With the amount of time, money and energy spent on children these days, society must be producing the happiest, healthiest, most secure and competent kids ever, right?

Nope. Just the opposite, actually.

That’s the premise of the documentary Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids, which airs Thursday on CBC as part of the Doc Zone series.

Today’s children are the most over-indulged and micro-managed in human history, the show says. Raising kids has become a combination of competitive sport and product development, and a multi-billion-dollar industry is feeding it.

Road hockey isn’t enough any more. It has to be “play you can put on a resume.”

And while some would argue that parents need to hover because the world is more dangerous now than it ever has been for kids, there are many who argue that, statistically speaking, it’s just not the case.

The full impact of all this hyper-parenting won’t be known for many years, but initial evidence indicates that it’s backfiring.

First-year university students, for example, are suffering more serious anxiety than ever before. They have no capacity to deal with any failure, because their parents have made sure they’ve never failed through an endless childhood stream of “everybody gets a trophy” days.

The goal of parenting always should be independence, not dependence. In their heads parents know this, but their hearts make them act differently.

The irony is, by trying to be super nice and protecting your kids from any adversity, you actually may be setting them up to flop as people.

bill.harris@sunmedia.ca