[The World on the Page] Parental 'Overprotection' That Ruins Both Children and Schools

Children Mature by Enduring Failure, Insult, and Pain
Overprotected Children Struggle to Become Adults
The Pursuit of Perfect Safety Harms Both Children and Schools

Children are weak and powerless beings. Whether at home, at school, or on the streets, they deserve to be protected from verbal and physical abuse. However, consideration and overprotection are different. Consideration leads children to become stronger by enduring hardships, while overprotection makes them increasingly powerless day by day.

Overprotection is a form of ‘gaslighting.’ It is the act of training children to be beings who cannot leave their parents’ hands or disobey their words. Such children often fail to become adults easily even as they grow older. Alison Gopnik, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said, "If you build a shield to protect children from every possible danger, they may become frightened even in completely safe situations, and furthermore, trapped inside, they may never learn the adult skills they will eventually need to make their own."

However, today’s Korean education feels trapped by parents’ overprotection. Parents often treat children like fragile glass bottles and imagine classrooms as dark back alleys rife with potential crimes. They harbor delusions that teachers, who lack the skills to teach properly, might suddenly turn into mafias and inflict verbal or physical harm on their children.

When teachers are doubted and schools are distrusted, education is shaken at its core. Excessively detailed regulations that control speech and behavior are introduced one after another, stripping teachers of their self-esteem, while lawsuits, accusations, surveillance, and punishment become routine, undermining school autonomy. Moreover, the uniquely Korean culture of parental power abuse and school bureaucracy fuels teachers’ unhappiness. When a child is hurt by a minor incident at school, frequent verbal abuse and assault from parents, along with the school authorities’ attitude of shifting all responsibility onto teachers, plunge many teachers into depression. The recent death of a teacher at Seoi Elementary School clearly illustrates this.

The notion that schools are dangerous is merely a kind of anxiety born from the privileged delusion that ‘my child has royal genes.’ Schools are not crime-ridden zones infected with violence. Of course, since many people must live together, there can be difficult and painful moments, and it is unavoidable to suffer minor and major wounds. But schools are safer spaces where children can feel comfortable than anywhere else in society. They are warm environments where children build lifelong friendships with peers, and ultimate gyms where, with teachers’ help, they develop the mental and physical capacities needed to thrive in the harsh world later. That is, as long as there is no privileged delusion that my child must be treated more tenderly, protected more specially, and receive better praise (grades) than others.

In Bad Education (The Forest of Psyche), world-renowned psychologist Jonathan Haidt and education law expert Greg Lukianoff criticize the attitude of treating children as fragile and protecting them excessively, that is, parents’ coddling, which undermines the education system and prevents children from growing into wise, strong, and independent adults. The social compulsion born from parents’ coddling is called ‘safetyism.’

Safetyism refers to an attitude of unconditional worship of safety. When obsessed with safetyism, one compulsively tries to eliminate every threat approaching children. Even if there are other important issues to consider from realistic or moral perspectives, no rational compromise is sought. To live together, one must acknowledge that there are things more important than one’s feelings or emotions. Instead of shouting at and intimidating teachers to relieve one’s compulsive anxiety, one should first rationally examine what is actually possible in the school environment and what benefits all children. When momentary anger precedes thoughtful reason, every community is destroyed.

Above all, children are not weak beings at all. Just like us, children endure countless failures, insults, and pains and ultimately mature themselves. Appropriate physical and mental challenges and the resulting stress do not ruin children; rather, they become the foundation that makes children stronger. Nietzsche said, "What does not kill me makes me stronger." Of course, there is no need to deliberately erase great pain that could kill, but if children react sensitively to minor stressful situations, they become immature.

Moreover, humans cannot walk only on flower paths. It is impossible to avoid all pain and failure. We try to remove all risks by looking at children’s present and future, but no one can prevent a child from suddenly falling into a crisis in an entirely unexpected situation. Nassim Taleb, a professor at New York University, calls this a ‘Black Swan.’ In complex systems, no matter how hard you try to manage and keep only white swans, a black swan can suddenly appear one day. Therefore, one should not strive to avoid all risks. Rather, only those who endure challenges, overcome wounds, learn, adapt, and grow can gain the resilience to remain unbroken even in severe crises.

Parental overprotection is foolish. When parents step in to remove even the minor troubles that upset children, children lose the opportunity to become resilient and grow into beings who easily break under the smallest trials. "Young people raised under safetyism are deprived of the experiences necessary to develop a strong heart, and as a result, they become weaker and more anxious beings." They tend to see themselves as victims at every turn, blame others endlessly, or grow up believing they are irreproachable beings who cannot do wrong no matter what they do.

The hygienic attitude of trying to eliminate all the inevitable sadness and pain children must experience produces tragic social consequences. According to the authors, parents’ anxiety?that schools are unsafe and teachers cannot be trusted?leads to compulsive overprotection of children, which has sharply increased rates of frustration, depression, anxiety, and suicide among today’s adolescents. The authors say, "They desperately wanted to raise their children better than anyone else, but in fact, they did not give their children the freedom to develop resilience." The road to hell is always paved with good intentions. No matter how kind the intention, when combined with bad ideas, it only leads to disastrous results.

Jang Eun-su, Publishing Culture Critic