OUTCOMES: Exhaustion, Sadness, and Helplessness
Tom takes his role as a dad very seriously. He cooks a warm breakfast for the kids every morning, drives them to school so they don’t have to take the bus, talks to all their teachers every week to be sure they are getting their work done, and monitors homework like a hawk. With three kids and work, too, he hardly has room to breathe.
Discussion:
Helicopter parenting is rooted in a deep caring for our kids and deep commitment to parenting. We want our kids to have a good life. Unfortunately, we can get results opposite to what we want. The underlying message our kids get when we do everything for them is:
- “You are helpless and fragile and need me to run interference for you.”
- “You can’t make it in life without me.”
So our kids get programmed when they have a problem to “Yell HELP! and your problem will be solved.” This more or less works when the parents are around, but what about when they are not. Numerous students are arriving at college without basic social and survival skills. They lack knowledge to negotiate for what they need, coexist with other people in shared living quarters, stay safe, and solve their own problems. With their parents always ready to step in, kids are failing to learn accountability and responsibility. Helicopter parents seem to be stunting their children’s maturation.
And the parents themselves don’t have the life they want. One study released by the Society for Research in Child Development in Atlanta states that parents who judge their own self-worth by their children’s accomplishments report
- Sadness
- Negative self-image
- Diminished contentment with life in general.
This happens whether the kids are doing well or doing poorly. So no matter how the kids turn out, the parents STILL experience stress and sadness.
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If I knew then what I know now,
I would have worked diligently to build my self-esteem on my own accomplishments rather than on the accomplishments of my children.
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Hi! I’m Dr. Kathy. Welcome to my website! Although Family Empowerment Network is formally closed, we want to keep these resources available to you. Our belief is that parents are the most wise and intuitive about what is best for their children. However, parents sometimes need the support of effective, timeless, compassionate parenting information and strategies. On this website you will find our three parenting books on boys, girls, and kids’ social lives and ten years of monthly newsletter articles. In addition, a powerful, under-recognized resource is the support of other parents. Here you will find how to use our books as discussion guides for monthly self-led parenting groups. One last resource: I am still available to give talks and workshops.
