Helicopter Parenting May Be Ruining A Generation Of Children

Many months ago, I blogged about helicopter parents, and how I thought constant hovering, not allowing children to experience failure, always being involved in school, sports and friends, was unhealthy for both parent and child.  Now Julie Lythcott-Haims, former Stanford dean, has expressed the same view.  She noticed a disturbing trend during her decade as dean of freshmen at Stanford University.  Incoming students were brilliant and accomplished on paper, but with each year, more of them seemed incapable of taking care of themselves.

Simultaneously, parents were becoming more and more involved in their children's lives.  They talked to their children multiple times a day and swooped in to personally intervene anytime something difficult occurred.  Lythcott-Haimes came to believe that parents in affluent communities have been hobbling their children by trying so hard to make sure they succeed, and by working so diligently to protect them from disappointment and failure.  Overhelping might assist in developing and impressive resume for college admission, but it robs the child of the chance to learn who they are, what they love and how to navigate the world.  Overhelping can leave young adults without the strengths of skill, will and character that are needed to know themselves and to craft a life.

Lythcott-Haims, along with a growing number of writers, are urging stressed-out helicopter parents to breathe and loosen their grip on their children.  Our job as parents is to put ourselves out of a job.  We should be striving to raise independent adults, ready to take on all that life might throw at them.  Lythcott-Haim's has a short test for parents to take to see if they are a helicopter parent.

1.. Check your language.  If you say "we" when you mean your son or daughter, as in "We're on the travel soccer team"  it's a hint that you are intertwined in an unhealthy way.

3.  Stop doing their homework.

My children had many failures along the path to adulthood, and hard as it was to see them disappointed when not making the team, serving detention at school for rule infractions, not finishing assignments on time and suffering the consequences, it did teach them there are roadblocks in life.  I think it has served them well in adult life, as they have all overcome obstacles and have succeeded.  I like to think that our parenting had something to do with this.