Sheltering your kid

Okay, this is more of a hypothetical question than a philosophical one, but I've been wondering what people would think about this. So parents who are overprotective of their kids are that way because they don't want their kid getting into bad stuff like drugs and alcohol and such, right? But what is the effect of sheltering? Does it really teach kids how to be responsible, or is it just delaying their irresponsible behavior? Would an adult who had extremely protective parents be compelled to party excessively because they never had the opportunity, or would they follow their parents' advice and just stay away from that stuff? A third possibility could be that they might party some, but not so much that it would be detrimental to their success. From what I've observed, it would seem like people who were very sheltered as kids tend to either follow their parents' advice completely or turn into booze hounds in college. I'm happy to say that I've observed a lot more of the former, but I still want to know what you all have to say. I mean, I can only speculate on what I've seen and I don't know anything about this for a fact.

Personally, I believe that some sheltering is good because if kids are exposed to stuff too early in life it may scar and/or end with them growing up and doing those same things that they were exposed too. However, I do believe that a lot of parents shelter kids WAY too much and need to let go a little on them, because kids do eventually have to learn for themselves or they won't be ready for the world when they eventually have to live on their own. For example: Sex. It's good to shelter kids from sex early on in their life, however, eventually, the kids do need to learn what sex is and about protection so no one gets pregnant before they're ready or possibly so that they don't get super embarrassed when their boyfriend or girlfriend starts taking their pants off and the kid (well, at this point they'd be older than a kid, but you get my point...) has no idea what the hell is going on.

Sheltering is a broad term. As it seems to be defined in this post, you seem to be talking about keeping kids out of drugs, alcohol, and sex through protective parenting measures. My parents are overprotective and I think it's fantastic. There is, however, "protection" from new experiences, whether dangerous or just against that parents morals/religion/political doctrine, such as kids who are kept in private christians schools until twelfth grade, not allowed to watch pg-13 movies until theyre eighteen, and thinking about the opposite gender? Not even remotely allowed. I know these kids, and I pity them. There is definitely a point where a parent should go "This is what I would like my child to believe, but I want them to figure this out on their own."

meaganfaller wrote:

Sheltering is a broad term. As it seems to be defined in this post, you seem to be talking about keeping kids out of drugs, alcohol, and sex through protective parenting measures. My parents are overprotective and I think it's fantastic. There is, however, "protection" from new experiences, whether dangerous or just against that parents morals/religion/political doctrine, such as kids who are kept in private christians schools until twelfth grade, not allowed to watch pg-13 movies until theyre eighteen, and thinking about the opposite gender? Not even remotely allowed. I know these kids, and I pity them. There is definitely a point where a parent should go "This is what I would like my child to believe, but I want them to figure this out on their own."

Well there's some people who won't watch PG-13 movies at any age even if they're 75.