Comment by jtrn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jtrn | Hacker News Reader

Just my personal experience working as a psychologist with kids: The kids who were overly protected had about the same amount of problems as the kids from seriously neglected homes. So when I want to make my case for NOT overprotecting kids, I say: "If you really want to damage your kid: Protect them from all adversity."

I do think that the whole "suicide is increasing" trope is seldom put in context. Of course, it's a serious issue. But the number is relatively stubbornly just hanging around 5-15 per 100k for all nations for hundreds of years. So when people say stuff like "suicide among teenagers is skyrocketing," I roll my eyes, because I know they think THEY know the cause of the supposed epidemic of suicide. The absolute risk of suicide has been almost strangely stable across culture and time (as a population rate).

By contrast, it is so good to see that death by drowning and car accidents have plummeted over the last 50 years.

Here is a link to some interesting graphs on cause-of-death: https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMsr1804754

On a side now, I love the nerd tangent in this thread about actual helicopters :P

I had to read this twice, because it seemed like you said that overprotective, and neglective parents have the same outcomes, but I think you are mostly trying to say that parents which are neither overprotective nor neglective have a lower rate of issues right?

That's my reading (in case GP doesn't respond).

>overprotective, and neglective parents have the same outcomes

I think that is what they were saying; I've seen the stat elsewhere, that extremely spoiling children produces just as bad outcomes on average as neglecting them.

OP said same amount of problems not the same problems or same outcome. As in, sheltered kids will fail as much, becoming alcoholics, criminals, depressed and frustrated with not accomplishing things their parents made easier for them.

I can try to elaborate, but my claims (and they are just claims), should be interpreted just as narrowly as you would when reading code, because changing even one little thing breaks the message:

In the context of: "The kids I meet as a clinical psychologist": The ratio of kids "damaged" by neglect and impoverished homes, versus the kids that were struggling with anxiety or apathy caused by overprotection, was about 50-50. This resulted in me spending as much time strengthening the social network around neglected kids, as I spent trying to get parents to stop overprotecting kids.

That doesn't mean that overprotection is as bad as neglect. There are SO many variables in play. For instance: Overprotective parents might also be over-represented in the mental health services, because they are much faster to ask for referrals. For instance, if 10% of the population is neglected, and 1% is clinicaly-overprotected, but the overprotecting parents get referred at 10x the rate, they will make up about the same amount of cases in a clinic.

Based on my anecdotal experience, here are my hypotheses:

Given a normal distribution of "overprotection," the top 1% will be at serious risk of mental health problems.

Overprotection is easier to fix, as kids from impoverished homes are statistically at both an economic and cognitive disadvantage. As such, overprotection i a more unnecessary source suffering.

All things being equal, I think neglect is a stronger risk factor than overprotection

You did mention this, but I think it deserves more weight, that kids from disadvantaged groups would be less likely (by at least an order of magnitude from my own perception) so it would skew your numbers by at least a factor of 10.

Overprotective parents are much more likely to reach for a doctor whereas neglected kids are unlikely to see one until referred by the cops or school or such.

Thank you for a more nuanced reply - I did get half way through something like "but surely abuse is worse than over protection" but it did not seem to add much to the discussion - thank you for actually adding to the discussion

> By contrast, it is so good to see that death by drowning and car accidents have plummeted over the last 50 years.

Yes, less deaths are obviously a positive. However, could this be because of helicopter'ing adults? From kids not being allowed to be kids and put themselves in adverse places and face tough decisions?

Mom won't let Johnny drive, she drives instead.

Dad won't let Jane go out with friends on a camping trip.

Those will save lives, yes? Adversity by definition means risk. Is it possible that eventally these kids will grow up and in say 20 years become adult suicides or maybe don't go that far but are joy-less dysfunctional (?) adults? And eventually they pass that "DNA" along to their kids?

Helicopter parenting has longer term implications that we have yet to face. We can't have adversity without risk.

I don't think that the implication is that "helicopter parenting" is doing it. The article posted by GP says this (and provides references):

"This has been attributed to the widespread adoption of seat belts and appropriate child safety seats, the production of cars with improved safety standards, better constructed roads, graduated driver-licensing programs, and a focus on reducing teen drinking and driving"

I'm commenting on the comment up one level from mine.

They said they are for adversity but then said X and Y deaths are down. BuBut might that be from a lack of adversity?

(Hint: I bet it is. It makes perfect sense.)

We're talking about the same comment. "GP" means grandparent, in this case jtrn. I'm referring to the link in their own post [1]

The text in the linked article attributes the reason for having less deaths to safety standards, etc. In fact the same link mentions that people have been traveling more by car despite the reduction, not less.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38048241

fwiw, come to think of it, deaths is a false god metric. That is, accidents can increase but medical procedures can have improved to prevent deaths.

Nonetheless, in helicopter households moms and dads are certainly driving more.

p.s. We've both read plenty of studies based on bad data, bad procedures, bad analysis, etc. The topic comes up weekly on HN. One study does not a law make, nor is it grounds to dismiss the obvious.

I don't think dismissing studies and statistics prima facie just because they don't match your pet theory is a good way to go.

I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. Some reduction is probably because of changes in protective styles of parents. But I think that the reduction of deaths due to car accidents is primarily driven by safety standards and better cars/roads. While the reduction in drowning is probably closer linked to parenting style. But also this is probably related to regulation.

I think what's most annoying about overprotection is not when people demand that the child should use a flotation vest while on a boat, but when they demand that other kids shouldn't be allowed to bring peanuts to school, because their kids have anxiety about nuts after a minor allergic reaction earlier in life (actual case I had).

> But I think that the reduction of deaths due to car accidents is primarily driven by safety standards and better cars/roads.

Do we see that across the board? My impression is accidents are up due to distractions (i.e., phones). Youth are notorious heavy users of their devices. If their deaths are down it's not from safer roads.

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