5 Signs Parents Have Unhealthy Boundaries With Their Teen

The night before my 12-year-old daughter’s first overnight camping trip, I desperately wanted to unzip her suitcase to count how many socks she had packed. My kid showed me the packing list with every item checked off; I just needed to trust her. And if she forgot something (like her raincoat), I knew she’d be resilient enough to handle it. 

“Gradual release” is a phrase educators and psychologists use to describe the countless tiny steps parents take in letting go and fostering young adults’ independence, said Meredith Sjoberg, a psychologist and the head of counselling programs at Lakeside School in Seattle. 

But what happens when parents don’t ease off and let their young adults develop autonomy while still at home? Haim Ginott, a teacher, psychologist and psychotherapist, originated the phrase “helicopter parenting” — a parenting style that refers to overprotective and overly involved parents — in 1969, and psychologists and researchers have studied various forms of overparenting since then. This year, Youth, an international journal, published a research studyexamining the long-term developmental impact of overparenting on 135 college students at a four-year US university. 

“Helicopter parenting during adolescence and emerging adulthood may deprive children of important opportunities to engage in behaviours that would facilitate their successful transition into adulthood,” the authors wrote.

The study also found that overparented children demonstrated perfectionistic traits along with low motivation, mental health challenges and struggles with self-efficacy that followed them into the workplace.

What are some of the red flags that we’re overparenting our teens? I drew on my 14 years of experience as a high school educator and asked some experts how we can do better. 

You constantly remind your teen about deadlines

By the teen years, students should be relying on day planners or programming a Google Calendar with notifications or alarms so they can be self-reliant. If they are unsure about deadlines, they should reach out to teachers or classmates on their own. Parents who constantly remind their teens about deadlines prevent them from experiencing the consequences of what happens when they forget an assignment. However, Sjoberg noted that “not everything is high-stakes,” so parents shouldn’t treat all assignments that way. 

Also, parents need to recognise that their teens may be more capable than they appear. Crystal Sandiford, director of college counselling and college transfer office coordinator at Bard High School Early College Queens in New York City, said that it’s not unusual for teens to struggle with executive function skills such as time management, even if they excel in some areas of school. Sandiford recalled how one parent saw their child struggling so much at home that she simply didn’t believe the teen was capable of meeting deadlines. But when the teachers and counsellors shared more information on the student, it was revealed that they often met deadlines at school and arrived at class or club meetings without any prompting. The parent may have been holding the student back by continuing to remind them about everything. Teens can mature very quickly through their school experiences, and sometimes parents need to catch up with the teen.

You communicate on your child’s behalf with their teachers and other adults

A parent wants the best outcome for their kids, so they may take the reins in teacher and school communication.

“I do get emails that sound like they might be worded by an adult and not a student,” Sandiford said.

It’s a problem when the parent is serving as a mouthpiece for the student because it signals “a lack of confidence in the student’s ability” and that the child isn’t autonomous, Sandiford added.

Instead, Sjoberg suggested that parents ask their sixth and seventh graders to send emails to teachers about late work or to clarify homework.

By eighth and ninth grade, the parent should be offering gentle advice but giving their child much more space. A student who succeeds later in life is responsible for their own learning, and if a parent is overly involved in the years leading up to college or the workforce, they may inhibit that.

You hate to see your child upset when confronted with a problem that would be easy for you to fix, so you solve it immediately

In the 2015 bestseller How to Raise an Adult, Julie Lythcott-Haims, a former dean at Stanford University, described a scenario where an 18-year-old college student arrived on campus unsure of how to handle the delivery of large UPS boxes outside his dormitory. The boxes were too big for him to carry upstairs alone, so he just left them and texted his mom, asking what to do. The mom immediately contacted the resident advisor and arranged for someone to carry the boxes to his room. If the mom had encouraged her son to work out the problem instead, he would have strengthened his network in his new college community. How could a student be so unprepared for adult life and so lacking in communication and problem-solving skills? 

“It’s hard to see [your teen] struggling, and you don’t want to feel like you’ve failed as a parent,” Sjoberg said. 

It might hurt to see your young adult when they are confused or lost, but if you want them to be confident, they need to do things themselves.

“Building agency goes hand in hand with growing a student’s confidence,” Sandiford said.  

You choose your kids’ classes, the topics of their assignments or make major academic decisions for them

When your kindergartener is learning her letters and establishing school routines, it’s appropriate for parents to be hyper-involved in homework assignments. When a 7-year-old says they have to write an essay about family history and have no idea what that means, parents can offer suggestions like, “Why don’t you write about grandpa’s childhood?” By the time a kid is in their teen years, it’s better to give them a vote of confidence in their own ability. 

If your teen has a writing assignment or project that is stumping them, you can ask questions to generate discussion and write down whatever they say. Or you can remind them to brainstorm with their peers, teachers or the tutoring centre at school. Every kid’s learning needs are different, and students with special needs may need support into their teens. But the goal should always be to foster independence.

If a parent has been helping a teen with schoolwork too much, it’s never too late to make a shift in parenting style. Sjoberg recommended saying something to your young adult, like, “I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m going to start helping you figure out what you need to do.”

Self-reflection is also very important, with Sjoberg suggesting that parents spend more time asking young adults questions such as, “What do you think you need right now?”  

You’re overly involved in a kid’s university application process

Deanna Dixon, dean of admission at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, can sympathize with the challenges parents face as they help their high school seniors with college application processes. However, it becomes a problem when parents steal agency from their kids.

“I’ve seen parents try to enter the college interview space either in person or virtually,” Dixon said.

She has also observed parents say things like, “When we write the essay,” noting that such instances “take the ownership away from the student and discourage students from using their own voice in the process.”

So, how do you step back? Dixon advised parents to listen without interruption and remain neutral in their responses.

Students tend to succeed academically — and in other facets of their lives — when they have had a chance to feel responsible for their learning, ideas and choices. As parents, it’s important that we support — and not stifle — that.