“My passport ruined my life,” said Naila Amin a dual citizen who was forcibly married at 13 to bring her 26-year-old husband from Pakistan to the United States. Amin is not alone. Thousands of requests by men to bring in child brides to live in the US were approved over the past decade, according to government data.
Can parents’ efforts to protect their children actually hurt them? At The Yard, an adventure playground on Governors Island in New York Harbor, children are given free rein to play with saws, hammers and nails at a junkyard.
The Yard is one result of a growing call to expose kids to more risk, which has proven to build resistance.
A recent study published in the journal of Developmental Psychology found that helicopter parents — those who hover over their children — can diminish their children’s ability to regulate emotions and behavior.
Backlash against overprotective parenting has spurred some parents, psychology experts and lawmakers to call for a return to a more laid-back style of child-rearing, with less parental involvement and more autonomy for kids.
“From an evolutionary perspective, it’s very important to allow children to take risks,” says a the psychology research professor. “This is how children learn that they can fail and get back up, or even get hurt and survive and thrive after that.”
