'Snow plow' parenting: Helping kids?
Move over, Tiger Moms -- a new parenting trend prevents children from failing.
First there were Tiger Moms. You may recall the extreme style of parenting made (in)famous by Amy Chua's best-selling book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.
Then hovering 'helicopter parents came on the scene -- the overly-involved, control freak style of child rearing.
Now, an all-out mommy war is brewing as a brand new moniker of parenting style comes under attack, "snow plow" parenting.
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According to an article on ABC7 San Francisco’s website, "the 'snow plow' parent pushes life’s obstacles out of his or her children's way."
Instead of parenting from a place of healthy involvement, these parents try to eliminate potential roadblocks and pave a straight line to their kid's success.
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In the ABC7 story, one mom talks about how she used her "snow plow" powers when her son was going out for a basketball team.
"I brought lemon cupcakes to a baseball practice once and realized the coach doesn’t like lemon. So I went home and baked vanilla cupcakes and brought them to his house that evening for his family to share," she was quoted.
In San Mateo, Calif., Aragon High School athletic director Steve Sells tells ABC7 it's apparent in sports, "A lot more money is spent on club activity outside of school," he was quoted. "And a lot more in the way of private lessons."
Kids are pushed to succeed in one sport, and as a result, Sells sees over-use injuries at a young age.
"They're teaching their children a terrible lesson," Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, Ph.D., told ABC7. "If you're not good at something immediately, get out. It's humiliating to be a novice."
In the grand scheme of growing up, what happens if your kid doesn’t get to experience the thrill of winning and suffer a few hard knocks along the way?
Do you think "snow plow" parenting helps or hurts children?
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Photo: Snow plow parenting / Digital Vision/Getty Images
This is everything wrong with parenting today... winning teaches nothing, its the times we get knocked down and how we react that teach the real lessons.
Growing up, my cousins and I would always play a pick-up basketball game with our fathers... they never took it easy on us, even when we were 6 or 7. But when I was 16, and we finally beat our dads for the first time... and the first time I ever dunked on someone, let alone on my dad. It was the greatest feeling in the world. The hundreds of losses before that hurt, but it was nothing comparied to the joy of watching our dads lose. I promissed myself I would give my kids the same feeling. The feeling of accomplishment for overcoming something. Even if its something as simple and meaningless as beating me in basketball. My kids will always get the best from me... and when they do finally beat me, they will know nothing was given to them, they earned it... and thats something nobody can take away from them. That is something they will always cherish and remember, the same way I will never forget the look on my dads face the first time I beat him.
Thats a huge lesson I got from my parents... nothing in life is given to you, nobody else is going to go easy on you just so you can win. You want something, go out and get it!
Just another annoying, pathetic mordern day parenting trend that will only make her kid the weakest of the weak. As soon as these kids are able to go further than the end of mommies driveway, life is going to have them in a corner, crying like the baby these clown parents are making them.
No real life coping skills being taught at. All these so-called parents are teaching their kids is how to quit the second something requires more thinking than getting 4 out of 2 plus 2. They teaching them how to be spineless weaklings.
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