The Truth About Risk and Responsibility
Michael Ungar • 1/15/2019
By Michael Ungar - Families that bubble-wrap their children may prevent their healthy maturation. But helping parents look back and explore their own narratives challenges the need for excessive control of their child.
Daily Blog
Are Today's Parents Too Overprotective?
Michael Ungar • 2/1/2016
There’s now consensus among social scientists that children in developed countries have never been safer. But the new normal is a growing pattern of overprotection that I’ve seen emerging as one of the thorniest clinical issues for therapists because it can look so reasonable. Rather than insisting that parents change their behavior and supervise their children less, I focus on how they can give their kids opportunities to experience the manageable amounts of risk and responsibility needed for success.
Daily Blog
The Perils of Overprotective Parenting
Michael Ungar • 9/19/2014
While not all overprotective parents are as extreme in their behaviors as Shyam (indeed, few experience themselves as being obsessive at all), many middle-class families are struggling to decide how much protection is the right amount, even when their children are showing signs of anxiety and rebellion as a result. Whether these families are my clients or my neighbors, overprotective parenting appears to have become the rule, rather than the exception, in today’s world.
Daily Blog
The Perils of Overprotective Parenting
Michael Ungar • 9/11/2014
We've become so focused on keeping children safe that we exaggerate the dangers they face despite the fact that they’ve never been safer. Still, no amount of statistical reports can get parents to stop hovering over their child. What’s a therapist to do?
Magazine Article
Authors:
DANIEL A HUGHES, PH.D.
RON TAFFEL, PH.D.
MARTHA STRAUS, PH.D.
DAVID FLOHR, PHD
JANET SASSON EDGETTE, PSYD, MPH
MICHAEL UNGAR, PHD
JONATHAN BAYLIN, PH.D.
Authors:
DANIEL A HUGHES, PH.D.
RON TAFFEL, PH.D.
MARTHA STRAUS, PH.D.
DAVID FLOHR, PHD
JANET SASSON EDGETTE, PSYD, MPH
MICHAEL UNGAR, PHD
JONATHAN BAYLIN, PH.D.
Beyond Clinical Correctness: Unearthing the logic of the client’s solution
Michael Ungar • 1/1/2012
An understanding of the unconventional ways people demonstrate resilience is important in helping us avoid pathologizing clients and stop believing there’s only one clinically “correct” way to help them.
Magazine Article
Too Much of a Good Thing?
Michael Ungar • 9/1/2008
Risk-averse parents who overprotect their children do them no favors.
Magazine Article