For those people who were "overprotected" as children......?

Question

How did it make you feel? Negative and positive feedback. How were you overprotected? What would you do differently or the same with your your children?

Also, how were you overprotected?

Answer 1

I think I was overprotected. I rebelled when I was a senior in high school, and partied a lot then and in college. Maybe if I had been allowed to do more, I would have done less.

ON THE OTHER HAND, I have two kids right now and I find myself laying down the same rules as my parents did. :) Go figure.

Answer 2

I was brought up in an independent church with their own strict rules. My mother found this church shortly after becoming a Christian and she liked the strict guidelines due to the fact that she was a recovering alcoholic, had low-self esteem, and was always more of a follower than a leader. In the process, she went totally the opposite direction and became a control freak and tried dictating every aspect of my life. It got worse when I became a teenager and believe me, those were very contentious years. No TV, concerts, movies, or dating outside the church. Overprotecting me did nothing but push me to the very things my mother was trying to protect me from. A lot of hard lessons followed after I left home, because I was naive as to how the world really was. One of the good aspects is that by the time I joined the U.S. Army, I was used to the high amount of control and my experiences have made me a better person. Over the years, several other guys have left my old church and we now go out drinking and partying together. As for how I will raise my children (when I find the right woman to help me with that), I will give them a lot more freedoms and choices......with common sense guidance. IM me if you want to know more detail.

Answer 3

my parents gave me unlimited freedom when i was small to the point it worried my teachers and other adults ahaha! but at the same time they provide me with lost of love so those two factors balanced out and it turned out i always think of them when i want to do something bad so in turn i NEVER did anything bad at all though i KNOW I CAN but i dont want to hurt them so i didnt. i also got lots more courage compared to my peers its almost natural now when the truth was i had learnt to overcome fear since very small age cuz i know although mom and dad will always be around, i really must depend on myself.

i think i would do the same with my children - its the only way to live and i hope they will have the same concern as i did before they decide to mess up their life!

Answer 4

I was. We lived on a busy street when I was a child, and since there were no other children living on our side of the street, I was not allowed to go play with the children on the other side of the street, or a block or two away for fear that I would get hit by a car while trying to cross the street.

Compounding things was the fact that my mother had severe agoraphobia (fear of leaving the house). She could not stand to leave the house, so not only would she not take me to play with the other children, she rarely even let me play outside in our own yard (because she couldn't even bring herself to look outside the window to keep an eye on me. That meant I coudn't even connect with other kids who might be going by, and make arrangements for the other parents to come get me and help me across the street.

My dad would take me places on the weekends sometimes, if I got invited somewhere. But I was never allowed to invite anyone else back to our place. Most of that was because I was sent to a Catholic run school during Boston's "bussing crisis." It was an effort to make sure the schools were properly racially and ethnically balanced. The problem was the way it was implemented...it wasn't just middle and high schoolers, but also elementary and kindergarden age kids who were sent to other schools, sometimes at the opposite ends of the city. Race riots ensued, so the Catholic schools told us all (parents and children) not to associate at all with "those public school people."

We were supposed to believe that it meant that we were above such silly things as racism, but what it really meant was that we were not supposed to mix with anyone that wasn't exactly like us. Since most of our neighbors' chidren went to public schools, any playdates that I set up on my own were immediately shot down.

By the time I got older, and made some friends at school, the habit was so ingrained with my parents that I wasn't even allowed to go play at my schoolmate's homes.

It made me feel like a weirdo. That there was something wrong with me. I spent my entire childhoold feeling like an outsider, and that feeling persists today. I have a difficult time making friends, even on a casual level. This makes things like job hunting and looking for apartments difficult, because the best ones of each are usually found through "word of mouth"...in other words, through friends.

Meanwhile, keeping me away from kids from different racial and ethnic backgrounds left me with a burning need to understand. Just like how a kid can't resist peeking into a box he has been told not to open...I can't resist learning about other cultures and backgrounds. I have a hard time relaxing around people of my own culture enough to make friends, and every boyfriend I've ever had has been remarkably different in both race and ethnicity. I don't know if that's to prove to myself that they are "just like me" on the inside, or as some twisted message I'm subconciously trying to send to my parents and former teachers.

Now that I am a parent, I have found that I am so used to not going out of the house, that I can't seem to bring myself to do it with my daughter unless we have a specific errand to run. And I can't seem to make myself sit outside with her so she can play outside (in the good weather) and make friends in the neighborhood. I keep telling myself I have to stop it, because I don't want her to end up socially isolated like I did, but I don't know any other way to live.

It is something I am working on though, so there's hope for improvement.

Answer 5

I think I was. And for that I am horribly shy and have no friends (except for online).