by Jennifer Macon-Steele

Created on: January 10, 2010   Last Updated: January 12, 2010

A helicopter parent is a parent who is just too involved in his or her child. It’s that mom on the playground who won’t leave the child’s side so she can play on her own. It’s the classroom mother who is always at school, volunteering for every activity and field trip so she can keep a close eye on her darling. It’s the dad who insists on going over his child’s homework each and every night to be sure that all the answers are correct. It’s the dad who insists on negotiating conversations between his daughter and her friends instead of letting her handle conflict on her own. These are examples of helicopter parenting, and they are destructive to parents and to children.

Kids need freedom in order to properly develop and grow into independent adults. They must have the opportunity to make their own choices and to experience life on their own. How are they going to be independent adults if they had no chance to practice independence as children?

Parents hover for a variety of reasons. One reason is that they cannot give up control. They are afraid to let their children make their own decisions because the child might make a mistake. Another reason is that the parent cannot control his own anxiety and soothes himself by constantly being present so he won’t have to worry about his child and wonder what she is doing.

Helicopter parents believe they are acting in love and protecting their children from the harm in the world. Really, though, it’s clear that helicopter parents are acting out of selfishness. They are taking their own problems with control and anxiety, and they are giving those problems to their children to handle.

The helicopter parent does not give her child a chance to see what he is capable of achieving alone. She does not allow her child to learn from his own mistakes so that he can make better choices in the future. Instead she says to her child, loud and clear, that she does not believe he is capable of handling his own life. She tells him through her actions that she has no faith in him, and she leads him to have no faith in himself.

As parents, we sometimes have to take the harder road in the best interests of our children. It is not fair to push our anxiety onto our kids, and it is not fair to cripple our children with low self-esteem because we are afraid of what might happen if we don’t.

Learn more about this author, Jennifer Macon-Steele.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.