Parenting is not easy, especially not when the social media is constantly pressuring you to be the perfect and ideal parent. It can lead to isolation. The intense pressure on parents to be the perfect parents is what leads them to become “intensive parents” and give birth to a new style of parenting – “intensive parenting”.
New To The Field
Recently, a TikTok user @unsolicitedsarcasm shared a video where she said, “So, I just learned that my parenting style is called ‘intensive parenting’ and it is the style that probably a lot of parents these days are using.”
This is the kind of parenting where you constantly talk to your kids when they are watching TV so they are not just staring at the screen. Or, another instance could be telling your kids that they should be proud of themselves instead of saying that you are proud of them.
Though it makes parents great humans and is highly beneficial to kids, the TikTok user pointed out, “But it is so intensive that the surgeon general just said that parental stress is at an all-time high. And we are all in danger of having a universal health crisis because of the levels of stress.”
Also Read: Why Virat Kohli And Anushka Sharma Do Not Follow Gender Roles In Parenting
What Is Intensive Parenting?
As per the study published in the Frontiers in Psychology and National Library of Medicine, titled Impact of intensive parenting attitude on children’s social competence via maternal parenting behavior, states that “intensive parenting” is a tendency to invest parents’ time, money, and energy in their child. It also leads to gender bias with the mother being the best person to primarily raise her children.
The US Surgeon General’s findings came in a 35-page report where parental stress was considered as an urgent public health issue. It also drew on data from the American Psychological Association and other sources to build a case that parents are facing more stress than at perhaps any other time in the recent history.
Among 1 in 3 of the parents with children under 18, rater their stress levels at 8 or higher on a 10-point scale.
Signs You Could Be An Intensive Parent
- You always second-guess your parenting decisions
- You spend a lot of time gathering information on parenting and your child’s behaviour and how can you deal with that
- You become frozen in parenting moments
- You focus on your kids exclusively
