The surest way to be a bad parent is to be overprotective. I see to much of this on this board. I don't let my child do this, how do I make sure they can't do this, I don't want them to hear/see this. By rasing your children this way you are insuring that they will make horrible decisions later in life. These are the children that become addicted to drugs, pregnant, and convicts. Children need to learn to think on their own. The ones that don't are the ones who make the biggest mistakes.

I agree that being to strict will cause children to rebel, but in this day and age it is important to be protective, knowledge is power. Knowing where your kids are and what they are doing is vital. Keeping communication open with your kids is essential.

Even i do agree that, over protective kills the relation. but even less protective is not good. what i feel is, we should let the children feel free in their life but in the same time we should talk to them about each and every prospective of life.

I agree that a parent should not be overprotective to a child but only once the child is old enough to understand the things that the parent would like to protect him from.

I am overprotective of my 5-year-old daughter because I would like for her to enjoy her childhood while she's still a child. The grown-up stuff will come, but I will protect her from them while she isn't old enough to handle these things yet.
I don't want for her innocence to fade at a very young age, because I am very much aware that innocence is bliss and as long as she is still a child, then I will do my best and make sure that she enjoys childhood to the fullest.

The overprotecting parents are parents that are "perfect" in their opinions. They did everything "right " for their baby and cannot accept any break from their rules.
In time , kids of such overprotective parents would do all those bad things they were forbidden to do in an excessive manner.
Leave room to child to try anything he wants to do , while keep an eye on him .

I was over protected as a child but I didn't become a convict or anything like that. Instead I became very afraid to do things by myself. I wish I was more independent I know my parents over protected me out of love but I would have been a better person if I didn't have so many fears now.

I know a lot of friends with very overprotective parents, even at our later teens they would not be allowed to stay out past ten and should definitely be home by then. Most of them became rebellious and have ran away more than once, and so have their siblings as well. I think that their parents shouldn't have been that strict with them because in the process it just made their kids want to be away from them.

If you look in the family history of runaway teenagers ,many of them have had overprotective parents.
Overprotecting a child is as wrong as neglecting him /her and not meeting his/her needs.
The best way to raise a child is being equilibrated in everything .

It's true, usually kids who do run away from home have very unreasonable, overprotective parents or guardians, somehow they think that the only way they can truly be themselves is if that their parents aren't around, and usually the only way to achieve this is to leave home.

Parents should learn how to trust their child abilities to do things by themselves and in the same time how to let them go at a certain point .
If all of the colleagues of your child are living by themselves for sure yours would want to do the same thing just to show his friends he is not bound by his mother's skirt anymore .