In her TED Talk, Julie Lythcott-Haims discusses important ideas about raising children who are successful without overparenting them. Therefore, the main notion that she challenges in American parenting is that there is a fear that parents have regarding the need to be involved in every aspect of their children’s life. They fear that their child cannot be successful if they do not receive the protection from them and preventing mistakes at every turn (TED Talks Live, 2015). Hovering over every happening and micromanaging every moment, and steering their children toward a small subset of professional development is an issue.
The basis of the argument is that overprotective and hovering children creates an expectation for an unaccomplishable degree of perfection that parents have never been asked to perform at themselves. Being a kid in a “checklisted” childhood does more harm than good because they do not have enough free time and are being constantly pushed by their parents who do not understand that their desire for kids to be happy is exhibited in a wrong way (). Therefore, happiness for young adults is not measured by their success at educational institutions.
The speaker’s argument can be put in action in any context because it entails parents recognizing that their children can and should be independent to become successful. They should be allowed to make their own choices with parents fearing that they will “screw up.” There are enough problems that adolescents and young adults experience, such as peer pressure, issues with gender identity, family struggles, and others (Linacre, 2014). Thus, kids should be given more freedom while parent should not hover but instead guide and give advice.
References
Linacre, Q. (2014). The impact of family structure on the health of children: Effects of divorce. The Linacre Quarterly, 81(4): 378-387.
TED Talks Live. (2015). How to raise successful kids — without over-parenting [Video]. Ted.