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Over-protecting Children: is it really good for them?
By Kai Van Dusen, Staff Writer
It is important to protect children, but are we being
a bit over-protective? Not only are we shielding children from being
hurt physically but also mentally. Over-protective parents block out
everything that may cause problems with the child. This may
contribute to the child being hurt later from inexperience.
Safety
measures have gone out of proportion in my opinion. They are helpful
but the safety these things provide a child with may not be there
later in the child’s life, and they may become dependent on having a
parent interceding for them in all situations.
Kids today
hardly ever really get hurt and if they do they have thousands of
disinfectants and things of the sort. The child’s body does almost
nothing on its own, the medication does everything for it, and in
turn their body does not have a chance to get strong and resist
things such as virus and heal wounds on its own.
We
overprotect them from psychological damage as well. Anything we
think may hurt or negatively affect the child’s psyche is completely
eliminated so the child does not have to deal with it. Schools have
banned dodge ball and even tag in order to shelter children from
being “it.” Adults are hesitant to separate teams to determine
athletic winners and losers because being a loser may come as too
much of a shock to a child and they will develop mental problems
from it. We should not shield them from being losers; it should be
seen as a learning experience and motivation for the child to better
his or herself to join the group of winners. We also seem to go to
unnecessary lengths to protect the child from things like violence,
gambling, and anything similar. Math books have begun to call dice,
number cubes because if they were to say dice, that would be
associated with gambling and they do not want the child to know
about gambling.
I am not
saying parents should not protect their children, they just
shouldn’t overdo it. Parents should let the child deal with things,
not let them go it alone, but don’t stop them from dealing with
things on their own.
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