“Helicopter Parenting”: Some Commonsense Advice

Family Friday

Popular in the 1950s and 60s, the tabula rasa or "blank slate" theory of child development posits that a baby is like an empty canvas onto which a parent can paint pretty much anything.  Provided the right guidance and a lot of love, this theory gushes, your child will thrive.  Conversely, if there is anything "wrong" with your child (e.g., ADHD, homosexuality, general nonconformity), the blame lies squarely with the parent.  

Increasing understanding of genetics and biological influences has largely debunked the blank slate theory.  Emotionally, however, many of us still cling to its vestiges.  For some of us, this manifests as a strong and ultimately unhealthy need for control of the child’s environment.  In my opinion, the so-called "helicopter parenting" phenomenon, in which parents hover around their children’s academic and social circles to ensure optimal outcomes, derives from this need for control.    

Distinguishing parental involvement from parental control is crucial, but not always easy.  However, if you find yourself attempting to create an unrealistic, artificial world for your child, in which disappointment and unfair treatment occur infrequently if ever, you are likely overinvolved in your child’s life.

Academic and Extracurricular Achievement
With intellectual capability, musical or athletic talent, and the like, healthy parental involvement includes encouragement through exposure and positive feedback, such as offering lessons and providing praise.  Once you have done this, your child’s interest will either catch fire or it won’t.  If your child plays the violin or joins the football team to please you (or avoid your anger), you have provided external motivation only – and once you are not around, that motivation will seep out like air from a punctured tire. 

Peers
Many parents fret feverishly about their children’s friendships.  Some even discourage their children’s relationships with peers of a different religion, socioeconomic status, or intellectual ability for fear that their children will pick up bad habits or otherwise change in negative ways.

While children can and do learn habits and attitudes from peers, your influence will ultimately factor in much more.  By attempting to hand-pick your children’s friends now, you may hamper their ability to relate to diverse others in adolescence and adulthood. 

One of my son’s friends, while bright and reasonably well-behaved, has cringe-worthy manners.   Specifically, he never says "please" or "thank you," but merely makes demands (his mother has a general reluctance to "make" him do things, but that’s a whole different topic).  I’ll admit that this makes me wince, and more than once I have worried that my son will follow his lead and abandon his pleases and thank-yous. 

I cannot parent other people’s children (a topic I will address in the near future), and I do not intend to take the extreme step of banning the friendship.  However, I have praised my son for his manners, emphasizing that he does a great job of remembering to use them.  If his friend’s rudeness does start to affect him, I can quickly point this out to him (see my Zack and Cody blog) and pose consequences. 

The lesson here: as my son gets older, I’m hoping he can make informed decisions about what qualities he would like his friends to have.  If he has only interacted with "perfect" children (who don’t exist, anyway), he will not have much of a knowledge base upon which to draw. 

Teachers and Coaches
Last week, I attended a meeting for swim team parents, and the organizers explained that parents are not allowed on the swimming pool deck during practice – and that this is actually a county regulation.  One man, becoming rather belligerent, kept repeating, "I am paying for a service, and you are telling me that I don’t have the right to observe that service?!?" 

He clearly felt ownership of his child’s experience.  Like any concerned parent, I’m sure that he wants her to enjoy swimming, develop her athletic skills, have fun, improve her safety around the water, and all of those positive things.  But I’m wondering what difference he feels his physical presence poolside would make?  He may be concerned that she’ll be ignored, overlooked, or given incorrect instruction.  I can understand those fears – but what happens later, if she gets an incompetent high school teacher, college professor, or boss?   

When I was in graduate school, I knew a 24-year-old master’s student who received a B on a midterm.  This was so upsetting that she brought her mother in with her to speak to the head of the department.  The mother explained that her daughter had never gotten less than an A on any exam.  I don’t know if her grade was changed, but I do know that very few people in the department respected this student after that.  This was one "helicopter parent" that should have been (figuratively) shot down – years before. 

By Jenny Douglas Vidas

Comments

[Natalie Schwartz]

The distinction you make between parental involvement and parental control is excellent. “Helicopter parents” will go to great lengths to protect their children from disappointment, mistreatment and failure, particularly when it comes to school. While their intentions are good, they are preventing their children from accepting personal responsibility and acquiring the knowledge and skills they will need later in life.

This is a theme I heard many times from teachers while researching my book, “The Teacher Chronicles: Confronting the Demands of Students, Parents, Administrators and Society.” I interviewed more than 50 teachers, and many of them expressed their concerns about parents who are excessively involved and make inappropriate demands that are detrimental to their children.

A high school history teacher told me he had to make up a special exam for one of his students that offered three multiple-choice answers rather than his usual four. He had students in his classes who were allowed to take a test over and over until they achieved a B. I spoke with an English teacher who told me one of her students consistently refused to do her homework, and the student’s parents pressured the teacher to overlook the missed assignments.

While parental involvement is critical to a student’s success in school, over-involvement impedes the child’s personal growth and academic progress.