Is pushy parenting ever a good idea?

Over Saturday night, a 12-year-old boy from north London was named Child Genius 2017 after winning a tense final on the Channel 4 show. However it was the boy's father, rather than the child genius himself, who bagged most of the headlines.

Minesh Doshi has since been branded Britain's pushiest parents, after he was spotted smiling and laughing when his son's opponent missed out on a correct answer. Later, the father was criticised for appearing to grab he prize out of his son's hands so that he could raise it aloft. Minesh's actions forced pushy parenting and its effects into the headlines.

But is pushy parenting always bad? Or can it ever be a force for good?

We asked accredited counsellor and psychotherapist Andrea Lindsay for her expert opinion.

"In my personal opinion it is bad," says Linsdsay. "Children are under enough pressure these days without their parents adding to it. Shouldn’t we be supporting our children to achieve their own dreams and aspirations rather than ours?

Here are some of ways pushy parenting can have negative consequences.

Health

A child’s health can be seriously affected from the pressure of pushy parents resulting in issues such as; poor sleep, panic attacks, anxiety and OCD. Home and family should be a child’s ‘safe zone’, a place where they feel encouraged and nurtured, where they can share their concerns and worries, not have them added to. I once worked with a teenager whose parents had put so much pressure on the achievement of high A level results, the teenager’s anxiety had manifested in a habit of pulling hair out, which resulted in a large bald patch at the back of the teenager’s head.

Vicarious Living

Children are not owned by their parents. Parents just ‘borrow’ their children until they are adults. A parent’s role is to guide and nurture their child into becoming a happy, independent adult. It’s not about fulfilling a missed opportunity of the parent. Who wants their child to be resentful of them when they become an adult because they feel their parents pushed them into something they didn’t really want?

School

Schools have responsibilities beyond the care of the child. They have targets to meet, regulations to adhere to and reputations to maintain. Many children feel the pressure of this from their school. As a parent, the focus should be on the health and wellbeing of the child, supporting them to achieve their best performance. Undue pressure from parents can actually have a negative impact on performance, not positive.

Friendships

It’s sad to say that I have met many adolescents, whose parents have put so much pressure on them to achieve at school, particularly around exams, the child isn’t able (or sometimes allowed) to meet their friends. Friendships are vitally important as they create an opportunity to share experiences, feel supported and have relief from external pressures.

Confidence

Every parent wants their child to be able to achieve their very best, whatever that might be. A parent who criticises less than perfect performance, or constantly pushes for more, runs the risk of their child believing that they are not good enough and cannot achieve enough. The fear of failure, criticism or rejection can become so great that the child ends up suffering from extreme anxiety, which in turn has an adverse affect on their performance.

Let your child achieve their own fullest potential. Support them, encourage them, guide them, nurture them and listen to them. We might think we know best, but sometimes we need to listen to our children instead of listening to ourselves.

Andrea Lindsay is a fully accredited counsellor, clinical hypnotherapist, psychotherapist & development coach