Does Overprotective Parenting Lead to Anxiety in Children? Dr. Cara Goodwin explains a recent study helps explain how overprotective parenting may lead to anxiety in children (Essay & Questions)
Also: 6 simple steps to help avoid overprotective parenting
Recently there has been data emerging to suggest that overly protective parenting can be linked to problems in children’s mental health.
This is urgently important for all of us who are parents to consider carefully. As I have said before, I think most of us now are almost automatically inclined to be overly protective. I think helicopter parenting is probably the norm now. If not, it’s not far from it.
That’s simply the direction our culture and various factors push us towards; that seems to be the cultural stream, and it takes a lot of effort and thought to swim against this current.
It doesn’t take a study to see how unhelpful at best and unhealthy at worst over-parenting can be for the very people it’s meant to help: our children.
But when connections to things like anxiety start showing up, it is something we should consider, even if it’s uncomfortable for us.
Dr. Cara Goodwin has an excellent discussion of one such study in her excellent newsletter, The Parenting Translator.
Before I get to that, however, one obvious question that comes up with such pieces is, “Am I a helicopter parent?”
In preparation for today’s post, last week I shared another piece by Dr, Goodwin that can help answer this question. You can find that here: “10 signs you're a helicopter parent, 9 steps to breaking the habit, and why it matters to your child's future happiness,”
Now, today, we’ll be discussing a piece Dr. Goodwin wrote back in November titled, “Does Overprotective Parenting Lead to Anxiety in Children? A recent study helps us understand how overprotective parenting may lead to anxiety in children.”
According to Dr. Goodwin:
A recent study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships examined how overprotective parenting is related to emotional regulation and anxiety in children.
According to Dr. Goodwin:
The study found that overprotectiveness in parents was linked to higher social anxiety in children (as in previous research). Overprotectiveness was also associated with emotional dysregulation (translation: difficulty understanding and modulating emotions) in children and emotional dysregulation was associated with social anxiety. The researchers used statistics to show that emotional dysregulation helped to explain some of the relationship between overprotective parenting and social anxiety.
Translation: Overprotective parenting may make children more emotionally dysregulated which then increases their social anxiety. This may be because overprotective parents prevent their children from experiencing negative emotions and thus trying out different emotional regulation strategies to cope with negative emotions. (Emphasis mine.)
As with any study, it is important to understand limitations, and this is a huge service that Dr. Goodwin provides: