Parents determined to protect their children from life's everyday challenges can inadvertently stifle their emotional development, says clinical psychologist and mother-of-two Jacqui Maguire,
"If we remove obstacles, or we swoop into fix, our children never get to feel pain, they don't understand disappointment they don't learn to negotiate failure," she tells Kathryn Ryan.
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Parents cannot love their children "too much" but they can channel their love in a way that hinders their child, Maguire says.
Trying to give a child everything they want is understandable for parents who themselves had too little.
"If a parent was raised without getting their needs met, you can see that that would turn into 'I just want to provide my child with everything they ever want."
So-called helicopter or snowplough parenting, in which people hover around a child trying to protect them from any hardship and remove any obstacles for them, can cut a child off from developing resilience, Maguire says.
"The child doesn't have the opportunity to learn, to believe that they've got skills. The underlying message is if 'I do everything for you I don't believe you can do it so I need to come in and do it'."
So how do parents identify overindulgence in themselves?
Maguire suggests thinking about what you do when your child says they don't know how to do a piece of homework. Do you step in and do it for them or assume a 'coaching' mentality and support them to do it themselves?
"Are you in there providing everything your child needs so they don't have to think or act or have any self-responsibility?"
While it sucks to see a child being excluded at school, it may be more helpful to sit alongside them and commiserate rather than charge in and try to sort it out, Maguire says.
She recommends parents keep in mind the kind of adult person they want to help develop.
"What skillsets do I want my children to have and how can I parent accordingly?"
Tantrums don't work in the grown-up world and people who've been indulged as children are at higher risk for anxiety and depression, Maguire says.
"If you have a child that expects to be the centre of your attention all the time how will that play out for them in their own adult relationships or when they're earning their own wage?"
Poorly managed anxiety is a big contributor to parenting styles that are overly protective or indulgent, Maguire says.
She recommends people keep in mind how well they're taking care of themselves.
"Do you have rest time without being on a device? Do you know how to breathe from your belly, do you have any downtime in your day rather than over-running your nervous system so you're just pumping full of adrenaline and cortisol all day? It's part of our own responsibility to go 'Am I calm?'"
