I work in a college counseling center. Our office consists of me and three mental health professionals who do mental health counseling and some work with special needs students. So, as you can imagine, we hear from our share of so-called helicopter parents.
For those who don’t know, helicopter parents are parents who hover (like helicopters) over their children even into adulthood, running interference in their personal, academic and work lives beyond the time when those children would be expected to start handling things themselves.
Anyway, we get some parents that have genuine concerns and their involvement is appropriate, but then there are some real doozies who want to make their kids’ counseling appointments, want our staff to wave their magic wands and make the stress and adjustment difficulties go away, who complain about the work load our school is famous for. One called to complain that her daughter’s art teacher was making her draw abstractly when she preferred to draw realistically and was so good at it (I’m sorry, but I thought one went to college to learn new stuff). One came and stayed at a hotel to help her daughter with her work. One told me I was going to just love her son and she bet I couldn’t wait to meet him. (I didn’t love him at ALL!)
I could go on.
So, anyway, after all these years, it finally occurred to me to wonder how these people saw themselves. Do they realize how they seem to me? Would they consider themselves helicopter parents?
Which leads me to this poll: are you a helicopter parent? Would you admit it you were? And I love anecdotes about this stuff, so please share any about yourself or others.
I work hard not to be. One of my goals in parenting is to be very clear-eyed about my kids and my role in their lives.
I don’t believe it is an effective parenting tactic, but many parents end up being helicopters because they have the wrong vision for their children - they are working towards their kids being “happy” and “successful”. I think that is stupid.
That said, if I felt that helicopter parenting was effective in achieveing the goals I have for my kids (for them to find contentment in their relationships, feel satisfied with their role in their own lives, and become useful and contributing members of their family and society), I would do it in a heartbeat and admit to it too.
I don’t think I fit the definition as given in the OP, but I have a tendency to be overprotective. I was raised on a pretty short leash myself, so it just doesn’t occur to me sometimes that there’s another way to do things. For instance, my kids walk home from the bus stop and get home long before I do. I was having them call me when they got home every day. Now I have let the oldest off the hook (she’s 17), but I still have the youngest call (he’s 12).
My husband was raised with no leash at all, and is doing the same with his son (age 17). I don’t think that’s a good idea either, but at least when we talk about the kids he asks me to justify the way I do things, and it’s helped me to try making the kids a bit more self-sufficient.
One helicopter-like thing I do for sure is get over-involved in school projects. “Oh, you have to build a model of a log cabin and you thought you’d use your Lincoln Logs? Well, that’s what everyone else is going to do! We should make one out of chocolate!” Next thing you know, I’ve done a kick-ass fifth grade project, and wait around anxiously to hear what grade I got. I get a little too interested in essay-writing as well.
I don’t think this is overprotective! In our state it’s actually against the law for a kid under 13 to be left alone at home. I’m sure not everyone complies, of course.
My sister has a good story about overinvolvment in school work. Her kid was partnered with the child of upwardly mobile, academically motivated Russian immigrants for an 8th grade social studies project. The dad was on the phone with my brother-in-law every five seconds, demanding that he print copies of this and that for proofreading purposes (for the dad to proofread) and then demanding that changes be made. Finally, the outspoken Sister of Caricci got on the phone and yelled at the guy that there would be no more drafts, no more changes and that the boys could go right ahead and finish it their own way. The dad explained he only wanted his son to do well and get into a good college. She reminded him that colleges didn’t look at middle school transcripts and it finally went down her way.
I’m pretty much the opposite of a helicopter parent. I’m like “Well what the hell have I been doing for the past 17 years if not teaching you to take care of yourself? Fly, little bird… fly!!!”
My parents gave me so much freedom that I think I would be considered a helicopter parent by the standards of my youth- but then I did become a pubescent crack fiend and felon…
Things got a little better when I got quite a bit more attention from them in some ways and much less in others.
I solicit advice, so I think I am doing okay. The real test will be when she starts puberty. I have no idea how protective I will be.
I’m not a helicopter parent yet - I’m not certain my son is quite old enough for me to be (he’s almost 3) - but I do see helicopter tendencies that I will have to actively fight as my son gets older. I actively dislike the notion of being a helicopter parent so much that I’m hoping that’ll temper my tendencies.
Out of curiosity, has anyone noticed whether kids whose parents both work are more or less likely to be helicopter parents than those who have a parent at home?
I’m the absolute opposite of a helicopter parent. Mine are 5 and 6, and my goal is to get them self sufficient ASAP. They make thier own sandwiches, dress themselves in the morning (as long as it’s weather appropriate I don’t care how bad it clashes) and do thier own homework. They play outside by themselves (within the agreed boundaries) and I don’t worry because I keep the windows open and peek every so often. If they come whining to me that they’re bored, I give them the same answer my mother gave me; “Bored? I’ll give you something to do: clean your room, sweep the kitchen and dining room, wash the tub, do the laundry, and make dinner.” They get unbored really fast.
Basically, I think my job as a parent is to guide them, not control them. I don’t have the friggin’ patience for that.
Oooh, good question! Thinking about the helicopter parents I’ve encountered through teaching, perhaps there’s a tendency for one or the other to have a part-time job which has hours fitting in with the school day. However, this is perhaps a symptom of helicopteriness (which should be in the dictionary!), making the child the centre of their universe and fitting mundane necessities such as earning a living around them. Also, there are of course many non-helicopter parents with such work patterns.
