Helicopter Parenting Essay

Helicopter parents often send the unintentional message to their child saying that they are incompetent of doing things on their own - like the things they attempt to accomplish independently are wrong. Instead of letting their children experience a sense of autonomy by allowing them to accomplish things on their own, an overprotective parent would step in and take control; again promoting dependency. A lot of times, such dependency carries on into adulthood (Sade 1). Instead of being a mature, responsible adult and taking things into their own hands; they call on their parents whenever things get strenuous in their lives. Likewise, adults who still depend on their parents for everything do not mature mentally and sometimes do not have the skills needed to become successful on their own.

While both styles of parenting have their benefits and weaknesses, the educational system of the United States is built predominantly on middle class values and Concerted Cultivation. Consequently, this may negatively affect how children who aren’t familiar with this upbringing navigate their already complex academic and home lives. This imbalance within the student population can put some students farther ahead and at the same time neglect students who don’t have the resources they need to keep up with their peers. Lareau refers to this as “transmission of differential advantages to children”. She states the benefits the advantages that middle-class homes typically offer:

In high school, a parent has to be aware of everything that goes on with their child's life. Then their child grows up and blossoms into an adult that continues their education into college. There in college the parents of these blossoms are no longer as aware of what goes on with their school life. These parents have little control over what goes on academically and socially while their adult children are in college. In the article, “College Kids Have Too Much Privacy” Michele Willins shows us that parents have a right to know what is going on with their children’s college life.

Does excessively micromanaging kids by overprotective parents affect their life post-college? Julie Lythcott-Haims addresses this concern supplementary to many others written in her book, How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kids for Success. The key theme is outlined perfectly, as Lythcott shows a great deal of concern for these children’s parents, as they do essentially everything for their child(ren). “Meanwhile, each year I saw more and more parents come to campus with their freshman kid and then . . . stay, literally or virtually, to: ask questions; select courses, activities, majors, internships, and careers; solve problems; handle conflicts; defend and advocate for their student; register for classes;

However, most of the time, overprotective parents can help children during college. Surveys have shown that most first-year college students were happy that their parents were involved with their first year of college. Gregory Roberts, the executive director of the American College Personnel Association says that, “It has given colleges an opportunity to engage parents”. On the other hand, the downside of overprotective parents intervening with their child’s college life is that they are preventing them from growing.

“Having a parent continue to be in a frequent presence is one of the best ways to ensure young adolescents don’t make too many big mistakes,” states the concerned mother. However, constantly protecting her child,results in them never learning to deal with the consequences. Ubiquitous parents disable their children from learning to resolve conflicts or learn from mistakes. The article states, “Many young adults entering college have the academic skills... but are lacking in life skills like ...conflict resolution.” My parents now let me solve my own issues, allowing me to learn from them. For example, I used to procrastinate on assignments. This resulted in me getting very stressed out and exhausted from staying up late. I learned to not start assignments last minute. If my parents intruded on my decisions I may have never learned not to start last minute and the consequences of doing so. More importantly, if parents refrained from hovering over their children they allow them to learn to assess their mistakes and

Parents that take an over productive or excessive interest in the life of their children is a helicopter parent. These parents want to be part of every part of their children’s life. Helicopter parents are a really interesting topic. I topic that I have never really considered. Helicopter parents want the best for their children, but are they really helping them? Research shows that helicopter parents can be detrimental to a child’s growth, independence, self-confidence, and overall well-being.

