The Problem with Over-Parenting and the "Checklisted Childhood"
Julie Lythcott-Haims, the former Dean of Freshmen at Stanford, highlights a concerning trend in modern parenting where parents are so involved in their children's lives that they are "messing up kids" and "impeding their chances to develop into theirselves". While parental involvement is generally positive, an extreme form of over-parenting can be harmful. This style, which she refers to as a "checklisted childhood," involves parents constantly protecting, preventing, hovering, micromanaging, and steering their children towards a "small subset of colleges and careers".
A "checklisted childhood" is characterised by a relentless pursuit of external markers of success, where children are expected to achieve perfection. This includes ensuring they attend the "right schools," are in the "right classes," get the "right grades," and accumulate the "right scores, accolades, awards, sports, activities, and leadership positions". Parents even encourage children to "start a club" or "check the box for community service" specifically to impress colleges. Parents become their child's "concierge and personal handler and secretary," constantly nudging, cajoling, and nagging to prevent any "screwing up" or "closing doors" to a desired future.
The Negative Impact on Children
The "checklisted childhood" has several detrimental effects on children:
- Lack of Free Play and Enrichment Overload: Children have "no time for free play" as every moment is expected to be "enriching". Every homework, quiz, and activity is treated as a "make-or-break moment" for their future.
- Absolved from Responsibilities: Children are often "absolve[d] of helping out around the house" and even "getting enough sleep" as long as they are completing their checklist items.
- Conditional Love and Worth: Children learn that their parents' approval, love, and "very worth, comes from A's". They feel like they are constantly being "coax[ed]... to just jump a little higher and soar a little farther".
- Anxiety and Burnout: By high school, children are "breathless," "brittle," "a little burned out," and "old before their time," wishing they had been told, "What you've done is enough". They experience "high rates of anxiety and depression".
- Lack of Self-Efficacy: Over-parenting, through "overhelp, our overprotection and overdirection and hand-holding," deprives children of the chance to build self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is crucial and is built when children see that their "own actions lead to outcomes," not their parents' actions on their behalf. This constant parental interference sends the message, "Hey kid, I don't think you can actually achieve any of this without me".
- Narrow Definition of Success: This approach promotes a "too narrow a definition of success" for children, focusing solely on a "tiny number of colleges or entrance to a small number of careers".
Key Learning and Action Points for Parents
Lythcott-Haims advocates for a different approach to raising successful and happy children:
- Prioritise Habits, Mindset, Skills, and Wellness: Parents should be "less concerned with the specific set of colleges" their children might get into and "far more concerned that they have the habits, the mindset, the skill set, the wellness, to be successful wherever they go".
- Embrace Chores: Children need a foundation built on "love and chores". The Harvard Grant Study, the longest longitudinal study of humans, found that "professional success in life... comes from having done chores as a kid, and the earlier you started, the better". Chores foster a "roll-up-your-sleeves-and-pitch-in mindset" and a willingness to "contribute my effort to the betterment of the whole," which is crucial for workplace success. When children are absolved of chores, they "lack[ing] the impulse, the instinct to roll up their sleeves and pitch in" as young adults.
- Offer Unconditional Love: Happiness in life comes from "love of humans: our spouse, our partner, our friends, our family". Children "can't love others if they don't first love themselves," and they won't love themselves if they don't receive "unconditional love" from their parents. Instead of immediately asking about homework and grades, parents should "close our technology, put away our phones, and look them in the eye" and express joy at seeing them, asking "How was your day? What did you like about today?". Children need to know "they matter to us as humans, not because of their GPA".
- Challenge the "Biggest Brand-Name Schools" Myth: It is not necessary to attend one of the "biggest brand-name schools to be happy and successful in life". Many happy and successful people attended state schools, small colleges, community colleges, or even flunked out. Parents should "widen our blinders," "remove our own egos from the equation," and realise that it is "hardly the end of the world if our kids don't go to one of those big brand-name schools".
- Foster Autonomy and Self-Volition: If children's childhood has not been dictated by a "tyrannical checklist," they will approach college "on their own volition, fueled by their own desire, capable and ready to thrive there".
- Parent as a Nurturer, Not a Designer: Parents should see their children not as "little bonsai trees" to be clipped and shaped into perfection, but as "wildflowers of an unknown genus and species". The parent's job is to "provide a nourishing environment," "strengthen them through chores," and "love them so they can love others and receive love". The choice of "the college, the major, the career, that's up to them". The ultimate goal is to "support them in becoming their glorious selves," rather than making them become what the parent desires.