Nurturant Parenting vs Overparenting: An Insight View of Different Parenting Models

It’s true that nobody in this world cares for you more than your parents, obviously, exceptions are there but in general, this is the fact you get to see around yourself. No matter what is the age of the son/ daughter, parents always see them as their most precious asset.

If you look around, you will find there are different types of parents who care for their child in different ways. You might also get to know families, where siblings have witnessed different upbringing from the same parent.

Why does this happen? What is the clash between nurturant and overparenting styles? What are the effects of different parenting methods? Let’s get this sorted one by one.

What is Nurturant Parenting?

In your life, you must have had friends or known someone, who was always present in outings and never missed any fun. But, that friend also had his/ her limits and was grounded in nature. This is what nurturant parenting ensures.

Families who follow nurturant parenting methods, draw a fine line between freedom and discipline. Parents practising this method give their child enough freedom to explore the surrounding but also thrusts disciplinary means in them.

Families following this method, protect their kids during their journey of exploration and also guide them to keep themselves protected from various menaces.

Ideology of Nurturant Parenting

• Parents keep themselves available for their kid whenever they may encounter any problem or feel the need for protection.
• The trust between the child and the parent is apparent.
• There is no feeling of negligence felt by the kid as they get enough love and guidance from their parents. There is also a strong bond of understanding.
• Families believing in this method never underestimate or neglect the judgments, beliefs, feelings and views of the kid. The child always gets support from his/ her family while they get prepared for achieving their goals.
• Parents ensure that all they spend enough time with their kid. The child is always encouraged and supported to take participation in different activities and parents also take an equal interest in those activities.

Some More Traits of Nurturant Parenting

• In this method, children always get enough encouragement from their parents to go after their goals, make friends, socialize. Kids raised in this pattern get motivated to participate in outdoor activities and follow a healthy lifestyle.
• Even though kids get enough freedom in this method they also get lessons of discipline and learn to draw limits. Parents set behavioural guidelines and also engage the kid in household chores which are suitable as per their age. Kids from a very young age are made to understand the importance of rules and everything is explained to them in very open circumstances.
• Kids are encouraged to be more active in real-time than digital activities.

What is Overparenting?

Overparenting is another type of parenting which is practised by many across the globe. In this type of parenting, the child’s life gets entirely managed by the family. People believing in this method of raising kids, try to safeguard the children from any kind of discomfort and even hold them back from facing the consequences of their own actions.

Parents following this method can not endure watching their child suffer from even a hint of trouble, be that physical or emotional. Overparenting parents involve themselves in every aspect of their kid’s life and strive to resolve all the problems of the kid’s life. This act of the parents eventually oppresses the child’s potentiality to solve his/ her own problems.

Characteristics of Overparenting

• Families believing in this method of raising their kids, often try to get involved and solve all the problem’s in the kid’s life, even if that means doing his/ her science projects for school.
• Kids being raised up in this style have their parents do all the things for them including brushing their teeth, arranging foods on the plate and even feeding.
• Children get spared from taking responsibilities.
• Families believe that the kid won’t be able to perform certain things no matter how age-appropriate are those and end up doing everything for them.
• There is an urge to control how other people treat your kid.

Some More Traits of Overparenting

• People following overparenting style tend to worry differently about their kids than other parents. These parents are generally always concerned about their child’s ability to perform simple activities where other parents seem to not worry about these at all. Example – a 14-year-old playing football.
• The father or mother, can not tolerate watching their kid fail. Whenever the kid encounters any problem, his/ her parents are always there to rescue her. Obviously, no parents want their kids to get hurt or get into trouble but parents practising overparenting can not even tolerate witnessing their 5-year-old struggling to identify colours.

Nurturant Parenting vs Overparenting

Now that you have got an idea about what is nurturant and overparenting, let’s take a dig into the advantages and disadvantages of these parenting styles.

