us; it grows their confidence because they have to flex the muscles of problem-solving and self-reliance.”

The downside of risk-averse parenting

The University of Michigan is currently researching whether anxiety in kids and risk-averse parenting (not letting our kids take enough risk) are linked. The study suggests there is a link between children’s limited freedom and the increase in anxiety amongst children and young people that has been steadily increasing for decades.

One way of addressing this anxiety, the study suggests, is allowing children to do independent tasks, and to learn to cope, without a parent hovering nearby.

“This has been linked to an increase in children’s confidence, self-reliance and wellbeing,” Kristin says.

If they don’t have a healthy level of freedom, kids can become resentful, disengaged, or rebellious towards their parents in the long term, she says.

How – and when – to promote safe risk-taking opportunities

Some kids are just naturally more cautious than others, but Kristin says that if our kids are overwhelmed with worry or struggling to do activities that other kids of their age are typically doing, then it might be a sign we need to encourage more freedom and risk-taking.

“Teenagers have a natural desire to push themselves to new limits, so as parents if we don’t embrace and support this desire, there’s a high chance our young people will still take risks – just without us knowing about it.”

Kristin suggests these simple first-step ways to promote safe risk-taking in our kids: