Tip--Overprotecting children can lead to power struggles.

Today's world seems infinitely more threatening to our young ones than it did when we were growing up. Most of us remember walking to the local dime store to buy candy, playing in the woods alone or with a friend, riding our bikes all over the greater neighborhood, and walking to and from school by ourselves. Now, your child is probably only allowed one or two of these privileges, if any. We worry about abduction, molestation, injuries, and more. These are legitimate safety concerns, but when parents' obligation to protect collides with a child's developing push for autonomy, adventure and competence, power struggles often result.

"Allowing children to extend their physical boundaries is often a source of power struggles," writes parent educator Jan Faull in Unplugging Power Struggles: Resolving Emotional Battles with Your Kids. She chronicles in her book several power struggles involving safety: Jeff, age 10, wants to walk 3/4 of a mile to the mini-mart with his friends to buy candy, but his mother won't allow it; Ryan, age 9, wants his bicycle boundaries (set at age 6) expanded, but his mother is fearful about what could happen if he were so far out of her sight; Alice, age 9, refuses to wear her bicycle helmet and her mother won't let her ride her bike without it.

Tools--So what do you do when you need to keep your child safe, but she is pushing for expanding boundaries and more control? Faull offers this piece of advice, "Parents must put more effort into ensuring children have safe adventures available to them." If you absolutely cannot allow your daughter to walk to the store in your neighborhood, maybe you can allow her and a friend to see a movie on their own. Look for reasonable ways your children can explore and test their competency out in the big world.

Of course, many times parents have valid safety concerns: children must wear seat belts and bicycle helmets, curfews must be respected, and other safety rules followed. But sometimes parents' anxiety greatly outstrips the potential threat to the child, or the parent fails to take into consideration the child's new age and capabilities. In the above bicycle boundary power struggle, Ryan's mother decided she was overprotecting her son and that he did indeed deserve the chance to prove his reliability in adhering to newly-expanded boundaries. She compromised; she expanded his boundaries, but required him to always ride with a friend in the outerlying areas. Ryan was thrilled and didn't mind the "with a friend" rule. "Granting a little power and control at each developmental increment usually satisfies the child as well as puts the parent-child relationship back into harmony," writes Faull.

Another way to avoid such safety-related power struggles is to establish reasonable safety rules early on. Look for more information on how to do this in next week's tip.

You’ll find more practical tips you can use right now in Unplugging Power Struggles: Resolving Emotional Battles with Your Kids by Jan Faull, M.Ed.

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