my parenting days are over for the most part, but i too had a problem being over protective. a little overprotective doesn't hurt, but too much could cripple my children, so i tried hard to keep myself in check. it helped that their daddy was not so protective in the same way, he would often tell me that i was being so, and i would back off. i worried so much about possibly abusing them, that sometimes i would go too far the other way. luckily for me, my children were good kids for the most part, and i wasn't "tested" in a hard way.