Could parents emphasis on the value of childhood innocence over their childs ever approaching adulthood be a problem for them and their children?

My approach to parenting was one of letting go gradually. Too often I see parents that are overprotective, and either the child rebels, or when they get some independence they are out of control.

I have also seen the opposite, where the parents were too permissive. Those kids were the ones that stole from the grandparents and ‘friends’, and had no limits. My son envied them at first, but as the years went by, he recognized that it wasn’t good for the kids.

My son had to show that he was ready to handle each stage of independence and responsibility. If I gave him some slack, and he messed up, I’d rein him back in. I think this has helped him become fairly mature compared to his peers. I also think it has helped me for the day that is fast approaching… when he leaves the nest (he’s a High School Senior now).

Speaking as a Mom, I can tell you how I view it from my perspective.

A) It’s not something I say often in front of my children. I will sometimes say “Don’t be so anxious to <get a job, drive, blah-blah-blah> because you’ll be doing that soon enough, and for the rest of your life. Enjoy this carefree existence.”

B) It’s about slowly exposing them to more <responsibility, ugliness in the world, sexuality, etc>, rather than them getting this exposure at too early an age for them to understand it, or in a willy-nilly fashion, or all at once.

I don’t think it’s causing stunted development, because we do regularly allow them to grow and mature. They may have an entirely different view.

No. Children today are overscheduled, over exposed to technology, to adult problems, to sexuality.

Those things don’t help them succeed later in life.

What helps is parents who set limits, who model values, who love and support. When you add to that the time to imagine, to create, that gift will be repaid many times over once those children do grow up.

Also, those are the memories and experiences that shape our lives and that are laid down the deepest. It is a critical time for development that shapes the course of a child’s life.

This really is a great question. Any on-going coddling can probably hinder natural development. For example, I remember asking several questions of my parents which weren’t answered directly or very truthfully and it lead to confusion later on. Once I asked how you know if you’re a democrat or republican, and my dad laughed and said “Most people are what their parents are.” I know he just didn’t want to get into it, and he didn’t want me to have to deal with all that so young. It seems that parents often don’t want to believe their babies are ready to learn certain things, but if they come out and ask, they’re ready!

One thing I’ve vowed to do with my son and subsequent children is to answer all questions as truthfully and completely as possible. The earlier he learns difficult subject matter, the less awkward it will be to discuss things later on.

Another thing I remember is my parents selecting certain subject matter to be inappropriate. Like the episode of The Cosby Show where Rudy gets her period. My dad thought it was inappropriate and turned it off. wtf? I’m a girl, dad! It’s the Cosby Show, not The Sopranos! That’s what I think now, but back then I thought all these things they were hiding from me were bad.

That’s not to say there shouldn’t be limits, but I’m going to be 100% honest and not pretend like certain things don’t exist. Of course I won’t be vulgar or push anything on him that he may not be ready for, but if he comes home from school one day in the first grade and asks me what porn is, I’ll tell him straight up.

Knowledge is power!

@Marina: I totally agree that the over stimulation of children with adult issues isn’t healthy.

If I’m occupying my child with enough wholesome activity, I think that overexposure will be somewhat limited and he will be well balanced. Here’s hoping!

(Mom of 2): I think I’m a combination of all the answers above. I spend a lot of time with a lot of kids. They can be, very often, over scheduled, over exposed, over stressed, and consumed with being grown up.

We have always given our kids as much information as they could handle. Over explaining and burdening them with too much information is pointless. My son is 14, we’ve had the basic sex talk, and I know he’s talked about it with his friends. That said, I’m not taking him to “R” movies or letting him on Fluther. That Aristocrat thread made me blush (and grossed me out). I remember seeing a Penthouse magazine at around 13y/o at a friends house. We poured over the pics and read the stories – totally confused. As girls, we were mortified by whole package. We weren’t ready to see/read that. We weren’t ready to take that information and sort through it and determine what was right for us and what was just someone else’s choice. I keep that in mind when our children are exposed to anything new; are they ready and able to sort this out?

