Fears Of Parents

FEAR OF PARENTAL FAILURE

Overprotection can be rooted in the felt need to avoid re-feeling past pain. It can also be rooted in the fear of failure of being a good parent.

Brad and Joyce initially came for marriage counseling. As we began to identify their other issues, I heard Joyce state offhandedly that she did not want to fail as a parent. It soon became clear Joyce was also managed by the fear of failure.

Fear transformed Joyce into a classic micro-manager. She tenaciously screened their deportment to see if she was failing in any way, shape or form. Every word, thought, action or attitude expressed by her children was meticulously scrutinized for a flaw in her parenting. She was totally focused on herself. Every action of her children was a litmus test of her parenting skills.

Tempers flared if Joyces husband would not support her schemes, strategies and overparenting techniques designed to validate her as a parent. Joyce bought into the lie that her personal value was basically tied to her childrens behavior. God never gave children the responsibility to preserve their parents worth. That must be totally based on our relationship with Jesus Christ (Gal. 2:20). Although each of us as parents and grandparents have made our share of mistakes, those shortcomings do not change our value in Christ. That remains a gift from God, not an earned reward for quality parenting (Eph. 2:8-9).

Our kids will learn more from our corrected failures than from our untarnished successes or hidden failures. Tragically, children who grow up with "perfect parents sense early in life that they cannot measure up to their parents standards and gradually stop trying. They become passive aggressive in their expression of anger. This only infuriates the parents more and greatly limits the God-designed potential of the youth. Anger comes, peace goes.

FEAR THEYLL BE LIKE ME

One root of overparenting is related to failure. This fear goes deeper. Its the fear that our children will turn out like us. Alton knew this fear well.

Alton was a former drug addict. His youth was characterized by drugs, alcohol, rebellion, gangs, immorality and crime. Not exactly an average American youth. His dad abandoned the family early in his life and his mom had to work two jobs to make ends meet. As a result, he was raised on the streets in a small California community. Actually, the neighborhood raised him.

Years later he encountered the claims of Christ, became a believer and experienced unconditional love in a Christian drug rehab center. It was while at the rehab center he met and married his wife. She already had one child from a former marriage. Soon they had two of their own. Guess what kind of parenting style he adopted? Right! Overprotection.

Alton had a lot of baggage from his past, including guilt, shame, fear, loss and regret. He unconsciously said to himself, ANo kid of mine will ever go through what I went through. Now, how did he parent? Just like Joyce did, but instead of fearing he would fail as a parent, he scrutinize his kids for any potential symptoms that they were heading down his old road. He would rather die than see that happen. He made his rebellious past his standard to avoid instead of making his present goal of Christ likeness his standard to achieve. His focus should have been on how he could influence his kids to be like the Lord Jesus Christ now.

What could Alton do differently? Simple. Evaluate anything that he or his parents did. If it was like Christ, keep it, reproduce it. If it was not like Christ, reject it. This completely shifts the focus from what the children should not do to what they can do to become more like Jesus. This positive focus would greatly reduce the fear of seeing his negative traits reproduced in his children.