For wanting to do more, parents often make mistakes that are difficult to correct. Overprotecting children can lead to mental health problems in children and young people.
Psychologist Nadia Moratto, a master’s in social sciences, indicated that it is increasingly common to see young adults between the ages of 25 and 30 treated by their relatives as adolescents.
Today there are multiple tools that allow young people to discover the world. However, parents do not allow the same children and adolescents to face them, but rather they prefer to carry the responsibilities that their children should assume, indicates the mental health expert.
“It would be very important that as parents we ask ourselves: How am I making it easier for my son to develop at the stage he is in? Whether he is a teenager or even an adult,” says Moratto.
He affirms that in Colombia a particular phenomenon is being seen and that is that adulthood is increasingly delayed, considering that adolescents should be closer to their parents. “We still have 25-year-olds at home with the activities and norms that a teenager should have,” he said.
Therefore, it calls for parents to question the role that is being fulfilled. There is no psychologically defined age to stop being an adolescent, but the research professor and coordinator of the Psychology, Health and Society Group of the CES University clarifies that, due to the development process, it is estimated that when one begins to carry out activities of adult life, such as working, one ceases to be an adolescent.
“We in Colombia keep them within our niches and homes until they are 25 and 30 years old, until they finish their university or first master’s degree. If you look at the dynamics of American families, The further away the children are when they go to university, they evaluate that they did their job well, because the children are acquiring autonomy,” she explains.
For the North American culture, going to university implies that they work and assume their self-care according to the social studies done. “While in Colombia letting them fly from the nest is increasingly difficult,” he emphasizes. This implies that emotional development is delayed.
For her, it is not advisable to judge whether it is good or bad, what must be evaluated is how much the child is being enabled to be a young adult and assume the responsibilities that they have in the world of work and education, beyond the solutions What do parents have to give?
This makes young people begin to understand that there are frustrations in life and that it is normal within development. Once they learn to manage their emotions, symptoms that bring mental health diseases can be counteracted such as anxiety and depression, indicates Melisa Parra, a psychologist at CES University and a master’s degree in clinical psychology.
In turn, also when these warning signs appear, go to a specialist to determine if the changes in mood and sudden health effects are or are not related to any medical pathology.
On the other hand, they emphasize the importance of facilitating family dialogue that promotes spaces of trust and self-knowledge.