Everywhere you land softly here: on a pillow, on a trampoline, in a ball box. The wall is covered with plastic with something soft underneath. The son and daughter of Julia Straathof (41) climb on a large climbing frame with a slide, they are four and five years old. It is a Thursday afternoon in the Monkey Town in Warmond, an indoor playground in a large hall on an industrial site. Straathof stands next to the slide, her view of the children. No, nothing can happen to them here, she says. “And yet I am looking at them.”
The children were allowed to cycle outside for the first time yesterday while she was inside, she says. In front of the door, in a street where no cars drive. “They scream so much that you hear them. My husband is a bit more risk avers. Then he goes outside again. ” She thinks she should do more things like this: give space, stimulate independence. “But I also find it difficult: how do you do that?”
Nobody wants to be a helicopter parent, a parent who, so to speak, wraps his child with bubble plastic. Yet many parents sometimes have something away (including the authors of this article). On parenting websites, social media and opinion pages it has been about for years about parents who would protect their children too much and solve all their problems. It’s about toddlers who have their buttocks not be able to wipe yourselfsports days that do not Because it rains and children that Only with a location tracker can go outside.
The book Generation of anxiety disorder (2024) became a bestseller. In it, the American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that over-protecting parents, in combination with social media, produce a generation of uncertain, anxious and psychologically vulnerable young people. (Based on science, by the way, his work sounds much criticism.)
Where does ‘just’ change well for children in helicopter? And is it true that parents have started to protect their children so much more? NRC Speaked with parents of children in primary and crècheleijge age and with parenting researchers.
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The NRC review of Jonathan Haidt’s book
Vaccination with small stresses
“On average, Dutch parents are very involved with their child, they give a lot of support and spend a lot of time together. That has increased in recent decades, “says Loes Keijsers, professor of pedagogy at Erasmus University Rotterdam. More than 75 percent of Dutch children Says to be able to talk well with their parents about problems.
For a long time it was thought that more involvement “was only good news,” says Keijsers. But gradually a downside became visible. Children must be confronted with ‘hassle, rumbling, difficulty’. By always ‘vaccinating with small stress’ by ‘vaccinating with small stress’ and they learn how to solve problems themselves. Parents should not protect their child more than “strictly necessary,” says Keijsers.
Fenna’s father Joris Groenendijk used to be allowed to cycle to football herself, and thought with her how she could tackle it.
Photos Simon Lenskens
“It is sometimes stated that we are dealing with an epidemic of overprotective parents,” says developmental psychologist Stijn van Petegem. According to him, that is exaggerated. “It is still a minority of the parents who are overproting.” At the Belgian Université Libre de Bruxelles, Van Petegem is investigating in ten European countries to what extent there is overproting parenting, how that is and how that differs from previous generations. Exact figures will follow later this year, he wants to share some first insights.
How parents raise their children depends on cultural norms, social class and much more, says Van Petegem. “Yet there are reasons why we think that there is now on average more overprotection than before.” He mentions the increased individualism, so that parents themselves have become mainly responsible for upbringing, rather than together with family, neighbors and other parents. “That promotes overbells.” He also mentions the increased economic inequality, giving parents the feeling that the success of their child depends more on their upbringing.
What if she is hit?
A parenting dilemma in practice: Fenna van Negen wants to cycle to Tennis herself, but has to cross two busy roads along the way. Her father, Joris Groenendijk from De Bilt: “Then as a parent you will think: what if she is hit? What if she gets a flat tire? What if …? ” He himself was allowed to cycle to football at that age, for which he also had to cross a busy road.
Fenna still had an idea. Maybe it was possible if she would put on such a GPS watch with a belfry? (She is not allowed to have a phone anyway.) Not so strange, her parents first thought – you still want to know where your child is. But then they came to a different conclusion. “As parents, we are on top of everything. But she must be able to make mistakes and resolve it herself, “says Groenendijk.
Fenna can now only cycle to tennis, without a watch. Since this school year she also cycles to school, unlike most of her classmates, says her father. “She finds that very cool.”
Fenna finds it “very cool” that she can cycle herself, says her father.
Photos Simon Lenskens
Other situation, other parent. Elin van Drie makes a puzzle with a peer and soon they both want to have that one piece. “I immediately started: no, doing it together, taking turn,” says Elin’s mother Elza Zijlstra (42), from Venlo. “I was going to manage it.” Her daughter has to learn to share, right?
