Snowplow parenting is one of the newest terms that children experts have been adapting as of late. However it is pretty common to see this term be used in a wrong way.
The amount of times when people have used the phrase “snowplow parenting” to describe a parenting style that definitely isn’t snowplow parenting is quite huge.
This is because there is a lot of misunderstanding and frankly, quite a lot of controversy surrounding snowplow parenting.
We thought that it would be ideal that we first explain what snowplow parenting actually is, before we begin listing our 3 reasons why it is kind of dangerous.
What is Snowplow Parenting?
Snowplow parenting is a parenting style that is characterized by a sense of overprotectiveness by the parents. The children never have to do anything on their own, and everything is provided for them.
Snowplow parenting, also known as bulldozer parenting, is the type of parenting where instead of teaching your child on how to deal with failure, you fight their battles and they don’t know what failure even is.
Although modern as a phrase, this sort of parenting has been around for a long while. At the same time, it is hard to judge people practicing it.
It is clear that they come from a place of good intentions and clearly snowplow parents don’t want to see their children go through difficulties in their life.
There is talk that usually snowplow parenting happens in couples that had it harsh themselves as children, and now don’t want the same for their children. This however remains unproven and is totally hearsay.
Reasons Why Snowplow Parenting Is Actually Dangerous
There are plenty of issues that overprotection can cause, but today we will only count three of them.
1. Once An Overprotected Child, Always A Child
Having everything served to you in a golden plate, for your entire life, will make you a miserable mess when you grow up.
Children raised in a household that was overprotective usually tend to suffer way much more with basic things that adults have to deal on a daily basis.
Children that had snowplow parents usually have to deal with the harshness of life, for the first time in their adult years. By ‘harshness of life’ we are talking about the most basic of things.
It is not uncommon to see these grown up individual throw tantrums when things don’t go their way the slightest. They usually develop this sense of supremacy.
A fake idea that they can get away with anything, and that they are special is deeply rooted in their head. It is often the case that they find it hard to realize that other people, most of the time, just don’t care.
Essentially this then leads to a personality that is more similar to a 10 years old than a fully functioning adult.
At first this may come off as not that big of a deal. Get a bit deeper though and you see how this can have a huge impact on the psychology of those affected by it.
This is why we believe that snowplow parenting is dangerous. As irony has it, it is dangerous not so much for society as a whole, but dangerous for the children who are grown up with it.
2. Inexsiten Problem-Solving Skills
Have you ever wondered how we learn to deal with problems life throws at us? It is something that we learn as children, and continue to do so until the day we die.
Every new challenge represents a chance to learn something new, to learn a new way of dealing with an issue.
Now imagine if all your learning experiences in your childhood were taken away from you. All of your issues were solved by someone else. How would you know how to deal with your problems?
That is something that a lot of children don’t have to imagine, as it is their reality. As explained by another article on this topic, even though in the short term this can be beneficial for the children, long term it causes severe issues.
Here we also need to take into account simple skills such as: setting appointments, making choices, cooking, getting a job, so on and so forth.
Again there is a faint sense of irony to be found here as the children who were overprotected, end up being hurt by the very thing that set out to overprotect them.
3. Inability To Take Responsibility
There is a lot to be said about this but we also believe that this is the most obvious thing that will hurt children who grow up with snowplow parenting.
The parents essentially never let their children bear any sort of responsibility at all. Going back to learning since your childhood, it is pretty easy to guess how this can damage the children.
We, of course, aren’t saying that you should throw as much responsibility towards your children as humanly possible.
Key here is balance. You need to find the sort of responsibility that a child can bear, and allow them to bear it. Even if they fail, they will learn a very valuable lesson on how responsibilities work.
This inability to take responsibility will hurt them in many different areas of their life. Relationships; intimate, professional or friendly, are much harder to hold and attain if you are unable to take responsibility.
As an endnote we can clearly see that snowplow parenting is very dangerous, and we provided only three reasons we picked at random.
Maybe there even is a greater lesson here. A lesson about how we should take life and embrace it, live through everything and let life polish us into diamonds…
