Pro-Family Psychologist Says Permissive Parents Put Kids At Risk
By Mary Rettig
August 15, 2005

(AgapePress) - Focus on the Family vice president and psychologist in residence Dr. Bill Maier says a major problem affecting young people in contemporary society starts right at home. He contends that "pushover parents" are one of the most detrimental influences on American kids today.

According to Dr. Maier, pushover parents are those moms and dads who indulge their children or say they are allowing them to "find their own right path," rather than disciplining them and teaching them moral principles and scriptural truths. Ignorance is one reason for the phenomenon, he says, but other explanations abound, including guilt.

"You have situations where you have two-parent working families -- parents working long hours, their kids in daycare, and they have no time for their children," the pro-family psychologist says. Because of that, he explains, these parents have "a limited number of minutes each week that they're spending with their kids, and in those minutes, they can't say no."
And very often these overly busy mothers and fathers do not want to say no, Maier asserts, because they feel guilty about the time they are not giving to their kids. So instead, he says, "they give them possessions to substitute for their time."

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