Parental protectiveness – the new PC?

“It doesn’t take long these days for quiet dinner party conversation to shift gear toward animated discussions of parenting,” says Professor Connolly.

It is a topic that most of us have an opinion on and through experience claim at least some degree of expertise.

“Responsive childrearing to one generation can look like chaotic mismanagement to another,” Professor Connolly says.

“What a parent considers spirited behaviour in a child can look suspiciously like audacious defiance to a grandparent. These are changing attitudes played out in families as each generation works out what they think is the right way to bring up their children. Cultural dimensions add a further layer of complexity. On top of all this modern families have to grapple with new and different challenges that would have been unknown to previous generations.”

Parenting responses that are considered by some to be within the parameters of responsible guidance may be rigorously criticised as over-protective at best, or at worst, evidence of creeping political correctness.

“Driving children to school rather than allowing them to walk independently is often cited as an example of parental overprotectiveness,” she says.

“In days gone by children found their own way to school. Now rows of cars, bumper to bumper, disembark waving children while distracted parents struggle to renegotiate busy roads, and then do it all over again a few hours later on the return trip.”

Whether this is considered evidence of responsible guidance or parental over-protectiveness, Professor Connolly argues, comes down to our perceptions of risk.

“Although actual exposure to risk may not have increased over time, in recent years there has certainly been a rise in the awareness of risk,” she says.

“A heightened perception of risk and the greater media profile of crime, especially child abduction, are likely to have influenced the degree of independent mobility that our children are permitted when compared with earlier generations.

“Parental fear and perceptions of risk may be added to by increased access to media, including the internet, and the over-dramatisation of crime in both the media and television, resulting in an increased exercising of control by parents.”

This increased vigilance and control may also constrain other aspects of childhood experience and activity, for example, play after school or independent study or entertainment activities in public spaces.

“Parents have told me that school trips and activities with local sporting clubs have changed to include less ‘risky’ activities,” she says.

“All these changes are likely to influence the experiences of young people and I’m not sure we know enough about the effect it may be having on children’s development”.

Although issues of safety are frequently seen as a key factor in the need to protect children, shifts in the complexities of family life are also key drivers that influence parenting behaviours.

“Research by academics from the University of Lancaster in the UK suggests that modern parents have to fit a far greater number of activities into their days,” Professor Connolly says.

“Multifunctional trips become the norm as parents squeeze multiple tasks into their daily routine.”

Transporting children ends up representing one leg in a complex journey, made ever more complex by choices of schools that may be some distance from home.

“These issues are likely to resonate with parents across Victoria,” Professor Connolly says.

“Transport options have also increased. Unlike previous generations, travelling by car is now an option for most families, allowing us to travel further quicker. While we wouldn’t want to be without this increased flexibility its consequences inevitably alter our pace of life and our concepts of space and time.”

Curiously it also impacts on our children’s mobility and sense of independence.

“Mobility is necessary to the realities of daily life, but also has a social function,” Professor Connolly says.

“For children, independent mobility provides a time to socialise with peers, building a sense of independence, responsibility, confidence and self-esteem, interactions that researchers suggest may not occur when accompanied by an adult.

“Children’s independent mobility also assists cognitive development and the development of motor skills. A decrease in the rates of children’s engagement in physical activity over time has also been linked to health-related issues. Facebook also has a social function. It is perhaps not surprising that similar concerns and dilemmas have arisen in terms of children’s independence and safety on the internet.”

Professor Connolly believes that modern parents carry a heavy weight of responsibility for producing the next generation of good strong adults.

She argues that while some parents will be overprotective as they have for generations, it is important that we pay attention to the ways in which society itself frames parental expectations, behaviours and ultimately good outcomes for children.

“I suspect that anti-PC warriors among us need not worry too much about either parental protectiveness or permissiveness and their potential to create future social disorder and lawlessness,” she says.

“And it is reassuring that recent Australian research has found that 98 per cent of parents consider that they are doing a good job. Parents instil strong values in their children, they have for generations and they will continue to do so.

“It is clear nevertheless that childhood and the relationship between children and the family have undergone significant transformation over the past decades. The pressures upon parents are different now than they used to be. Parents in the 1950s did not need to worry about whether their children’s Facebook pages held undue risks for them.

“Nor were they bombarded with advice on how to raise their children. In the end perhaps the old saying, “It takes a village to raise a child” has some relevance in the modern context.

“It points to our collective responsibility to understand the pressures modern parents face, and recognise the contribution we make to the shaping of parenting in the 21st century.”