Helicopter Parenting: Is Coddling Our Kids Helping or Harming?

Things are definitely much different than when I was a kid. Children nowadays get coddled and spoiled. Is it society becoming more technological? Or is crime getting worse, causing parents to tighten leashes (sometimes literally)? Which also begs almost the same question I posed in my post about hot car deaths, is crime actually getting worse or do we just hear about it more readily? This article kind of asks the same questions and brings up some great comparisons of the ways parenting has changed. It also brings up the fact that there really is no longer a sense of community offline anymore. I mean, honestly, how many of you know more than one or two of your neighbors? People don't trust other people as much as they did (probably for good reason). This means we're less likely to let our kids spend the night at a neighbor's house (one that also has children, of course). We're less likely to organize and/or attend a neighborhood block party or barbecue. Kids don't get the same experiences they used to and it makes me wonder if kids today are softer, for lack of a better word. For instance, nowadays, children get awards just for participating. Or the "Anti-Bullying Campaign." This was never around when I was a kid and I don't remember ever hearing about kids committing suicide because of bullying. Granted, bullying is a terrible thing and a child's suicide is an absolute tragedy, but this seems to be a new thing.

Is it because kids do more things online rather than going outdoors and "getting into trouble?" The article I linked to above mentions kids these days aren't allowed to roam around outdoors quite as much as their parents were. You hear in the news all the time how kids are getting kidnapped from their own neighborhoods, parents today don't allow their kids to stray as far as parents in the past used to. There are also tons of products out today that make things...oversafe, I suppose? For example, baby wipe warmers. I mean, for real? Your baby's ass can't be cold for two seconds? And there are baby monitors that have cameras on them! And all sorts of things to baby-proof your house, like toilet latches... What happened to watching your kids to make sure they weren't playing in the toilet? There are also many products to make sure your kids are always entertained and you never have to spend any actual time with them, like TVs in the car, tablets, and smart phones. Are all of these things contributing to a society of sissies? Let's get back to how things were in the TV show The Wonder Years! Kevin learned some valuable life lessons!

To be totally honest, I have a huge crush on the dad!