Overprotection - or the "Smothering Parent"

We often talk about child abuse. Various forms of abuse are identified: physical and psychological abuse, isolating the child, and rejecting or depriving them of their needs. At first glance, a caring parent seems suitable for a child’s effective development. However, excessive care is also a form of abuse.

A parent might say to their child: "I’m hungry, let’s eat!"; "I’m cold, put on a sweater!" By doing this, they give the child the following instruction: "Don’t feel for yourself; feel the way I do." A mother takes her child down to the yard and "protects" them from "danger": "Don't run!"; "Don't run so fast!"; "Don't ride the bike, you'll fall off!"; "Don't go onto the field, the ball will hit you!"; "Don't climb the stairs, you'll fall and break something!"; "Don't play with those kids, they might bully you!"; "Sit with me, play here!"; "Don't play in the sand, you'll get dirty." All of this implies the following: "Don't move! Don't breathe! Don't do anything! Because everything you do is so dangerous that it's better if you do nothing at all!" In adulthood, if someone doesn't know what to do and constantly feels a deficit of action, a lack of initiative, and a sense of uselessness, they often carry these messages from childhood. These messages are issued by overprotective parents who are quite suspicious, lack trust in their child, and constantly fear that their child will ruin something if freed from parental care.

At home, a parent might "smother" their child in this way: "I’ll feed you; you don't know how to hold a spoon, you mess up everything around you, so I’ll feed you quickly and cleanly"; "I’ll dress you on time; it takes you too long to button up"; "Eat all your food for my sake, for daddy's sake, for grandma's sake don't leave a single crumb." A parent may say all this without excessive anger, in a calm tone, but their motivation and attitude are abusive in every case depriving the child of their needs and functional tendencies, and suppressing their vital sensorimotor activity. Following this, the child naturally gets irritated, displays anger, throws tantrums, and acts stubborn; however, they are punished for this aggression after all, how can they behave like that when they ought to be polite and obedient?! First and foremost, the overprotective parent convinces themselves, the child, and those around them that their child is a "difficult child," "hard to raise," thereby gaining bonus points in society that a monument should be built for the parent who endured these difficulties. They use harsh labels toward their child: "You filthy, insolent, big-mouthed, rude, stubborn child..." Ultimately, the child suppresses even authentic aggression toward their parents and redirects this accumulated negative energy onto siblings, other children, and objects. But even this is forbidden, and they get punished for this behavior too. In the end, the only thing left for them to do to survive is to turn all their rage inward toward themselves. They develop an inferiority complex, feelings of guilt, helplessness, and despair. Later in life, they remain convinced that they cannot resolve life's issues on their own after all, up until now, others have always done everything for them.

In social life, overprotective parents demand that their children be fully developed and successful in every way. Their academic performance must be ideal; they should be able to play various musical instruments, attend several sports, paint, and dance. So what if the child doesn't want to and cannot accomplish all of this? Instead, the mother will boast everywhere about her "well-rounded and successful" child. When visiting guests, the child must behave perfectly so as not to embarrass the parent. At home, they must eat a lot and not leave a crumb, but while visiting, they should eat little and not ask for extra. If the host offers a piece of cake, the mother might answer for the child: "No, they don't want any!" even if the child's actual wish is the exact opposite.

Classic phrases of an overprotective parent include: "Tell me everything"; "I'm your mother, and you know no one can give you better advice than me"; "You know you can't do it without me." They are quite self-assured, overly confident, often narcissistic, and arrogant. They know everything best and most correctly. They are always "right." Their behavior is ideal, and their self-esteem and self-image are top-notch. They make no mistakes; they are perfect. From this, the child may conclude: "Everything around me is bad, I shouldn't trust anyone, and I can't do anything independently." The vector of aggression turned inward is the exact psychological metastasis that causes all sorts of neurotic symptoms in both childhood and adulthood: fears and phobias, obsessive actions, panic attacks, depression, psychosomatic complaints, communication difficulties, sexual problems, self-esteem issues, addiction, lack of purpose and goals in life, and many others.

Overprotective parents constantly control their child, care for them, and keep them under excessive attention, yet show far less warmth. It is much easier for them to operate in modes of aggression, lecturing, preaching, and control than to offer empathy, understanding, and connection. On the one hand, they care for and protect their children, doing everything with their own hands; on the other hand, they are extremely strict, constantly controlling every step the child takes. Their behavior and attitudes are inconsistent.

Overprotective parents are codependent parents, and their children often become addicted. In adulthood, the child's moods are variable, their thoughts and behavior sway like a cypress, and their vector of aggression shifts rapidly. At one moment, they may be quite aggressive, risky, ready for anything, destructive, and argumentative; in the next moment, however, they suffer from deep self-destruction, guilt, and self-flagellation. They carry a strong attachment and dependency toward the parent living in codependency while constantly rebelling against them (and against the world) becoming a liar and a manipulator. They carry strong introjects from the parent: cognitively and logically, they might not believe their parent's beliefs for instance, that if they disobey their mother they will get the evil eye, contract tetanus, be punished by God, etc. Externally, they might even laugh off such statements, viewing them as irrational and absurd, and brushing off their mother's words. Deep down, however emotionally and often unconsciously they believe these assertions. These introjects have a deep, intense impact on their daily life, causing them suffering that manifests in symptoms and disorders.

According to the Karpman Drama Triangle, the overprotective parent often takes on the role of the Rescuer. From an "I'm OK" position, they view their child as "Not OK" and stay on guard acting as though it is in the child's best interest, while regarding the child as weak, incompetent, and helpless. Even a 30-year-old son remains a helpless child who can only be saved by his mother, while the adult "child" suffers from helpless immaturity.

