overprotection is abuse. a bird is perfectly safe in a cage, prisoners are safe in solitary confinement, dogs are safe in a shed. that is the case, however, they'd all rather be dead.
a mother that keeps her child in the house will eventually release a child into the world, no matter what age they are when that finally happens. so not only is the life of the overprotected child a meaningless and uneventful one, but when he finally steps out in the world he is unaware, and unprepared. to top it off he will get picked on by others for it as well. all he will know is school, video games, and the internet.
some parents think they are doing their children a favor by keeping them from life's many horrors for as long as possible. the only way you can do this is by lying or omitting. then they get conflicting stories from other people and this just confuses them. so if you want to prevent that you have to monitor who they speak with and what they watch. all of this work to deceive in the name of "safety and protection," instead of just letting your child live and explore and discover. im not saying let them do anything and everything. you should watch from a distance, you should only be making sure that they aren't going to die.
life is so full of possibilities. this fact is what keeps billions of us going. when you strip a child of all the possibilities of life, you are essentially keeping them unborn until the very unfortunate day he finally wakes up and realizes what's been going on. but the damage won't be fully solidified for the rest of his life. the consequences of growing up this way never leave you, you discover new ones all the time.