Overprotection=Misplaced Anger

At the community pool last Sunday during my 2.4 miles swim, I noticed a father hovering a 2-year old child while swimming in the pool. The child had a floater on her arms and was in a floatation device.  The scene lasted for more than an hour because when I was done at the end of my workout, the father and child were still there.  Swimming long distance allows me to contemplate a lot in the pool.  I have to remember stuff, or imagine something like recalling my childhood or remembering how I did my parenting when my kids were still very young.  Sometimes I flipped back in time to all my vacation days a few years back just to get by on the boredom of long distance swimming – it’s a coping skill for me and that is why I love to go back at the pool every time I have the opportunity.  With the father and child scene, my time was shifted back 18-years ago when my son was still one year old.  I remember vividly at the same pool where I was swimming that on the first day of the pool with my son, I throw him in the pool without hesitation and then jumped with him.  When I did that, I went underwater and observed him of how he would react.  Will he drown? Will he panic?  Will he be scared?   I discovered something interesting that day, my son was smiling underwater with his mouth wide open and was enjoying the underwater swim because he could not swim yet.  I learned a lesson that day that the child has natural instincts that maybe coming from being in the mother’s womb.  From that time, my son was never afraid of the waters anymore and it made us scared because he thought that he can survive in the water by himself.  Later that week, we bought him a floatation device so that he can be safe and wander the pool in any way he wants to.  My son never turned out to be a swimmer.  But the lessons he had as a child was not about swimming but about freedom from over protection.  If we let our child grow with somewhat guided freedom, inhibition and maladaptive behaviors will not be a part of their lives.  Overprotective parents can nurture many forms of personality disorders and when kept unchecked can escalate to more difficulties in life –example: misplaced anger.

Please read Chapter 9 and then 15.

http://www.psychologicalselfhelp.org/