If a child cuts a finger, scrapes a leg, falls, runs a fever, or coughs, the overprotective mother might panic to "save" her child. The child gets terrified by the mother's emotional reaction to their minor or major mishap. They begin to think something far more terrible happened than they imagined that they might die from a scratch, or that something awful will happen to their mother, which would be their fault. Such situations provoke phobias, high anxiety, panic disorder, and hypochondria in the future. To avoid the mother's panic, the child might hide even significant misfortunes, leading to further complications. Or, conversely, they might use the mother's fear and panic reactions for manipulation running to the mother with every minor problem to show their injury, or even fabricating illness, smearing something on themselves, and screaming as if they are bleeding. Afterward, they might laugh and be entertained by the mother's panic reaction. This is an expression of aggression toward the parent. In this manipulation, the child's underlying message is: "I'm getting back at you for all the bad things you did to me; that's what you get, and you deserve it!" Children display such psychopathic behaviors to "drive the mother crazy," "punish her for everything," out of spite doing whatever she forbade, using profanity, tormenting other children, and breaking objects.

From childhood into adulthood, the overprotective parent often hides negative information from their child regarding events in the family or environment: the illness of a relative or family member, work difficulties, or conflicts with acquaintances or strangers. Due to this lack of information, even an adult child's behavior can often look inappropriate; or, more commonly, the child senses a problem but cannot figure out what it is, feeling confused and lost. When they eventually learn this negative news by accident or through fate (e.g., during a conversation with a relative, or when a family member passes away), the news comes as a shock. They feel they cannot cope and that their psyche cannot handle it. The overprotective parent then tells them: "I didn't tell you before so you wouldn't worry"; "Yes, but now that I've found out, I'm worrying!"; "At least you weren't worrying until now," replies the parent with confidence always ready to "protect" their child, completely unaware that the child already subconsciously knew about this through intuition or a combination of facts. The child was simply kept in conscious uncertainty for a long time, which is the most terrible feeling for a person. Furthermore, negative information needs to be delivered gradually, received, internalized, and sat with grieving has its own phases, and both children and adults need the permission and space to go through it. By hiding the truth, we aren't actually protecting the child; we are exposing them to greater danger, as they never learned from childhood how to process, accept, and handle sudden, shocking information. When the mother advises them again not to worry and that everything will be fine, they will most likely run away from themselves and reality. Because the information was hidden, the event seems far scarier, more terrible, and more insurmountable than it actually is. In their attempt to escape, they turn to alcohol, drugs, self-harm, and destructive behavior starting the infamous cycle of addiction that often torments a person for the rest of their life. It becomes a refuge because they don't know what to do with themselves, lack direction, cannot bear their own thoughts and emotions, and feel incapable of doing anything.

While the overprotective parent "protects" the child by hiding the negative news described above, they will bluntly throw their own illnesses in the child's face (which might even be fabricated); for example: "My blood pressure is high, I'm dying; don't do this unless you want me dead; your father's heart will burst and he'll die," and so on. In a literal sense, they frighten and manipulate the child to effectively control their behavior.

The psychoanalyst Alfred Adler considered overprotection (spoiling a child) to be the greatest curse. Spoiled children fail to develop social feelings and become despots, expecting society to conform to their egocentric desires. Adler considered such individuals to be potentially the most dangerous to society.

It is interesting to consider where parental overprotection comes from. The reason should be sought in their own childhood and experiences. Such a parent might have been a "victim" of overprotection themselves as a child, adopting behavioral patterns suitable for a parent, unable to imagine any other way of parenting. However, therapy often reveals that such parents frequently felt rejected and abandoned by their own parents during childhood. They often come from large families and experienced loneliness and neglect; or their parents showed overprotective, special attitudes toward a sibling for example, a boy meaning the son was prioritized while she was left out of focus. She might have even been required by her parents to show special care and love toward her brother. This reality potentially caused feelings of inferiority, as well as aggression toward her brother and parents, which was discouraged, forbidden, and transformed into an internal conflict. This internal conflict remains unconscious and manifests in the overprotective parent's inconsistency and hypercompensation. Against the backdrop of these past emotions, such a person decides that when they have a child, they will always be by their side, give them constant attention, be the "best mother," and have the "best child" (by the way, quite often, such parents have only one child the one and only). In doing so, they compensate for their past and prove to their own parents what "real parenting" looks like. These "caring" parents certainly keep this promise, but the compensation mechanism often means failing to maintain balance and going overboard. That is how we swing from one pole of rejection and abandonment to the opposite pole overprotection.

P.S. Overprotection is not linked to intelligence or education level. A higher education degree and a high IQ are no guarantee that a parent won't exhibit such behavioral patterns, as this is purely a psychological issue an unconscious intrapersonal conflict rather than a cognitive or intellectual difficulty.

Don't be an overprotective parent! Easy to say, but quite difficult to put into practice. Such parents often do not realize or outright deny their actions, claiming "they sacrificed themselves for their children." With this phrase, they induce guilt in their children and manipulate them, while also earning bonus points from society after all, they are blameless before God and nation! Due to their variable moods, some parents periodically recognize and admit their "fault," but they cannot overcome themselves, or their admission is only temporary. Unfortunately, we don't have much ground for great optimism. Nevertheless, everything can change if such a parent begins working on themselves and completes a course of psychotherapy. The real picture, however, looks more like this: overprotective parents show resistance toward psychotherapy, whereas their children work on themselves more effectively and, through psychotherapy, break free from their psychological suffering.

Tamar Merabishvili - Psychologist, Psychotherapist, MSc, PhD, Director of the Psychophysiological Rehabilitation Center "Arsi"