Learning from Choices | The Dark Side Of Parental Devotion: How Camp Let The Sun Shine
- Joan Frimmer
- Jun 22, 2017
- 2 min read
Wendy Mogel ,PhD. sheds light on the downside of too much involvement in the lives of and protection of children; rewards for just "showing up"; and lifting of all responsibility. Without affording children the opportunity to bear age-appropriate responsibility, and to make age-appropriate choices, parents may rob their children of the opportunity to learn from bad choices, and to discover good ones. -
The Dark Side Of Parental Devotion: How Camp Let The Sun Shine Camping Magazine | Wendy Mogel, PhD | January 1, 2006
A friend of mine is a college placement counselor in an academically competitive high school. She is always amazed by how quickly her phone calls to parents get returned. She feels like she has a red phone at the White House. When one dad returned her call she heard an odd noise in the background.
“What’s that noise?” she asked.
The Dad: “Oh, it’s nothing. I can talk. I’m just doing a colonoscopy.”
The counselor: “I don’t feel comfortable continuing the conversation. I’ll call you back later.”
While this example, with its unusual life or death flavor, is extreme, it is typical of tales I hear every day about the bizarre behavior of devoted, intelligent, loving parents. A parent brings a bouquet of roses to a child playing the part of a bush in the winter pageant. A father buys his son a drum set as a reward for eating carrots. A kindergartener not of Asian heritage takes Japanese lessons five days a week after school. His father explains, “I want to make sure my son has an edge in the Pacific Rim economy.” A parent responds to a teacher...
To read the full article click here.