Some parents overprotective but caring

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SOME PARENTS OVERPROTECTIVE BUT CARING

September 13, 1993

KIDS SPEAK

In a roundtable, kids express their thoughts and feelings about a given topic. It is an expression of opinion, based on the experiences of each participant.

Permissive parents are very easygoing about what their kids do or where they go. Children's Express reporters in New York recently talked about how much freedom their parents give them and how they feel about it.

ELVIN, 12: Parents are always saying they trust you, but they never give you the chance to see if they really can. So they're just saying lies there.

JIHAN, 12: My mother is the nosiest thing on Earth!

MEGAN, 11: I think our parents should just go away and leave us alone for a week and see how we do. I think this would be really cool. If all my friends' parents just went on a trip somewhere and we would try to take care of ourselves, I think they would maybe realize that we're not stupid little kids and that we can take care of ourselves.

CORA, 12: It's not really like that. First of all, your parents aren't going to leave and plus, you have to appreciate what they do. They work for you, they cook for you - all of that stuff that seems so normal. If you were on your own, probably you'd be scared in your own apartment.

HEIDI, 10: It comes out of care, because your parents don't want anything bad to happen to you. But they could care about you and still be more permissive.

I'm not allowed to date. I don't think this is fair. My parents think I'm too young for that and that something bad is going to happen to me.

CORA: I think my parents are just permissive enough. My dad is really easygoing. He lets me go wherever I want whenever I want. All I have to do is call.

SAFIYU, 13: My mom says I'm allowed to date because she trusts me.

ELVIN: Me and my sister, we got a life, right? My brother doesn't have a life so he's always in the house, and if we get invited to parties, we have to take him. My parents decide for us. And they be using him as a spy 'cause he's always the tattle-tale one.

MEGAN: My parents have this thing with grounding. I don't know who invented it, but I don't like it. It's so unfair. They don't ground me like "You're grounded for three weeks," they ground me for stuff like privileges, like if I want to go to a party, "You can't go to the party." . . . I'm supposed to be at a party now!

KIMBERLIE, 13: My parents don't really take away the phone or anything, but they'll put rules on it. The first one was that I couldn't have any calls because my grades were such and such. So they said, "You can't have any calls before 7 o'clock."

Then they took that one away and said, "All your calls have to be five minutes." I'd just say, "Call me back in five minutes." And so they took that away and they said no boys could call. Then they said nobody calls. So now I don't get any phone calls.

HEIDI: My parents think that parents always have to be role models for their kids. They want to make themselves look real good. They'll say, "In the summer I used to read and read and read. Never leave a book. And the only time I got up was to use the bathroom or to get some water."

But when you talk to their mothers, your grandmothers or grandfathers, they be like, "My son? You're crazy. He used to be always playing outside and having all his fun in the summer."

I be like, "Daddy, you know what your mother says?" And he be like, "Oh, no. She's old. She doesn't remember anything."

ELVIN: I never took a drug. And I'm not into alcohol, so nothing to worry about there. My parents say that there's no hope in dope.

SAFIYU: If they were too permissive and let me go anywhere, I would think that they didn't care, and I would be really upset. Because my mother, when she was growing up, her family didn't care about her and they didn't give her food. They didn't give her anything, and she was starving. And they didn't give her clothes or anything. She had to get it herself.

KATHERINE, 11: I want my parents to care about me. Sometimes it's nice to think your parents will let you do whatever you want, but when they do, then you feel like they don't care about you, that they just want to get rid of you.

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