Helicopter parents
Helicopter parents are a parenting style characterized by excessive involvement in their children’s lives, often leading to micromanagement that can hinder their development of independence. Originating in the late 1980s, the term describes parents who closely supervise their children, stepping in to resolve challenges instead of allowing them to learn from experience. This approach can begin in early childhood and persist into adolescence and even adulthood, with parents often managing their children's academic and social responsibilities. Critics, including child psychologists, warn that such over-involvement may negatively impact children's ability to navigate life's challenges, contributing to feelings of emptiness and indecisiveness as adults.
Despite the criticisms, some argue that helicopter parenting is a response to the heightened academic and social pressures children face today, particularly regarding college admissions. Research indicates that children of helicopter parents may achieve better academic outcomes initially, but they may struggle with independence later in life. The phenomenon can also widen social disparities, as wealthier parents can afford to provide more resources for their children, perpetuating inequality. Ultimately, helicopter parenting reflects complex societal dynamics and the balancing act between support and autonomy in child-rearing.
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Helicopter parents
The term "helicopter parents" originated in the late 1980s to describe parents who so closely supervise their children that they could discourage the youngsters from establishing independence. Helicopter parents, also called surveillance parents, hover nearby, always ready to instruct, correct, or rescue children from challenges or problems. Helicopter parenting has received extensive criticism from authorities ranging from child psychologists to Pope Francis for its potential detrimental effects on children, yet it has also been framed as a logical and often successful strategy to deal with the increased expectations and pressure placed on many children in school and other areas of life.
Overview
Helicopter parenting is a style of parenting characterized by a micromanagement of children's lives that goes beyond normal involvement, support, and discipline. In some cases, helicopter parenting begins as soon as children are able to reach for toys and can last into adulthood. Helicopter parents hinder children's play, schooling, and relationships with other kids and make too many decisions for older children. When parents become too deeply involved in their lives, children find it difficult to learn to solve their own problems. Children need the opportunity to learn from experience.
Involvement alone does not define helicoptering. Parents are expected to supervise their children, show interest in their schoolwork, and comfort them when they are hurt. Helicopter parents cross the line of normal behavior by refusing to allow enough space for typical childhood development, particularly the establishment of independence and individuality. The mother who redistributes party favors because her son cried about the color of his lollipop, the father who storms into his daughter's classroom to question every test grade, or the parents who settle their child's minor arguments with a friend do not give their children the chance to experience disappointment, take responsibility for mistakes, or deal with conflict. As a result, these children receive the message that they are unable to handle their own problems. If helicopter parents continue to hover and interfere as children grow into adolescents and go off to college—for example, texting or calling their children many times a day—the road to independence may become long and indefinite.
Usually propelled by love and a fear of harm coming to the child, excessive supervision also may reflect anxiety about the child's future success. Parents who have advanced degrees and work as professionals are more likely to become helicopter parents than those with only bachelor's degrees or high school diplomas. Their taking control is often motivated by a great concern about the child's ability to someday receive acceptance into a prestigious university and maintain a place in a higher social class, in addition to the worries other parents share.
A major concern about helicopter parenting is when it continues through puberty and adolescence, when most children strive for greater independence. Since technology has largely erased the child's ability to avoid the hovering parent's eye, even while at school or out with friends, the child learns to forgo some level of privacy. Often, parents can electronically monitor grades, homework, discipline reports, and lunch choices at school. They may have access to the child's cell phone records and social media sites, and even have technology that allows them to track their child's whereabouts in real time. Dedicated helicopter parents take responsibility for creating a portfolio of experience for the child to use for college applications, running them to music lessons, sports practices, and tutoring to ensure success. They also often manage whatever paperwork and legwork are necessary to arrange college admissions tests and visits and meet college application deadlines. If helicopter parents always remain one step ahead of their child's needs, the young person never learns to take initiative or follow through on responsibilities.
After their children leave for college, helicopter parents continue to stay close—so close that some colleges have developed ceremonies to escort parents from campus after freshman orientation in order to provide space for the students. Colleges assign staff members to cope with the growing number of calls from parents who demand information or action on behalf of their child, while others have increased parent communication via weekly newsletters. Students who have never been allowed to experience failure—or even discomfort—generally have a hard time adjusting to the relative independence of campus life, where they are responsible for their own assignments and deadlines. At the first sign of trouble, these students text or call parents for advice, without attempting to solve the problem themselves. As college graduation approaches, the most persistent helicopter parents press career counselors for help in getting their child a job, and a few even accompany children to job interviews. They tend to go above and beyond in using their own connections and resources to place their child in a professional position or graduate program. They may continue to support their children financially, for instance by paying their rent or providing spending money after they have moved out. Ultimately, the outcome of helicopter parents' micromanagement of their children's lives can be adults who feel empty, indecisive, and vaguely unhappy in spite of having had so many advantages and so few problems.
Helicopter parents' overinvestment in their children also affects their own lives. Such all-consuming relationships leave little or no time for close friends, other family members, or even spouses. In addition to taking care of their own demanding work schedules, home responsibilities, and other children, these parents often take on hours of extra work each week to drive to activities, supervise homework, and monitor progress. Many parents consider their sons or daughters their best friends and suffer acute loneliness when their children leave for college. Popular Facebook groups have sprung up to support such parents, offering advice and gaining tens of thousands of members. Helicopter parents mean well and make sacrifices so their children will succeed, but their efforts may hinder both their children's goals and their own.
Despite the widespread criticism of helicopter parenting in both scholarly and popular media, some have argued that it is a natural reaction to the increasing demands placed on children in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. As college admission has become more competitive, the requirements for excellence in school and extracurricular activities have trickled down to every level of childhood. Many parents, especially those with advanced educations or from wealthy backgrounds themselves, feel pressured to ensure their children are provided with as many advantages as possible in order to distinguish themselves from so many other students competing for places in prestigious colleges and professional organizations. Helicopter parenting is one way to help children maintain good grades and participation in extracurriculars, even if it may stunt their actual development. Some research, such as a study of female college students at a public university from 2004 to 2009 by sociologist Laura Hamilton, has found that students with helicopter parents are far more likely to graduate from college and immediately enter graduate school or a well-paying professional position than those with less attentive parents. As helicopter parenting becomes the norm, many institutions have accepted it as a part of American society. However, even when helicopter parenting proves advantageous to the individual child it can be seen as detrimental to society by exacerbating social and economic inequality, as wealthy and well-educated parents can provide many more resources for their children than working-class parents with no college experience.
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