Life

Leona O'Neill: Parenting even goes underwater in new craze

There's a new kid on the block in terms of parenting styles: 'Submarine parenting' involves stepping back and letting your child make mistakes, experience mild peril and fend for themselves, all while keeping stealthy watch, writes Leona O'Neill

Letting children take reasonable risks – while being there in the background lest they fall – is what submarine parenting is about
Letting children take reasonable risks – while being there in the background lest they fall – is what submarine parenting is about Letting children take reasonable risks – while being there in the background lest they fall – is what submarine parenting is about

IT'S June and therefore there must be a new brand of parenting with a fancy name doing the rounds.

We've had Tiger, Attachment and Free-Range Parenting. And now, to counteract the Helicopter Parenting style, we've got Submarine Parenting.

Where Helicopter Parents hover around their offspring, waiting to pounce when something shows even the slightest hint of going awry or the child shows signs of wanting to be independent, Submarines go underground and step back, letting their child make mistakes, experience mild peril and fend for themselves. The Submarine Parent encourage their kids to step outside their comfort zone and take risks, only emerging when guidance is needed.

Seven-year-old Yamato Tanooka's parents where of the Submarine variety, albeit the extreme kind. The Japanese parents left their child on the side of the road in a bear-infested forest as a punishment for being naughty. The child was missing, presumed eaten by said bears, for seven days, until he was found in a disused military base. This, essentially, is submarine parenting gone very badly wrong.

But, despite this extreme example, there are many parents who think the Submarines have something.

Think about how a submarine works. They usually remain underwater, stealthy, out of sight. In the case of an emergency they surface. Submarines can rise so quickly they actually propel themselves out of the water in a big dramatic fashion.

By the same token, submarine parents realise that they have to manage their anxieties about their offspring. They appreciate that just because a situation looks bad or makes them feel uncomfortable, doesn't necessarily mean that it will cause their child harm. They realise they can't make the world 100 per cent safe for their child, so they work at making their child 100 per cent ready for the world.

My 11-year-old recently put in a request to command central to go into the city centre with his friends on a bus, on his own on a Saturday. After imagining all the very bad things that could possibly go wrong – from getting the wrong bus and ending up in Donegal where his phone wouldn't work, to getting beaten up, to being knocked down, or abducted, to breaking something really expensive in a store by accident and being arrested – I agreed to give him a little freedom, gave him the money and waved him off at the front door.

Then I paced the living room floor saying the rosary until he walked back in the door again. I supposed after that very traumatic experience, I am a card-carrying, although very reluctant, Submarine Parent.

I find it very hard to let go. I resist the urge to be a helicopter parent. It took years of begging, pleading and whining to let my sons play in the street and out of my eyesight. Now they walk to the shop up the street on a main road by themselves and head to football tournaments across Northern Ireland and in Scotland without me hovering over them. It is tough to let go, but I realise letting go a little helps them grow in confidence and independence.

Psychologists say that raising kids is like constructing a boat and then launching it into the sea. So your child is the boat and the parents are there sailing alongside it, but just under the surface. The child knows the 'rents' are there somewhere in the background, but they are out of sight unless a distress flare goes up.

The goal of this style of parenting is to arm the child with the tools they need to deal with life's many challenges and prepare them emotionally for when the time comes to head off to university and adult life and allow them to feel confident that they are competent.

I don't think any of us should pigeon-hole ourselves into any particular style of parenting and stick religiously to that ethos. Picking the best bits out of each one of these styles – even the madder ones – might be the best way to go. Let's all be a little more helicopter, submarine, free range, attachment parents, and even hippy, happy, tigers.