When instilling safety rules, start young and be consistent. Last week we looked at common power struggles that parents and children engage in over safety rules and boundaries. Sometimes these struggles occur because children are pushing for more control in areas that might endanger them, but more often, they occur because of parental fear. If you are a single parent, an older parent of a young child, or a parent of an only child, your chances of being a bit more fearful are higher. In a recent Wall Street Journal article, one mother of a 10 year old son says she plans to get him a cellular phone before she will allow him to wander out of sight on her own wooded property.
Some parents feel there's no such thing as too much safety for a child.
Although no reasonable person would argue against a certain amount of safety precautions, over protection only causes problems in the parent child relationship and frustrates a child's normal, developmental push for competence and autonomy. In short, power struggles often result. Power struggles that are caused by a parent's overprotectiveness or excessive fearfulness can be resolved easily if the parent recognizes that is what's happening. If you find yourself projecting ahead into the future, for example, worrying that your 10 year old will become a teenage delinquent if you allow him to walk to the mini-mart with his friends to buy candy, then that's a clue that your fear may be the biggest culprit in the struggle. In these situations, remember that your child deserves the chance to prove himself responsible before you deny the experience altogether.