NOTE: See December 4th for Part 1

Helicopter Parenting: What does it look like? Why do we do it?

As Tom read the Time article on helicopter parenting, he suspected he might have tendencies to hover. However, he was having trouble figuring out if what he was doing was being responsible and supportive or over-protective.

Discussion:
As parents, we all fall somewhere on the spectrum from extreme neglect to extreme over-parenting—hovering over our child’s every move. We all know there are times, particularly when there are safety issues, when it is responsible parenting to monitor our children closely. It is so easy to slip this close monitoring into other arenas, like getting homework done or too close oversight of our kids’ food intake. Mark any items below that sound like you:

You are a helicopter parent if you:

• Wrap your own self worth in the accomplishments of your children—especially at school and in sports.
• Are embarrassed when your child fails and feel it might mean you are doing a bad job as a parent.
• Fight your child’s battles, such as arguing with a teacher about getting a B instead of an A.
• Help excessively with your child’s school projects.
• Start sentences about your child with “we,” as in “We are trying out for the classic soccer team.”
• “Love” your children best when they are “successful.”
• Are preoccupied and overly involved with the details of a child’s activities, practices, schedules and performances.

You might even go so far as to spy on their Facebook page or read their text messages to find out what is going on in their lives, instead of working on your relationship so they will talk to you.

What motivates parents to helicopter? There are many influential factors involved:

• We want to be better, more involved parents than our parents were for us.
• We are genuinely worried about our children’s safety. We hear so many stories.
• We have the tools and we use them. We have 24/7 connection. Cell phones have become “the world’s longest umbilical cord.”
• We have enough wealth to focus our energy beyond the basics of food and shelter.
• We want our kids to have a great childhood and be happy—free of pain and struggle.
• We want our kids to be the best at everything they do, even better than they already are.

Nancy Gibbs, author of “The Case Against Over-Parenting: Why Mom and Dad Need to Cut the Strings.” (Time Magazine, 11/30/09) says it best. “Fear is a kind of parenting fungus: invisible, insidious, perfectly designed to decompose your peace of mind. Fear of physical danger is at least subject to rational argument; fear of failure is harder to hose down. What could be more natural than worrying that your child might be trampled by the great, scary, globally competitive world into which she will one day be launched? It is this fear that inspires parents to demand homework in preschool, produce the snazzy bilingual campaign video for the third grader’s race for class rep, continue to provide the morning wake-up call long after he has headed off for college.”

Another good source to explore helicopter parenting is the AM Northwest presentation “How to Ground Your Helicopter Parenting” that I did last August (posted in the December 4th blog too).

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If I knew then what I know now,
I would have talked more openly about my fears and tendencies to over-monitor my kids and brainstorm with other parents ways we could let go and relax.
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