How Much Should Parents Protect Their Children Analysis

The end of the semester was nearing of my fifth-grade year and I knew that I hadn’t done well in my health class. I was sitting in class waiting to be released to get on my bus when the dreaded moment came. Our teacher began to hand out our report cards before our bus arrived. I prayed in that instant that somehow the bus would show up, enabling me to avoid the dreaded scolding I would inevitably receive when my parent reviewed my grades. She handed my report card back to me, and promptly I opened it to see how much damage had been done. As I looked down the list I couldn’t find anything wrong at first, but then I saw it. A massive F at the bottom of page under health. In this moment, the fear of God was struck into me and for the first time
Allen, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Tennessee, brings to light the concern of parenting in his article, "How Much Should Parents Protect Their Children?" where he debates where the happy medium is in parenting our children nowadays. Allen begins his article by recounting a story that spread across the nation of two young siblings walking to the park alone, only to have social services drop by and pick them up placing their parents into a dismay of concern. By beginning his article with this account, he is able to shed light on the reality that parents badger or overprotect their children too much. He also follows his first account with an opposing account of parents who allowed their 16-year-old daughter to sail into the sea alone, only to be caught in a treacherous storm where it was required that she be rescued. Dr. Allen then addresses the issue that many parents, " fear that the children will be whisked away by a sexual predator" (Allen, How much) but quickly rebates this fear with statistics that show the likelihood of a child abduction and exclaims that our efforts to protect our children should put elsewhere. Lastly, Allen points out that there needs to be a happy medium found because the fear in parents nowadays, is becoming detrimental towards their kid’s
Many parents find it difficult to find a happy medium of protecting their children and letting them learn from their own experiences. But for hundreds of years most parents found a way to balance the two. So, this brings me to question, what has changed within these past fifty years to cause parents to parent too little or not enough? David M. Allen poses that the occurrence of overprotection is attributed to parents feeling guilty. He says, “My theory is that there are a lot of parents these days who are feeling very guilty about the way their busy two-career lives affect their children. This sense of guilt hardly existed 60 years ago” (How Much Should Parents Protect Their Children, Allen p.5). We have changed in the past 60 years as Allen stated and it’s time we go back to the way parenting was handled in the past. Lents makes it clear in his article that overprotecting our kids is harming them. He pronounces, “Helicopter parents that seek to shield their children from all forms of adversity are not doing them any favors” (Lents). His claim is supported with common examples seen in our children’s everyday lives such as “falling off a swing,” intervening in a dispute among children, standing over their shoulder as they do their homework, and many other examples. Lents view is valid as it is seen in most children’s lives nowadays. In fact, I can attest to his statement that “Helicopter parents… are not doing them