Challenges of Modern Parenting

Modern parenting is a paradox: while technology and various tools have made childcare more convenient, parents today face more stress than ever before. Due to societal pressures, financial burdens, fatigue, guilt or the high expectations of others, some parents experience what is known as parental burnout. One of the major changes in modern parenting is the change in society’s perception of personal and professional success and the corresponding increase in parents’ expectations of their children. The societal belief that happiness is linked to success, and that success is linked to academic excellence, puts enormous pressure on parents. What used to be a concern about raising a child to be a “good person” has now become a matter of family prestige: childhood has become a time of intense preparation for a future in which there is no longer any room for spontaneity and the child’s natural development. Parents rush to fill their children’s time with ” useful activities”, believing that this is the only way to ensure their future success. More and more children at an increasingly younger age are taking part in several clubs, extra-curricular activities and tutoring after school. However, this high-intensity education also has negative consequences: children’s leisure time is getting shorter, physical activity is decreasing, and mental health problems are becoming more frequent and acute.

Parents are also unsure what kind of school they want for their children: on the one hand, they wish their children to feel safe and stress-free, as in Finnish schools, but on the other hand, they expect the school to provide a high level of academic excellence, as in schools in Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan and Singapore. This leads to tensions between parents and teachers, to more extensive use of tutors, and to ever greater workload and fatigue among children. Hyper-Parenting has become the norm in modern society. By constantly controlling their child’s every move, parents try to protect them from failure and ensure that they achieve their best academic results, but this excessive pressure can have the opposite effect of stifling a child’s independence and their ability to learn from mistakes and assume responsibility.

Another extreme trend in modern parenting is the complete indifference of parents to the best interests of the child. Such parents have minimal or no involvement in the child’s life or concern for the child’s physical, emotional and social needs. It is a mistake to think that it is only children from socially vulnerable families who suffer from parental neglect: it also affects materially provided children whose parents ignore their parental responsibilities. Such parental indifference can be due to a variety of reasons: constant stress, which exhausts parents to the point where they no longer have the strength or motivation to care for their children; depression, anxiety disorders or a traumatic past, which may hinder the development of a strong emotional bond with their children; negative parenting experiences, where parents themselves grew up in a family of indifferent or emotionally cold parents and have never experienced a healthy parenting model; or simply the choice of some parents to prioritise themselves by perceiving the child as an obstacle to personal aspirations or a liberal way of life. Neglectful parenting is a serious social problem because its consequences are not limited to one family – neglected children often face learning difficulties, delinquency, addictions and other problems that can have a long-term impact on the whole of society.

Both trends reflect broader psychological and social problems: while some parents are afraid of their child’s failure and ” push the limits”, others, lacking time or motivation, choose to be passive observers of their child’s life. This situation poses challenges for children’s growth and for our future society, as neither overprotection nor indifference can guarantee a balanced and healthy personality development. It is therefore important not only to raise parents’ awareness of their children’s needs, but also to ensure that families in need receive psychological support and adequate education on these issues.