But Zijlstra actually thinks she should give her daughter the chance to solve it herself. “To discover: what happens if I keep pulling that puzzle piece? What if another child starts crying? But I want to save her unpleasant experiences, including social. And what also plays a role, I think: I want to show others that I am a good educator. ”
Another parent, different issue. In the morning at school the toddlers have to take their lunch box and container with fruit out of their bags and take it into the classroom. For parents it is tempting – you are in a hurry yourself – to do that yourself if your child forgets. “I will continue to wait in the corridor for my son to think about it,” says Tom Grosfeld, a freelance journalist from Tilburg who has some essays about education published.
Grosfeld “doesn’t really want to be a helicopter parent,” he says. “That is quite difficult. Take things out, solve small problems – that is almost automatic. ” First he was on top of when his son had a boyfriend to play (“Do they have fun?”), Now he tries to keep aloof when they get into a fight. “Anyway, this is the theory. We also do quite a lot for them. ” Their milk can pour the children themselves – he also has a toddler of three. “While you know: 50 percent chance that things will go wrong.”
Precious minutes
Why do parents kick in the helicopter trap while they don’t want that? Parents mention time pressure as a reason. Julia Straathof, in Monkey Town: “In the morning we actually want them to put on their shoes themselves. But then it takes five minutes instead of two. ” Every minute counts during rush hour.
It goes faster if you do it yourself, is also the experience of Anna van Popering-Kalkman, Alderman for Youth Care (ChristenUnie) in Gouda and mother of two children aged 9 and 11. But in the longer term, she says, it delivers time to let children do things themselves. And – she is certainly convinced of this – it’s good for your child. Her children must sweep the floor, put the dishwasher and set the table. “That really has to be neat. Signs right, forks left, knives on the right. ” Otherwise no screen time. It took a while, she says, but now the table is “perfectly covered”.
In the fall, Van Popering-Kalkman wrote a opinion piece in the Algemeen Dagblad: “High time we started raising our children,” was the headline. About “cargo bike fathers” who not only drive their children to school, “but also lift from the cargo bike and carry the class”. Nothing wrong with a cargo bike, she says – she had that too. “But make sure that you also take it away on time and let them cycle yourself.” For example if a child is five. Her message: give children responsibility.
A highlight every day
There is more to it than making time and yielding (much) patience. Some parents also mention the high expectations that educators have of themselves, and the pressure of the environment to do well. And then it is usually not good: let things go and let your child sort it out.
In the United States, the Surgeon General, the face of health care, came up with A remarkable warning: Many American parents are “exhausted, burned out and constantly lag behind.” He called that an “urgent problem for public health.” The pressure that parents experience is partly due to a ‘stronger culture of comparison’, resulting in ‘unrealistic expectations’.
Developmental psychologist Stijn van Petegem sees that European parents also feel that they must meet high social expectations. They provide “busy to do it perfectly”. On average, he says, mothers who are busy experiencing pressure stronger than fathers, because more mothers are still expected when it comes to parenting.
If Elza Zijlstra takes care of her daughter of three on Monday, she would like to make her nice days for her, but that can sometimes also give it busy. “Then we have already puzzled and crafted with toilet rolls-and then it is only ten hours. Then I sometimes think: what do I have to think of for the whole day? ” Perhaps it is because there is more knowledge about upbringing, maybe it is because of social media, but it seems, says Zijlstra, “as if every day has to be a peak.”
We think we are protecting the child, but we are actually taking the development
At the hockey club of his youngest daughter, Joris Groenendijk sees that parents must be so much. “There are whole schedules: then you have to be a game supervisor, then you have to drive. Not only at the competition are many parents watching, but also at the training. I think we all rolled into a model in which parents take on too much. “
Professor Loes Keijsers was recently in a playground with a four -year -old boy. “The swing was stuck with a cord on the ground, so that the swing could not rock too high. Then we think we protect the child, but we actually take the development. ” She also sees a kind of “counter -movement”. She mentions a temporary playground in Utrecht, The Adventures Playgroundwhere parents are not welcome and children are allowed to saw, carpentry and fires. This playground is now closed due to lack of money, but the desire is to be able to open again this spring. In Anglo -Saxon countries, a social movement has started around so -called Free Range Parentingwhere children freely roam as much as possible.
A lot of freedom to “go on an adventure”, Elza Zijlstra grants her daughter too. Her own youth, in a small village, was full of that. “We were fluently on a styrofoam – we had taken that from a construction site – with a stick and a bucket of snails in the ditch.” She cannot remember that there was a parent, let alone that he was warning all the time. “I always felt a lot of confidence: it will all be fine.”
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