Helicopter Parents
November 14, 2008
Filed under Parenting & Family Posts
Scrolling and clicking my way through “Good Parenting Magazine“, I came across a bunch of articles on Helicopter Parents. I stayed a while and read.
This term Helicopter Parents is one I’ve been aware of for a couple of years. It basically refers to parents who hover around all aspects of their children’s lives, meddling, mollycoddly, intervening, rescuing, mediating. For instance, they may race down to the school to talk the teachers out of the detention Billy earned himself five minutes after Billy texts them about it. Or they may micromanage aspects of play, filling their children’s schedules well into their teens.
I once ran a course for adult jobseekers. One young man turned up to commence the first morning with his mother shadowing him. He was 24. He came into the room and asked if his mother could join us, she wanted to sit in. We said, “no.” We were told by his consultant and the site manager this was the first time the guy had been in anything related to their office (including job interviews they sent him to) without his ma there.
It certainly didn’t hurt him. (Probably annoyed the crap outa her, though).
Back at the online magazine … I particularly enjoyed an article called Forget the Helicopter Parents. Be a Submarine Parent! which gave a healthy alternative to this obsessive and overinvolved parenting style. The writer says, among other things,
Let’s look at the difference between helicopter and submarine parents: Helicopter Parents: Prepare sack lunches for their child, complete with dinosaur shaped sandwiches and lengthy notes extolling the wonder of their child’s intelligence, good looks and ability to use the remote. Submarine Parents: Lay out a variety of school lunch supplies and encourage their child to pack his own lunch. If Matt packs only chips and carrot sticks, he’ll get hungry and pack a bigger lunch the next day.
I guess the Submarine is an ideal in many respects. Where do you sit on the sliding scale between helicopter / submarine / Admiral (issuing orders from afar but largely disconnected from the daily needs/joys/pains of the “troops’” lives)? (You don’t have to answer it aloud. :)) And where’s the balance between protection/provision and hovering/spoiling?
I would have to say I’m not quite a submarine parent, but closer to that than the other. I am all for creating independence and allowing children to learn through natural consequences. The lunch situation is a good example.
My soon to be 15 yo stepdaughter has gone hungry at school several times, because she didn’t bother to pack her lunch.
But, after reading about Love Languages, its important to recognize that sometimes you need to make them a lunch and put a note in it.
I’m with you. I’m more Submarine parent. But I do admit that I usually have torpedoes greased and loaded in the tubes ready to defend them.
For some reason, i had always thought that “Helicopter parents/managers/problem solvers in business” were individuals who ‘flew in’ when a major problem needed solving, and then flew out again when that task was done. 34 years I had this assumption. Well, maybe 24 (as i had no real understanding of ‘helicopter anything’ before the age of 10)!
It’s certainly my aim to be a submarine parent - pootling around under the scenes, keeping an eye on proceedings with my periscope and occasionally prepping the missile tubes. I can imagine though, with a first child (which i have), that it’s quite easy to inadvertently become a helicopter parents, especially when you just ‘want the best’ for your kids. Just shows me every day that a lot of this parenting is not ‘natural’ stuff - it needs a lot of standing back, deciding on the best route to take for the long term benefits of your kids
I think the struggle for all of us is that parenting is really simple: some days you get it right by being intuitive, other days you get it right by being counter-intuitive.
See? Simple.
I feel that tension you talk about, Ross. To be the best for them is an instinct that we should listen to but it often means denying them gratification, which paints us as the villain.
I’m just aware at the moment with both boys in different areas of their lives, of how they’re saying “You can back off now, Dad, I’ll take it from here.” So I pull back on the joystick and fly my chopper back to the landing pad. And sit there thinking “Now what will I do? … I know … I’ll blog …”
“Do as little as possible. It encourages their independance”
(Except when they eat MY chocolate, then its war)
I’m more a submarine. But I’m not sure if that’s coz I haven’t yet emerged from the murky depths of childbirth and night feeds, or whether I really believe its important for children to learn from their own behaviours (and mistakes), and to learn some very valuable life skills.
(Am I getting on high horse?)
Hmm. We once interviewed a girl for a function managers position (yes, management position), who was in her 30s and living at home.
She was good, but not the person.
Her mum rang a week later (we were still interviewing) and abused whoever it was that answered the phone for not calling this girl back and telling her whether she got the job or not!
With that, we tossed her application in the bin! That ruled her right out.