Advantages of Nurturant Parenting

• Kids become self-dependent and learn to fulfil their own needs. They become sufficient to take care of themselves.
• Kids raised up under this method comes into introduction with the real world from an early age thus making them more confident. They have been exposed to situations out of their comfortable homes and that helps in the betterment of their insight towards life.
• Children become capable of solving their own problems and analyse different options in life.
• This type of upbringing helps the kid to stay calm even in stressful situations because they have been exposed to the outside world from an early stage and they know how to handle difficult situations.
• Kids become responsible enough to face the consequences of their action and they also learn from their mistakes.

Disadvantages of Nurturant Parenting

• A little negligence in the guidance can land the child in bad company.
• By getting too much freedom and less supervision, kids can end up in attempting activities which are not appropriate for their age.
• While parents might think that they are giving space to the children, the kids might feel lonely and can even get addicted to the wrong things.
• Less involvement of the parents in the child’s life can make the kid feel unwanted and less valued.
• If parents fail to follow the nurturant parenting style, the kid might even suffer from psychological problems.

Advantages of Overparenting

Now, this is a million-dollar question. Does overparenting really have any advantage or is it just full of disadvantages? Well, even though overparenting has received the tag of being a bad method of raising children but many still follow this method.

Overparenting actually does more harm to the kid’s personality and future than it helps to get better. But if overparenting has any advantage, then that is completely for the parents. As in this method, parents get heavily involved in the lives of their children and witness their complete upbringing. This gives them immense happiness.

Disadvantage of Overparenting

• Low self-confidence and self-esteem in the child.
• The kid may doubt his/ her own abilities.
• Anxiety and depression are some of the things the kid might encounter.
• Some may even develop a belief that as their parents, all the other people they meet in life will be offering them privileges.
• Some even become aggressive as they grow up because the feeling of being controlled by the parents all the time might not get accepted.
• Kids may even develop no or less coping skills as they have never been exposed to any difficulties in life.
• Lack of realistic view of the world.

Also Read : Teaching Kids about Communication: How to Improve Communication Skills In a child?

Other Parenting Methods

Other than nurturant parenting and overparenting, there are some other types of parenting styles as well. Let’s get a brief idea about those.

• Authoritarian parenting
• Authoritative parenting
• Permissive parenting
• Uninvolved parenting

Authoritarian Parenting

• Parents following the authoritarian parenting method believe that a child has to follow the rule no matter what happens.
• They are dominating and don’t believe that kids can also have views and thoughts.
• There is rather a punishment than discipline.

Effect on Child:

• Kids might become aggressive.
• Disturbed parent-child relationship.
• To avoid punishment, children may start telling lies.

Authoritative Parenting

• Parents are concerned about developing and maintaining a healthy relationship with the kid.
• There are rules and also explanations of those.
• Kid’s feelings come into consideration when implementing rules and consequences.
• There are positive discipline strategies set by parents.

Effect on Child:

• Mentally happy kid.
• Successful in life.
• Capable and good enough at making decisions.

Permissive Parenting

• Parents set rules but there is no enforcement.
• Consequences are not frequently given.
• Parents do not get involved too much into the kid’s life but they are obviously there when there’s any serious problem.
• Kids get forgiven.
• In this method, kids are encouraged to have a conversation with parents and discuss their problems but they are not forced.

Effect on Child:

• Kids later in life may be found ignoring rules and regulations.
• Behavioural problems can be detected.
• As this parenting method doesn’t restrict the kid much, kids feed more on junk food. This enhances the risk of health issues like obesity.

Uninvolved Parenting

• Parents rarely or never show any involvement in the kid’s life.
• Kids lack parental attention, guidance and nurturing.
• Physical, emotional and basic needs of kids get neglected.

Effect on Child:

• Children raised under this parenting method might face self-esteem issues.
• Kids may perform poorly in academics.
• Unhappy mind and behavioural problems can also be seen.

Conclusion

Everyone is not equal so are not parents. That is why there are so many parental styles. Some parents find comfort in exposing their child to real-life problems, while others feel that they should constantly keep a check on what’s going on in the kid’s life and must have control over it. And then there are people who let the kids be as they are and hardly show any involvement in the children’s lives.

No matter what method parents are following, the main concern should be to develop and share a healthy relationship with their children because every man’s personality majorly depends on his/ her upbringing.

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