Extreme Parenting: An "Exit Strategy"

There’s the mom who wants to send her 2-year-old to physical therapy for a problem with his legs. You’ll never guess this toddler’s so-called trouble.  
 

He can’t jump as high as his friends. 

 

Welcome to the trenches of what psychologist Dr. Ann Dunnewold calls “extreme parenting.” Her 2007 solution-based parenting book, Even June Cleaver Would Forget the Juice Box: Cut Yourself Some Slack (and Still Raise Great Kids) in the Age of Extreme Parenting is billed as “your exit strategy from the pressure cooker of perfect parenting.”

 

In the book, Dr. Dunnewold shares jaw dropping examples such as a mom calling her child’s college professor during class to protest a grade and coaches parents through the process of replacing an extreme parenting style with a “perfectly good” one.

 

“Every ounce of your being must be poured into an extreme endeavor to succeed. Only when you are lying in the gravel, sweating and spent, will you have done it. Sounds like some moms I know on the playground after a busy playdate,” quips Dr. Dunnewold.

 

She breaks moms into three camps: extreme, perfectly good, and rebels. Take homework. Dr. Dunnewold explains the extreme mom sits with the child and sometimes even does the work. The perfectly good mom offers input. The rebel parent’s perception – “it is your homework, not mine.”

 

In her Dallas practice, Dr. Dunnewold primarily counsels mothers experiencing post partum depression as well as those who are struggling with the pressures of parenting. “The underlying issues are similar in terms of perfection and control,” she says.

 

Dr. Dunnewold believes one of the biggest hurdles in not trying to overprotect, overperfect, and overproduce is the fear of children falling behind.  “Your kids won’t suffer. It’s actually going to be better for the kids. When we look at college students, kids are launching at a much later age than they used to, probably because we are hovering over them, not letting them figure things out on their own more,” says Dr. Dunnewold. “You really don’t want your child living at home at 35.”  

 

She also encourages parents to trade in such thinking traps as believing “mothers are solely responsible for their children’s development” for this mantra: “Many factors affect my child – I don’t have to blame myself.” 

 

“Knowing your thinking traps, the triggers that can flame your anxiety into a wildfire, is a critical factor in letting go of them. Then you can define and implement your own personalized version of a perfectly good mother.”