by Rachel Stockton

Created on: November 27, 2008

Several years ago, in Channelview, TX, a suburban housewife made international news by plotting to kill the mother of her daughter's cheerleading rival. Several years later, hockey dad Thomas Junta stood accused of beating to death the father of another hockey player.

We've all seen them, the stereotypical Little League dad, or the Prom Queen mom, trying, at best, to live vicariously through their children, and at worst, trying to relive their own youth.

And certainly, the Channelview and Massachusetts cases were extreme, which is one reason they garnered attention from all around the world. Yet, paradoxically those instances also hit a bit too close to home; as parents, we saw a bit of ourselves in those overly zealous examples.

No one who has ever had children has not, at some point, wished their child were more like them, or that they hadn't taken on our less than stellar attributes. But where is the line that separates normal concern for the well being of our children and obsessive, controlling behavior that attempts to make our children into something they're not?

Nearly two years ago, the journal Fertility and Sterility reported on the growing number of parents who are trying to create designer children. In extreme cases, some parents are choosing to make sure their children inherit their own genetic defects, such as dwarfism and deafness. Again, these cases are extreme.

And while most of us parent in the middle of the continuum, subtly, we may be sending messages to our children that make them think we don't accept them as they are, that we are disappointed if they do not think like we do. What are the repercussions to this kind of behavior?

SELF ESTEEM

Certainly, a child's self esteem suffers when they feel that they are not living up to a parent's excessively high expectations. The quiet, intellectual child of an outgoing cheerleader mom gets the feeling that because she doesn't care about going to parties and prefers reading to other, more social activities any day of the week, she has disappointed her mother. Yet, try as she might, she cannot change who she is, any more than her own mother can.

LACK OF UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

Focusing on the behavior of a child all of the time gives him the idea that what he does is more important than who he is. William J., an executive consultant, says that the only time his parents paid any attention to him was when he outshone his other siblings by doing chores more "perfectly" than they did. Hence, he said, "Although I

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