Parents Are Not Helicopters!

As parents, we should prepare our children for life instead of protecting them from it.

- Jennifer F. Netto

Once you become a parent, you would like to believe you are doing your very best for your child. There are no fixed rules on how to parent one’s children, but studies have identified various parenting styles: tiger moms, panda dads … and the subject of this article, helicopter parents. The latter is a term widely used to describe many parents today.

When Parents Hover

A helicopter parent is basically a very overprotective parent. They constantly hover over their children (hence, the term ‘helicopter parent’), obsessively planning for and micromanaging their child from birth to adulthood. They do and decide everything for their child even when the child is capable of doing it themselves, thus within the context of psychology, such parenting style is considered developmentally inappropriate. The bounds of appropriate parental behaviour should naturally shift as a child grows. Therefore, experts say helicoptering robs children of important lessons, thus creating helpless teenagers and later adults, who always look for their mommies and daddies to save them.

Are You a Helicopter Parent?

Do you:

Feel the need to keep constant contact with your child and to always monitor his movements and activities, just like a watchdog?

Take on the role of a bouncer in the playground so your kid gets to use the swing for as long as he wants, without allowing him to stand up or speak up for himself against other children?

Help fix his conflicts with other kids in school, or argue with these kids (and their parents, teachers and anyone else who disagree with you) even if your kid is wrong?

Find yourself enrolling your child for all types of extra-curricular activities, even if he isn’t interested? Come to think of it, you never even asked him if he wanted to do these things!