Smotherly love: Too much doting can damage moms, children

Dote, dote and dote some more on your tots, society says -- and, somewhere along the way, prepare them for adulthood.

Yet doing too much of the first thing, though well-intentioned, can prevent the latter, experts say.

"It happens because mothers are trying to do good things for their children, but they're not thinking of the long-term goal, which is the children being able to do things for themselves," says Dr. Sharon Carver, director of The Children's School at Carnegie Mellon University, and a professor in the psychology department.

"It's accomplishing one goal, but at the expense of another goal," she says. "I think the key thing is helping moms to understand and articulate for themselves what their goals are for their children."

When did a mother's job change from raising decent human beings who solve their own problems to creating little geniuses nurtured for athletic and musical prowess -- all while having a hefty sense of entitlement• It's a question that's being pondered by a bassinet full of new books aimed at shaking the shoulders of parents.

Muffy Mead-Ferro wrote her 2004 "Confessions of a Slacker Mom" (De Capo Lifelong, $12.95) as a love letter to her own mother, who died before Mead-Ferro had her two children.

"Throughout my pregnancy and child rearing, I thought about how my mother was as a mother," Ferro says.

She says if you ask parents if their goal is to raise self-sufficient children, their answer is "yes." But she says there is a disconnect in putting that goal into action.

"Are you raising independent, self-sufficient children if you are constantly driving them somewhere, doing everything for them, keeping up with the enrichment activity game?" Ferro says.

Christie Mellor, author and mother of two, says she has been "stewing about it for years."

"I've seen the madness firsthand. I've seen insane parents, and they cross all socioeconomic lines," Mellor says. "I'd had enough, so I started to write everything down."

In Mellor's book, "The Three-Martini Playdate" (Chronicle, $25.90), she writes: "There is no guilt in craving social situations that aren't wholly centered around everyone's children. There is no shame in explaining to your children that they should go find something to do, that grown-ups are having grown-up talk, that they, the little children, need to go somewhere and be little children."

Mead-Ferro says marketing and the media have portrayed mothers as martyrs whose jobs are to serve their children. To illustrate, she describes a commercial for a vehicle with movable back seats.

"In this commercial, a little girl is sitting in the back seat behind her mother, kicking and kicking and kicking her mother's seat," she says. "The commercial shows the mother stopping the car and moving the seat back so the little girl's feet can't reach her seat. She smiles at the girl, pats her on the head, gets back in and keeps driving.

"I guess it wouldn't have been an effective commercial if the mother had explained to the child that you don't kick someone else's chair."

The irony is that by serving children, parents eventually create adults who are incapable of serving themselves, experts say.

"You end up with fearful children who lack self-confidence, are clingy, and lack independence," says Dr. John Carosso, a Greensburg child and adolescent psychologist. "They end up expecting others to take care of them, and get frustrated and irritated when they don't get what they want."

When overly coddled children are young, their dependence can manifest itself by their reluctance to sleep alone, go to school, or even go to the bathroom alone, experts say. When children get older, they may become lazy about doing homework or dealing with problems.

"They end up to not be such good problem-solvers," Carver says. "When something doesn't work or doesn't go their way, they don't know what to do next. They tend not to have very good self-management skills."

Giving a list of guidelines that define coddling for every situation would be impossible; however, a good rule of thumb is to ask whether you are doing things for children that, reasonably, they could do for themselves or help you do, Carver says.

It is fine if a mother does most of the cooking, for instance, but the mother should involve the children in some aspect of the preparation, such as setting the table.

"You have to ask yourself, when you're deciding to do something for someone: how is this affecting their functionality?" Carver says. "Make sure it's not a rescuing behavior; that leads to the need for more rescuing."

Mothers can balance meeting their own and their children's needs by acknowledging their children's needs, but not always dropping everything to meet them right away, says Emie Tittnich, and infant and child mental health specialist wit the University of Pittsburgh's Office of Child Development. For instance, when a mother is talking on the phone and her child wants attention, she can say, "I can't do it now; I'm busy talking." Then, she can follow up later.

"It will be easier for kids to self-manage and stop themselves from always being intrusive," Tittnich says.

Parents need not avoid all doting and serving their children in order to avoid coddling and smother-mothering, experts say. It is fine to help children tie their shoes if they basically know how to do it, for instance, but moms can encourage their children while they give occasional help. They can say, for instance, "I'll tie your shoe now, but I know the next time, you can do it on your own," Tittnich says.

Parents, Tittnich says, should send this message: "I'm here for you when you need me, but I have great confidence that you can do this thing on your own."

-- Staff writer Kellie Gormly contributed to this report