I have to say, the children I enjoy teaching most, and who achieve the most, are those with parents fully accepting, and indeed enjoying, the fact that their children are not miniature versions of themselves. This may manifest itself through an antihelicopter approach, or in some cases through a very driven intention to see their children succeed, hands-on to the point that it is easily misinterpreted as pushy or helicopter, but with a crucial difference in that they have a realistic understanding both of what the child is capable of, and of what they will actually be pleased to have achieved. Those parents are rare, but a joy to work with.
I’m not - although I will admit to being like Dung Beetle - and so is my husband. Son would have a school project to do, and by the time the two of us were done with it - let’s just say the child stopped telling me about this assignments by the time he hit high school. We’d end up making it twice as much work - but dayum they were cool when they were finished!
Now that he’s an adult, I can’t hover even if I wanted to. The government won’t let me.
I think this: Our office consists of me and three mental health professionals who do mental health counseling and some work with special needs students. is the most imporatant sentence in the OP.
My own experience is that parents like this are very, very afraid, and social/economic developments during these kids’ lifetimes has only made matters worse. This is true for many parents, who can no longer, as their parents did, assume that their kids will be more successful than they themselves are. But for parents of kids with special needs or mental health issues, the fear is much deeper and wider.
Knowing when a child with mental health problems or with various disabilities “should be expected to start handling things themselves” can be difficult, especially considering the near-complete absence of good mental health care for children.. A lot of these parents have been making it up as they go along for the whole of their children’s educational career – filling in the gaps where services did not exist or were not offered. That they do not act normal is, then, to be expected.
And that in the long run this may be counterproductive may seem self-evident. However, trying to get that message across to a parent who has had to deal with the reality of educational systems which regard literacy as optional for kids whose parents do not get in there and start making loud noises may be difficult.
It’s a bit like people who learn maladaptive coping methods in a dysfunctional family – they have learned to behave in this way in a system in which this is the way things get done. They have evidence that it works – their kids made it to college. When the conditions change, however, they are likely to keep using the same techniques which no longer apply and may be self destructive.
This is not, obviously, true in all cases. But in many cases, I think parents would be happy to quit hovering except that they see no alternative any more.
I spend some time on another board that is primarily women making ends meet. Some of them are well off, some of them not, some of them are SAHMs some of them are not (and some of them are male).
One of them recently came on saying that she was going to quit her job but she didn’t know how she was going to make ends meet. They need her income in order to make the mortgage/buy groceries/heat the house and her husband was already working two jobs. But her job was cutting into her ability to be a good mom. The kids need to come first.
Now, I understand that work life balance can be a challenge - and being a good mom is a tough job. But keeping a roof over your head and being able to afford groceries seems like a critical component to raising kids.
Her job didn’t sound particularly demanding (though it did involve odd hours) and her kids are middle school age - old enough to be home for a few hours by themselves - unless there are responsibility issues she isn’t mentioning.
I was very helicoptery in a very physical sense when my oldest was a toddler because he was aggressive. I didn’t want him to hit anybody.
As they get older, I’m too damn lazy to be a helicopter parent, though I do more than my own parents did (I make sure homework gets done and I’ll be taking them to visit colleges)
I’m not sure if things come across right in my post - it’s hard to be as sarcastic online as I am in real life Of course, unquestionably, paying for essentials (and more) is part of raising kids. My observation was of the very smart, very capable parents (mostly mothers, it has to be said) who could easily have been working their way back into a career path, but instead have opted for low-paid part-time jobs, the rest of their time spent fussing over children who increasingly do not need them there. I feel sorry for the mothers, apart from anything else, because it’s not going to be long before they’re left with neither a career nor a young family to dote on, and a husband who has become a workaholic to compensate.
Most helicopter parents that I see are parents of only one child. They put huge amounts of time and effort into that child and can’t imagine that, unlike them, the rest of the world does not revolve around their child.
Around here I call them the hat patrol. I live in Tucson and it’s hot 90% of the time and overexposure to the sun is a real problem. But there is the kind of parent that slathers sun screen on their child every day several times and makes sure they wear an FDA approved sun hat all the time. To be a good example the parents also wear such a hat. When I see a family of the carefully hatted, I run the other way.
Last year a mom (of an only child) came up to me complaining the their child’s 1st grade teacher was not consistently putting sun screen on their son before he went outside for every recess. And that terrible teacher wasn’t forcing the boy to wear his SPF 30 hat every day! Teachers have enough to do without worrying about putting sunscreen and hats on each kid 3 times a day!
I just put a bit of sun screen on the kids in the morning (unless I forget) and don’t think about it again for the rest of the day. They’ve survived.
This is all very, very true! Oddly, in our center, the worst helicopter parents generally have the kids with the smallest problems. Not always, but mostly. Maybe this isn’t so odd. If your kid is a dwarf or wheelchair bound, it’s easy to know how to help them. In fact, the counseling staff sometimes leaves that to me. If they read slowly or are anxious when it comes to speaking in class, not so much.
I also wonder if these parents can see that whatever situation they’re dealing with is not unique. Like the hat parents - surely they must know that the sun shines on other people’s kids, too, but those other people don’t get all nuts about it.
I confess, I get great pleasure in telling parents that none of the freshmen are getting much sleep these days, not just their kid. And that they’re all new to college, not just their kid. And that all the freshmen were the best at what they do in their high school, not just their kid.
Of course, unquestionably, paying for essentials (and more) is part of raising kids. My observation was of the very smart, very capable parents (mostly mothers, it has to be said) who could easily have been working their way back into a career path, but instead have opted for low-paid part-time jobs, the rest of their time spent fussing over children who increasingly do not need them there. I feel sorry for the mothers, apart from anything else, because it’s not going to be long before they’re left with neither a career nor a young family to dote on, and a husband who has become a workaholic to compensate.