Are You A Helicopter Parent?

Helicopter Parenting refers to parenting style where parents are overly focused on their children. They “hover” over their children’s lives like a helicopter. The term, “helicopter parent” was first used by Dr. Haim Ginott in his book Parents and Teenagers (1969). Such parents take too much responsibility for their child’s actions, experiences, successes, and failures. 


Helicopter parents are always around their children, doing things for them that they can do alone; they take care of their children’s problems and chores. They micromanage every aspect of their child’s life and over-involved in their lives. As a result, the child becomes overly dependent on their parents.

A common example of helicopter parenting is feeding your children at the age where they should be eating their food by themselves. Another example could be completing a child’s school homework instead of letting them do it.

There could be several reasons for parents to become overly involved in their child’s life. Let’s look at some of the reasons.

Love

All parents love their children. In the case of helicopter parents, they are usually not able to draw boundaries and love their children so much that they protect them from everything and ensure that their children are kept out of harm. This results in them giving excessive attention to their children.

Need for Control

Some parents are not able to accept the fact their children are growing up. They still think of them like babies who can be controlled. Helicopter parents try to control every aspect of their child’s life.

Feeling of Anxiety

With changing dynamics of the world, helicopter parents worry about their children and are always anxious about what their children do. They may project their fears onto their children and get anxious about their child’s wellbeing.

Overcompensation

Some parents during their childhood didn’t receive enough love and attention from their parents. By hovering in their child’s life, they try to overcompensate. Excessive attention and monitoring are attempts to remedy a deficiency the parents felt in their upbringing.

Peer Pressure

Parents are also influenced by how other parents treat their children. So, if they observe that their friends and neighbors are overly involved in their children’s lives, they may try to do the same. Guilt plays an important role here. Parents may feel guilty that they are not involved in their child’s life and may feel guilty about it.

Effects of Helicopter Parenting

Helicopter parents may have good intentions (that is, keeping their children safe) but in the long run, this may backfire. Helicopter parenting results in long term negative consequences.

Poor decision making

Helicopter parents make all decisions for their children. This results in children becoming dependent on their parents for all the decisions in their life. Children (later, adults) are not able to develop their problem solving and decision-making skills. These are some of the skills which are important in adulthood. This also hinders the development of the areas of the brain which are involved in decision making and problem-solving (pre-frontal cortex).

Low Self-Esteem

Helicopter parenting often results in low self-esteem and confidence in children. Children do not believe in their abilities and skills to be creative, to solve problems, to deal with adverse situations, and to figure out things in their lives. In research conducted in 2010 in New Hampshire, it was found that children with helicopter parents were less open to new ideas and were more vulnerable, anxious, self-conscious, and dependent.

Maladaptive Perfectionism

Helicopter parents often have high expectations from their children when it comes to academic performance. They often overreact when their child makes a mistake. In research conducted in Singapore in 2016, children of helicopter parents tend to be self-critical, anxious, or depressed. The researchers called it “maladaptive perfectionism.” Such children are afraid to make mistakes and often blame themselves for not being perfect.

Poor Emotional Development

If parents are too controlling and step in before the child even tries to deal with the situation, children are often not able to develop skills to deal with the situations. This also impacts emotional regulation in their children. Children often find it difficult to deal with negative emotions or emotions that are triggered by a stressful situation.

Children of helicopter parents also have poor coping skills. They have always been protected by their parents in every situation and their parents have cleaned their mess. This has often resulted in children being deprived of any meaningful consequences for their actions. As a result, the children may miss out on the opportunity to learn valuable life lessons from the mistakes they make; life-lessons that would contribute to their emotional intelligence.

Are You a Helicopter Parent?

  • Check out the signs of helicopter parenting below.
  • You negotiate for your child’s conflicts.
  • You do their academic works.
  • You train your child’s trainers.
  • You stick with your kids even if it is a short walk away.
  • You hold the responsibility for all your child’s house chores.
  • You shield them from failure.
  • You don’t allow them to tackle their problems.
  • You don’t allow them to make age-appropriate choices.

What do you think you are – a helicopter parent or a regular parent? Do share your experiences and thoughts if any in the comment section.

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