Helicopter Parenting

I find it fascinating that the top Google search term for today is "helicopter parenting."  Now, just what do you suppose individuals are searching for --  definitions of a style of parenting that may indeed be their own, funny stories about 'over the top' parents, or perhaps a glimmer into what Britney Spears is NOT.

Parenting trends have come and gone.  Most of us who have grown up in the western world had grandparents who embraced the authoritarian style of parenting: "Do so because I say so."  Their children responded with a more laid back attitude about parenting: "Let the child find himself."  Then came the reaction to that which was their children's more scientific approach to parenting in the 1980's.  Books like "How to Talk to Kids so Kids will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk" were best sellers and Dr. Ferber's formula for getting kids to sleep turned into the term "Ferberize your baby." 

Now, we shift into a new trend which is to hover.  We, as parents, want to get this project called PARENTING right.  We can't cling to any of the prior trends mentioned so we try to control.  If we can just GET IT RIGHT and organize our child's life in a certain (OUR) way  then all will be right.

It's tough to let go.  I would maintain that it's harder to let go as our children grow older...and allow them to face mistakes and consequences then it is to birth them.  When my daughter Whitney left for Africa at age 18 (she finished high school early) I simply had to trust that she was fully equipped in mind, body, and spirit and all would be well.  It was.

What are your thoughts on helicopter parenting?  Are you one?  Is that wrong?  

Comments

[Mimi]

Juli,
Many thanks for your insightful comments from the trenches. YOU are working with our children when they leave our nest and your insights are so valuable.
I was moved by your conversation with the young person seeking God but fearing hurting his mom...
I love the work that UCLA is doing on spirituality on college campus'. I'll post a link in the next day or so...
Blessings and light to you and thank you for your work with college students.
Mimi

[Juli LaRosa]

I'm a college educator of primarilly freshmen business students and a full-time mother of 3 children. I believe that your thoughts on "helicopter parenting" are spot on. I see daily the effects of parents who have been too hovering. Freshmen students come to school lost because quite honestly they have not been allowed to fail, pick themselves up, set goals and just plain determine their own live's directions. The attrition rate is around 20%, though my upper class students who are RA's tell me about 50% are NOT ready for college and THEIR life. It is SO important for parents now to try their best in balancing when to advocate and support their children and to allow their children to be a whole person. One keep thing to allow your children to learn is that failing is not a big deal and that when it happens to just pick themselves up. I also think, spiritually, parents of teenagers or college students should be encouraging their children to seek out and find their spiritual path. I see so many students that are stuck with the 'traditions' of their family's faith that they choose no faith. I had a very bright student who said to me recently that in his quest to 'find God' or determine his spiritual place in the universe that he didn't want to hurt his mother. I assured him that God wanted us to love him wiht all our heart, MIND and soul. Please if you are reading this take heart (PRAY) and know that the best thing to do is nudge your baby birds out of the nest so that THEY can learn to fly. "Bring up a child in the way that he should go and he will NOT venture far from it". P.S. College life is great and I see so much hope for a wonderous future in the faces of my students. Blessings to you.

[Tiffanie]

Hi Mimi. Off topic of your post here. But I was reading your February newsletter and I wanted to thank you for the letter you wrote at the beginning about nurturing yourself and the idea about writing what we appreciate about our kids and rolling it up in scrolls.

[Claudia]

I must say that your comments hit me to the core. I am a parent who most sincerely wants to get this parenting thing right. Yet, by being terribly analytical and worrying to the extent I do, I'm missing the real point of it all.

So often, after serious examination, analyzing, and rationalization, I tend to feel so overwhelmed and more confused than when I began such mental chaos. Yet, the message I receive, time and time again, through Divine inspiration is to "relax and love".

I've chosen to home school my children. There are horrible things going on in the schools. Things I don't feel our children need to be fighting through in order to gain their "education". I believe in the modernized Homeschool education but sometimes I feel that maybe, just maybe, I may be missing something here.

So often I want to look out into the future to see if what I'm doing now, whether it be some system we have set up in our home, some rules we abide by, or some rituals we enjoy, will have the succesful kind of results I NEED them to have.

I tend to be inordinately concerned over whether the things we do will have some long lasting and wonderful effect on my kids. So, I find myself constantly looking for the perfect balance...that ideal balance that I have yet to find.

Apparently, from the article you've written, I'm not the only one.

Claudia