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Cotton Wool Kids

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"Has politically correct, overprotective parenting created a generation of "cotton wool," kids so removed from risk and adversity that they are left incapable of dealing with the social and physical demands of adult life?"

The number of socially and physically incapable children in New Zealand society is rapidly growing. The overprotective and politically correct parents of these children have been influenced by the media, through television coverage of the danger in their surrounding communities, and the parenting advice that the media feel they have the right to distribute. "Cotton Wool Kids," that the media have cleverly named these children as, is defined as an act "to protect someone completely from the dangers, difficulties etc of …show more content…

But that was just the parents protecting the children to an irrational extent. Schools are now getting involved. "One school prohibited pupils from doing backstroke in swimming lessons."
A school in California banned tag because there's a "victim" or "it," which creates a self-esteem issue."

And the overprotective school rules are just as bad in New Zealand. But there's plenty of objections over them. A ban on bullrush in New Zealand schools moved one principal to complain that "boys are missing out on crucial 'rough and tumble' in a 'feminised' school system that des not allow them to let off steam."
In face, even celebrities are getting involved.
Rugby great, Sir Brian Lochore described how his children rode on the back of a motorbike, climbed trees and played in mud while he drank in the pub after a game- all things he said are frowned upon in today's "politically correct" society.

Lochore urged fathers to let their children take risks but it lay down rules and impose consequences if these rules are broken.

The negatives of helicopter parenting, if not already covered, are that parents are undermining their children's confidence in their own abilities to take care of themselves and get things done. They are instilling fear of failure such thats they are denied the chance to learn how to persevere while standing on their own two feet.
The parents are also stunting growth and development. In fact, studies have shown that these children lack some

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