As parents, it is evident that you want to do everything possible for your child. You want to protect them from any harm possible while also ensuring that they have their own space. But what if you were told that's still not enough? Turns out, if you have a teenager at home and if you're interfering too much in their space, it can have serious effects on their personality. A new study found that such parents can act as barriers to teens by not allowing them to take proper responsibility.
As per the study, nearly all parents believed that they were doing their part in making their teens independent by allowing the teens to make more choices, pushing them to handle things themselves and even tasking them with doing things on their own instead of doing things for them. However, one-quarter of parents still reported not taking out the time or making the efforts to give their teens any responsibilities.
"As children become teenagers, the role of parent’s shifts to helping them gain the knowledge and experience they will need for being independent adults," said Sarah Clark, lead author of the study. The data was collected from a sample of 877 parents of at least one child who is 14-18 years old. Nearly three-fourths of the parents believed that the teens were themselves responsible for not being independent enough because they either did not have the time to learn things or they did not know things or they weren't mature enough to handle things.
One-fourth of the parents believed that it was their fault their teens didn't know things because it was easier to do things on their own rather than task their teens with doing them. And when it came to health care, teens hardly knew anything at all because parents believed they needed to intervene to ensure the teens received proper medical care and follow-ups.
"It is clear that parents recognise tension in helping teens move toward independence, and they agree that valuable learning experiences often result from a poor decision," researchers said. Researchers are suggesting that parents should try to position themselves as backups instead of readily available options so that their teens can figure out how to do things by themselves. Stay tuned for more updates.
