I’m a therapist who loves writing and explaining concepts in ways you can grasp, hoping to inspire the desire to pursue the art of growing because you are important and all the people you love are too.
Hi Refreshing readers! Welcome to this article about coddling and as always, I’d love to hear your reflections!
First off….
My intent is not to place blame on parents, but to explain and directly shine a light on this issue for the purposes of insight, reflection and learning from this particular angle. To show coddling isn’t doing anybody any good on an individual, familial or societal level.
I’ve heard many young adults these days complain about feeling unprepared for adult living.
Some young adults feel robbed of reality and overprotected. They feel they’ve been in a fantasyland about life, protected from the idea that life is hard, rescued from hard situations, decisions being made for them. Like a babe being birthed from the safety of a womb, the overwhelm of entering the loud, unfamiliar new world of adulthood is quite shocking to them.
There’s been no adjustment period or gradual transition, no in-between steps. It’s been overdependence….. to abrupt independence of adulthood.
They aren’t prepared emotionally for this new realization that life is hard in adulthood, and so they end up feeling like a little kid in a great big wide adult world with no tools to cope.
So they don’t.
They don’t know how.
And get this, some young adults are actually really upset about all of this coddling!
The interesting part is some young adults have voiced actually wanting the chance to succeed, take risks and get out on their own. But some parents have discouraged them and kept them close. Some parents fear their kids failing, making mistakes, going through hard times—they fear how their kid will react. Will they be able to bounce back and get up again?
Young adults don’t feel trusted to try, fail, and try again.
If young adults have the support they need—the push of confidence to grow and step up to the challenge in front of them— “You can do this! I know it’s hard, but you are capable of getting back up!”, people might be surprised at what they could handle.
They also want the truth. Because less confusion helps them understand reality.
I’ve heard this pleading in therapy sessions, “Please don’t tell me what I want to hear. Be hard on me, please. Tell me the truth.” This pleading to be taken seriously is the plea for honesty and challenge.
The coddling has done the opposite of what parents hoped.
Good-intentioned parents hoping to protect their children from all the hard things they went through, have created scared and frustrated youngsters yearning to grow up but not knowing how.
It has backfired.
It turns out coddling isn’t what kids need.
So what is the difference between coddling and nurturing?
First of all, when I say coddling is harmful, I’m not saying this means youngsters should be treated harshly, thrown to the wolves (at least not a whole pack of them), or neglected to fend for themselves.
By the way, coddling and neglecting are two sides of the same coin. Both can cause stuntedness in development (trauma) depending on the extent to which these are done.
I’m not encouraging all or nothing thinking here.
Let me explain a bit more.
Coddling is overindulgence and overprotection. It damages autonomy and therefore resilience. In a way, it’s indulging fantasy thinking about the ease of life and what life should be like for people.
Also, coddling can take on a smothering and stifling dynamic –the lack of boundaries impacting the youngster’s sense of being a separate person from their parents.
Even being overprotective of a toddler can inhibit their confidence and desire to take risks! They pick up on the fear of the parent and the anxiety can be absorbed by them. They don’t get to practice trying, failing and trying again. Or trying and succeeding.
Enabling is a form of coddling— usually driven by avoiding conflict, tension, or avoiding difficult steps or conversations that need to happen to solve problems to push through to a new level of growth. Enabling makes it easier for someone to stay stuck and stagnant in an unhealthy situation.
A huge motivator to remember about resisting the urge to coddle: when coddling is the main form of parenting a youngster, they are more likely to be traumatized with hardships in life, because they lack the resources to deal with the hardship. The definition of trauma is when a “sudden and forceful event overwhelms a person’s ability to respond to it.”
All this to point out, coddling has many consequences and nurturing is what people actually need!
Here’s the difference:
Nurturing is encouragement and care for the development of the child through warm affection (not neglectful) and boundaries (not indulgent). When a child is well-nurtured, their development proceeds through the appropriate stages that can eventually lead to the likelihood of a secure adult. This doesn’t mean there aren’t times of plateaus and stagnation, but it means overall there’s a working toward good balance in development of flourishing. Nurturing is the healthy balance between helping and also encouraging autonomy, all done in a supportive tone. It’s the skill and dance of attentiveness with what is REALLY needed to help a person move forward. Which might be different from what the child thinks they initially need or want.
It’s not always easy to see where the line is between nurturing and coddling—when to step back, when to push, when to stand by and allow them to hit bottom in order to learn to bounce back, and when to just cheer them on. But if you notice a youngster seems to always be in the same cycle, you may want to consider what you can do differently too. Sometimes the entire dynamic needs to shift in order for a change to happen.
A helpful mindset is being in reality with them in facing life events head on, versus fantasy thinking and avoiding hard things. Facing reality with them helps develop resiliency over time and although difficult, can be a great way to build the strength to overcome hard things.
And life is hard, so we need to be able to do hard things!
In fact, the cool thing is life can feel less hard if we have inner resiliency. But this must be developed over time, in small steps.
When I notice someone is stuck, I’ll consider with them what might be needed to nudge forward:
What is missing that they need?
Do they need more boundaries or freedom?
Do they need more structure?
What about more risk-taking?
What about empathy and validation?
What do they say they need?
What do I see they need?
Such a fascinating process! We all need a mix of both freedom and structure, protection and risk, a combination of emotional warmth and push at the same time. This helps us feel supported but willing to face our fears instead of avoiding.
When youngsters are given the resources nurtured over time, life doesn’t feel as overwhelming and it’s easier to step into the next step of adulthood, whatever that may be.
I’d love to hear any reflections you have, readers! Also, “like” or “share” if you feel inclined to do so.
Hope you are enjoying the changing of seasons,
Heather
Heather Mather is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) in private practice in Newport Beach, CA, seeing clients in-person and telehealth all over California. Contact info: 303-250-1538, 1151 Dove St, Suite 100, Newport Beach, CA, 92660.
***Google images used***
Love you thoughts some of this would have been helpful as we were raising our kids - I can see how easy it is to over function on behalf of my kids and others. Thinking about how to engage with this and apply it moving forward