Have you ever felt like your parents are always getting into your business and want to know everything that is going on? Or maybe they do everything for you and solve all of your problems. Whichever one it may be, it could potentially change the way you live your life. Helicopter parenting is negatively affecting the way kids grow up.
Helicopter parenting has very few positive impacts on children. A research done showed that kids with helicopter parents were more engaged in learning and were more satisfied with their college. Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, a social historian, who thinks helicopter parenting is ok states, “Over-parenting, is not letting our kids take the consequences of their actions, swooping down to rescue them, and the result would be a spoiled brat. But helicopter parenting is entirely different, and I think it is a positive style of child-rearing.”
Contrary to that opinion, Susan Newman, the author of Nobody’s Baby Now: Reinventing Your Adult Relationship With Your Mother and Father, indicated, “When parents are making decisions for their children all the time and protecting them, when they get out on their own they don’t know a thing about disappointment.” This is a very true statement about many parents out there. They are afraid of watching their children fail so they are overprotective.
With parents being over protective, children have a lack of exposure to the real world. When children have a lack of exposure, they are unable to develop the skills needed as an adult. When a child is in a situation of making a decision, parents should allow the child to try and deal with it themselves before stepping in and helping. Parents step in to help make decision because they can’t stand to see their child in pain, by doing this their child is unable to develop the necessary social skills needed. Parents think they are helping their kids; consequently their children will grow up and won’t be mentally and physically tough enough to survive in the real world.
Furthermore, a study at Wollongong University in Australia showed that not only did over parenting affect a child’s emotional and social development it could potentially affect their physical health. Problems may include weight gain, underdeveloped motor skills, and lack of emotion.
Children of helicopter parents have also been shown to be more “stuck up,” meaning they feel like they are better than everyone else. Parents have been found doing their kids projects, homework assignments and even writing college essays. Parents say they do this for their kids because they are embarrassed of their previous failures and want to show how good their kids really are. With parents doing this for their children the child may grow up thinking nothing is ever their fault because instead of making their child face challenging situations, they make it disappear instead of allowing the child to learn and grow from it.
Reducing the amount of parenting you do may be a difficult thing to change but in the long run you are helping your child out. When helping a child make independent decisions don’t always provide your input because that will make them think differently. Also when they are making more superior decisions take a step back and allow them to understand the consequences and how their decisions help determine the way they live their life and not yours. One of the biggest things you can do as a parent is to allow your child to make mistakes. Remember everybody makes mistakes, with making mistakes; it creates learning experiences for both you and your kids. Ally Birgitte declares, “It's not about accomplishments, but about relationships. Just like our children are valued for who they are, not what they do, we as parents need to realize that it also works the same for our children. They love us, not for what we do, but for who we are – their parents.”
Always remember that you aren’t always going to be there for your kids, allow them to experience failure and make their own decisions or they will never make it in the real world. Sometimes you may need to take a step back and think if what you are doing is affecting your child’s future. Allow your kids to have a life, because being a helicopter parent negatively affects the development of your child which will negatively impact their future.
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