To overprotect a child is to educate him in such a way that you control him so much that he cannot grow as a person adequately and cannot take autonomy, because you you are behind to solve everything or to speak for him. It’s interesting to know when are you overprotecting your son to try to avoid it and not fall at that end.
The problem is that to know when you overprotect and when you should not know some examples that will help define the concept, and I often read examples that require nuances for my liking or with which I disagree. The last thing I've read about it is a test to know if you are an overprotective parent, excessively permissive or balanced in this regard and I wanted to bring here the questions and answers to comment on. Go for it.
The first question, which I will address today, says:
You are in the pool with your six-year-old son and you hear the other children, including his best friend, make fun of him because trying to save himself from an aguadilla has made a very strange noise.
We go with the answers and then we comment them:
a) You tell him to get out of the water and take him to the locker room to keep them from laughing at him.b) You pretend that you don't realize anything and, if your child complains about what happened, you tell him not to care.
c) When your child comes crying you help him find solutions that make him feel better. For example: talk to the other children and tell them that while they were making fun, he was having a very bad time.
There is a rule about tests that says that when you don't know something, the true one is the longest answer. This premise is not always fulfilled, but in this case it is clear that it is.
The question itself already generates problems
I understand what you want to ask, but I would have asked a different question, related to the appearance of our son: "You hear his friends laughing at him because he has a lot of freckles, or because he is a little fat, or because ..." The same is that directly I am an overprotective father but, Do you choke with six years? Has anyone ever found it funny to be choked? The first problem is that I see it there: they don't choke, man, that if my son has made a strange noise, he was trying to catch air desperately.
The first answer: we are leaving
It is clear that the first answer is not the correct one, because then you are an overprotective father. "As they laugh at you, come on, honey, home." Different is that the child says he wants to leave, but a priori would not be my choice because, if they are his friends, the problem remains Even when you go to the locker room.
The second answer: nothing has happened here
"Come on man, which is not so much, ...", many parents say they take the license to relativize things that happen to others. The children have lived much less experiences than us. They have a personality in training and a self-esteem that depends largely on how we treat them and how others treat them. They need some parents who love them and some friends who accept them, and we go wrong if the friends laugh at them and we do not give importance, especially if they think it is important and feel bad about it.
It is they, the children, who as they grow and live more good and bad situations learn to relativize and learn to easily overcome moments that years ago seemed an insurmountable mountain. But it is they who achieve it and not precisely because we say "go, that is not so much".
That is why this is not an adequate answer either, because we would fall into extreme permissiveness that does not help anyone: the child will continue to feel bad and the children will continue to see normal laughing at others.
The third answer: face the situation
The third is undoubtedly the good answer. We must listen to the child, let him tell us what happened and ask him how he wants to proceed, because the friends are people outside your family who love you and spend time with you because you all enjoy it. Laughing at a friend in public, mocking, is something very painful showing that friendship seems not to be such (That's why I like the example of the image of oneself more, than the noise from a choke).
So the ideal is to talk with the children to explain how they felt. If the child wants to do it himself it may be okay to let him do it. If instead you do not see with strength, I do not see inconvenience (although surely I am called an interventionist) in approaching with my son as a moderator: "guys, my son wants to tell you something in relation to what has happened", and give voice to tell how it felt. Then I would talk about the chokes, how funny they are (the great thing about jokes is the moment when everyone laughs, even the affected one, and not just the executor laughs) and the friendship concept.
Now say you
It is true that in this question, in this example, I have not differed too much from the right thing, because I have "right" with the answer c), in next questions (next entries), you will see that I do not agree so much. In any case, say what answer you would have chosen and how you would have proceeded if you chose the third option. The doubt lies there: I accompany you? Do I only speak? Does he speak only?
