You’re 16 and you’re not at your high school’s football game, or a friend’s birthday party, or not even at the mall with friends, no, you’re sitting at home with mom and dad. There is only one answer that you dread to tell your closest friend: I can’t go out because I have overprotective parents.
Overprotective parents are the only thing holding back young adults from experiencing life like it is, and I bet it’s like being suffocated by pillows of too much protectiveness. I sometimes dread (or even get ticked off) being told by my parents that I cannot go out with my friend without my brother tagging along or even worse- with them. It’s like they don’t trust me enough to go to a mall, go into a few stores to buy some clothes for whatever reason it is, and come right out on time for them to pick me up. Are they afraid it’s going to be like the movie Taken, where some foreign guy kidnaps me and sells me? I don’t think so.
Parents seem to freak every time you mention the two words boyfriend or girlfriend, and it’s even worse when these overprotective parents of yours snoop in your love life and want to know every single detail of your boyfriend/girlfriend like it’s a book they can freely open and read.
They can be so into your life, they try to control it: that’s even worse. Overprotective parents think they are protecting you by telling you what to do, wear, study, and even who to hang out with. These parents obviously think they are taking your best interests first, when actually they are taking their best interests and making you do them instead. It’s obnoxious to think that these parents actually know you and take time to listen to your interests. These are opinions that make the world go round.
mrs kennedy • Feb 8, 2011 at 12:49 pm
with kids having sexual activity as early as elementary school now…. it is the parents responsibility to KNOW what their child is doing. you can always “catch up” on life later when you are grown and still alive and no life altering diseases, emotional and psychological trauma to have haunting you the rest of your life.
you’ll thank them later when you can get a job because they made sure you didn’t send inappropriate things over your cell phone that will be on the world wide web and keep you from getting a good job some day…..
instead of looking at it like a loss of privacy or a loss of privileges…. think of this as God given direction and instruction to protect you and train you so that you will have a long, healthy and prosperous life. You will look back on your teen years and be grateful that you didn’t do “all those things” that everyone else is doing and you have a better future because of that over protection.
communicating with your parents makes a big difference as well…. being secretive all the time will not instill the level of trust needed between you and your parents for them to entrust you with adult situations.
God bless you all at WEHS and you are all prayed for daily!
Love, Mrs. K
Mrs. Knight • Jan 28, 2011 at 4:18 pm
I think that you should be very thankful that you have parents that care about you and don’t want to see you turn out like so many teenagers do today.
Normally when the trust is earned it is given.
I say thank you to all the parents that care enough about their kids to be aware of what is going on with them. Job well done!
Mr. Shipp • Jan 27, 2011 at 2:20 pm
My parents we a little on the over-protective side, but one think they did that was open was let us set some rules and consequences once I became a high school student. We talked about the things they thought were important – like getting enough sleep before school and not being unsupervised with a boyfriend or girlfriend for extended period of time and then my brother and sister and I came up with a set of rules that was acceptable to both of us.
If your parents are cool with that yet, they might be interpreting your reluctance to let them control things as a sign that you will rebel once the let you have some freedom. You could maybe win them over to trust you a little more by complaining and fighting against the rules less. When they say no, just say “OK, maybe next time?” and show them that you are willing to accept their authority. Over time I would be surprised if most parents wouldn’t lighten up.