We talk to them frankly about how people treat each other and the confusing nature of human beings. We teach them to be fair, compassionate, and giving. We expose them to a myriad of experiences and places and foods – hoping to broaden their horizons. Stifling them, sheltering them from reality, keeping them isolated – nope; but over exposure…nope.
With age comes responsibility, and we hold them to a high standard and try to set good examples. SO far so good – but we know they are works in progress; hey…so are we!

I think, as parents, we hurt when they hurt. Feeling their pain & confusion as they grow may make us long for a simpler time…when they were younger. But nobody wants to change diapers or cut their childrens food forever.

Parents say those things because they are enjoying their children. That’s a good thing.

Whenever I think about this issue, I think about the kids in Rwanda, or in other war-torn areas. As soon as they are aware—age four or so—they have seen violence and death. They’ve seen rape. They’ve had to find ways to survive these things.

The amazing thing is that they do. Now, I’m not urging that anyone should have to face these things, expecially kids. However, what I’m pointing out is that kids do face these things and they survive. Humans are resilient. We may grow up with very damaged psyches, but we do grow up.

I’m a believer in giving kids some information when they ask for it, but some important information when they need it to protect themselves. They need to know about strangers, and about inappropriate touch.

The kids school, however, goes even further. They expose them to all kinds of human situations way before we would have. My daughter was shown that recent movie about slavery when she was ten or eleven. They are reading a book called “Atonement” now, when she is twelve. It has an awful lot of adult scenes. She shows them to us, but she won’t let her nine year old brother hear about them.

I guess I think protection of innocence is a kind of luxury that only the wealthy can afford. They can protect their kids against the real world. For the rest of, we live in the real world, and I think that protection is not always the best thing. I’m not saying we should deliberately expose them to all kinds of things at an early age. It’s up to each parent and their judgement. My judgement is on the side of information; the more, the better. Of course, what would you expect? I deal in information every day.

@bythebay: I hate to break it to you but times have changed. When my son was 14, I read an AIM conversation he had with a female classmate where he asked if there was any truth to the rumor that she could fist herself! And the answer was yes, but she only did it the one time. Then, when he was 15, I found pornographic picture phone photos a 14 year old girl had sent him!

Chances are that he’s seen and heard more than you realize if he spends much time over other people’s houses. I knew that as my son grew older and had more and more outside influences, the less control I’d have. So rather than being restrictive, I chose to log his AIM conversations and went through them periodically, and I’d discuss them with him. I never punished him for what I read, because I knew that would lead to resentment. Instead I explained to him what my concerns were and how he could handle peer-pressure situations and such. This way he saw that I was acting from love, not out of trying to control him.

Now he comes to me to talk about things, and he and his friends speak candidly in front of me. Again, I will voice my opinion and concerns, but not in a judgemental way, because then the conversations stop; and I much prefer to have an open dialog with my son.

Honestly, I hope the neighborhood and school where you are raising your son are a little more sheltered than mine. I live in middle-class central NJ, about 60 miles from Philly and NY. And from what I’ve observed, it’s pretty typical of most communities in the region. From what I know, you are also in the Mid-Atlantic, so I just want you to have your eyes open in case it’s not as “Brady Bunch” as you might wish it to be.
(this warning applies to you, too, @daloon)

@hearkat: Thanks for the warning, but don’t worry – I know we’re not in Mayberry! I do agree their exposure probably far exceeds my wildest dreams or nightmares. A couple of things we have going for us: Our house tends to be the place to hang. As such, I can control the environment a little and also listen… a lot. We talk frankly with all the kids when they bring up touchy topics. Also, the family computer is right here in the family room; plus my kids don’t AIM, Facebbok or otherwise. They do text, but phones are put in the charging station every night by 9pm – and they both know we look over their texts etc.

Their not innocents, but I think they’re age appropriate – or at least as appropriate as you can be in this day & age.

Like lots of people ^up there^ describe, it’s very normal to want to shelter the youngest children from the most adult situations. However, if parents treat childhood innocence as a preferred state instead of as an incubation phase, I agree that the kids may not have time to “ease into the water” and get used to it before being tossed into the deep end at age 18 or so.