In conclusion, each style is associated with different child outcomes and the tiger parent style is generally linked to positive behaviors such as strong self-esteem and morality. Opposingly, helicopter parenting is so consistently linked with children who are dependent and incompetent. Their views on appraisal and reprimanding, priority of academic success, sense of obligation, control, constructive criticism and their authoritarian nature lead to the distinguished styles of parenting having different connotations distinct to an individual’s perspective, yet will always be criticized by others and their firm standpoint. Perhaps one could agree with certain characteristics of both styles and find a median of the two and adjust or “customize”

There are two type of Helicopter parenting family who is overly involved in their own children. Some Helicopter parenting family had Bubble-wrapping our children that overprotective parenting. Begin helicopter parenting is not easily because you have to keep your child’s safe from harmful according to the “Psychotherapy Networker Magazine’s article”, “BUBBLE-WRAPPING OUR CHILDREN “by Michael Unger, and “Helicopter parenting Deliver Benefit” By (Don Au coin). Unfortunately, there are two families don’t think that can extremely harmful to their children and adolescents because of them too much overly involved in children's life and overprotective. Moreover, why is helicopter parenting harmful?

“Just as our ancestors were left to their own devices to survive a hostile world full of wild animals, severe elements of nature, and a decided lack of vocabulary, we, too, are on our own when it comes to surviving today’s hostile world of wild bullies, fatal climate swings, economic stressors, and a persistent overload of information. These issues, along with many others, affect the way in which we parents our children but because we want the best for them and fear the worst if we don’t pull out all the stops, we sometimes succumb to unreasonable and extreme behavior. Despite our best intentions and an untestable desire to do our best for our kids, we can easily succumb to what we call overparenting” (Glass 3). Parenting; it doesn’t come with

Helicopter parenting has gained increasing awareness in popular media, academic literature, and the general population. For example, recently, several popular parenting books have raised awareness about parental over-involvement and how it may be associated with negative outcomes. The term “helicopter parent” was first used in a famous parenting book, Parents & Teenagers by Dr. Haim Ginott in 1969, by teenagers who described their parents as “hovering over them”, like a helicopter. This term refers to a parenting style that is over-focused on children; being involved in a child’s life in ways that are over controlling and overprotective. Lester-Smith defines “helicopter” or overprotective parents as having a “heightened surveillance of their children’s lives” (September 14, 2015), so that children are never allowed to experience risk. This term is commonly applied to parents of college aged or high school students who believe that their children are not capable of doing tasks alone, so they might call a professor about their child’s poor grades or manage their child’s class schedule for them. Schiffrin et al. (2013) emphasize children’s need for autonomy and explain how this need increases over time “as they strive to become independent young adults” (p. 529). Therefore, parents are recommended to “adjust their level of involvement and control to their child’s developmental level” (Schiffrin et al., 2013, p. 529). However, many parents do not make this adjustment, and this

Research shows that ever though students are in a more independent stage, the importance of parental attachment never disappears (Fass, 2002). Parental support of their children encourage academic performance, scholarly persistence, and college graduation (Fass, 2002). As high levels of attachments or bonding may have positive effects, there are negative effects connected to the absence of such attachment. Negative effects of little to no parental attachment include the possibility of ill performance (Fass, 2002). Low attachment can put students are risk for academic failure (Fass, 2002). Students may also have a hard time adjusting to the college environment and expectations, without the existence of emotional bonding between themselves and

“They are needy, anxious and sometimes plain pesky – and schools at every level are trying to

Within the past several years, I have seen many new ideas and theories as to how children should be reared. One change that I have witnessed firsthand is the difference in the role a parent plays in their child's life. In the article called "Helicopter Parents" Stir up Anxiety, Depression, the ideas expressed were not the same my parents had when raising me. Some of the ideas expressed in said article I resonated with as a child whose parents leaned towards being helicopters while others I did not agree with as wholeheartedly.

Helicopter parents are also increasing the odds that their child is miserable. A study has shown that children and young adults with overprotective parents are more likely to to have anxiety or depression. Mike Grenier says that, “The increase in helicopter parenting in the past 10 years had accompanied a changing attitude toward childhood, with more anxiety and fear over youngsters now seen as being at risk and vulnerable if confronted with failure”. Grenier is a house master from Eton College who is involved in a campaign to help overprotective parents be less hyper-involved in a child’s life. Hyper-involved parenting demotivates a child, and may cause psychological