Parents these days are very protective (although of course there are exceptions). Back in the day, kids would explore their worlds more. They might get banged up or break an arm, but they learned the limits of their world before they left the nest as prepared adults. Somewhere, though, the list of “dangers out there” got much longer, and it wasn’t broken arms (or even pregnancy) that were the worst things to worry about anymore. So parents responded by keeping their kids ever more sheltered, when a better course of action may have been simply to educate them further about more modern dangers.

It’s problematic when these overprotected kids get out into the real world. Sometimes they behave as if everyone will coddle them just like their parents did. I have a college professor friend who says that as time goes by, each new wave of freshmen is more and more shocked and appalled if they receive an earned bad grade. “But my parents always told me I was wonderful!” It’s important to build kids’ self esteem, because there’s so much in the Real World that takes them down. On the other hand, overprotection and handholding in this area makes them unprepared for when they really don’t measure up.

Similarly, kids whose decisions have always been made by their parents end up taking their parents along on job interviews. These are clearly parents whose overprotection is impacting their ability to get along in the world.

@bythebay: It’s great that your home is the neighborhood hangout. I wanted it that way, too; but raising my son in my mother’s house after I divorced prevented that. It sounds like you’re doing a great job. :-)

@hearkat: I don’t know about great…but the best we can. ;p

I had a friend who wouldn’t let her kids play with my kids after my first husband committed suicide. She said “It would spoil her children’s innocence.” I haven’t read all the posts in this thread yet, but that was the first thing that came to mind when I read the question.

@Judi: Wow. That’s messed up. My son was 7 when his father died. We were divorced, and I had to remove visitation because my ex had become unstable. So at the time he died, my son hadn’t seen him in well over a year.

Because of that, and his age, he went around very matter-of-factly announcing, “My Dad died.” There were some very awkward and shocked reactions to that. It was difficult to explain to him why that wasn’t such a great way to handle it. But there wasn’t anyone who forbade their kids from playing with my son… that’s unbelievable.

@Judi, your kids should not have been treated that way, and you should not have been treated that way, either. You all deserved better. I’m sorry that happened to your family.

used to annoy me when parents would tell me…they’ll be sixteen before you know it…

because actually i am a parent that has been bewildered by every stage my son has gone through up to now…i treasure every minute…it is only a display really of the sadness that they did not obviously treasure every moment…each new stage is welcomed…

Fact from fiction, truth from diction. As @wundayatta in many parts of the world children has seen death almost from the time they know what anything is, it is just part of the fabric of their life; a friend died because of starvation, an uncle died last month of cholera, 4 months before that a cousin died German measles, etc. To walk to the watering hole or the market and see a dead body is no big whoop. I think kids from those regions are mentally tougher, hey almost have to be, and since they have not lived in a safe la la land existence as here in the states they really don’t know any different.

People want to believe kids to be innocent at the same equivalent year as they was in the 40s and 50s, but we know by listening to popular music and movies sex is out there in subtle ways 24/7. I don’t find it shocking at all the account of @hearkat. I am surprised it is not worse. People act all shocked that teens are sexting, watching porn online, boinking like bunnies and more when the adult society with a wink and a nod pretty much tell them it is OK, basically throwing their hands up and saying “we know we can’t stop them, so give them condoms so they can be safe”. If you don’t want a kid to play with guns you don’t hand him the bullets and say “just in case you should run into a gun I don’t want you using self-loaded shells” and think they are not going to go out and find a gun to use those bullets.

Biologically a person is a young adult between the age of 12–14 it adults that try to push back this natural progression. People use to marry as young as 13 right here in the US less than 100 years ago. Back in times past most women were married and had started families by the time they were 22, if you were still unmarried with no children by 28 people would start to wonder what was wrong with you.

Through out history (at least as presented in article in National Geo) a lot of these early communities had a system where these new young adults would be schooled and mentored by the older ones in the tribe or village on how to conduct themselves, be productive to their families and group, etc; the in takes a village to raise a child. Rather than trying to stave off adulthood with artificial age markers just figure away to work with nature, childhood is really just about a decade and change long.