Parents are protective towards their children, be it human beings or animals. In fact, it is a good thing for parents to be involved in their children’s life. It gives a kind of satisfaction to parents when they are around their children and strive to make their lives as comfortable and happy as they can. However, this involvement and protective nature of parents towards children sometimes goes beyond the normal limits and this is when the conflicts between a parent and child begin. Children want protection but the over protective nature of their parents irritates them. A term used for this nature of parents is “Helicopter Parenting” or the “Helicopter Parents”.
This term first came into light in the year 1969 in Dr. Haim Ginott’s book in which some teens expressed their dissatisfaction regarding their parents and said that their parents hover around them like a helicopter. This term gained so much of popularity that it even got an entry to dictionary in 2011. Helicopter parenting is a parenting style wherein parents focus too much on their children. They take the responsibility of their child’s success and failure too seriously and suffer from anxieties and ill health.
Their over-protective behavior not just hurts them but the child as well. The child feels suffocated and burdened because such parents always surround their children and are over controlling and have high expectation from children. Helicopter parents provide no alone time to the child and hover over them 24×7.
There are four common reasons that trigger helicopter-parenting style in people:
Fear of negative consequences
Many a times a bad parenting or a lesser involvement of parents in a child’s upbringing are associated with the low grades at school, poor performance at college level, no jobs, and bad behavior. The parents who adopt the helicopter approach of parenting aim at saving their children from all these negative impacts and give them a safe, happier, and a successful life.
Anxiety
Parents feel anxious about their children’s future and to ensure a safe future they take control of their children’s life and direct it in a way, which they think to be most beneficial for them.
Overcompensation
Parents who due to whatever reason could not get enough love and attention of their parents try to give their children all the love and attention in the world, without realizing that children do not need it that much.
Influence of other parents
When parents see other over involved parents, they also start feeling that it is a better parenting style and thus, they start doing over parenting, which is actually not required.
Consequences of helicopter parenting
Helicopter parents have all good intentions towards their children and initially it tends to have a good influence over the kids but not always. Such overprotective behavior can give the child feelings of low self-esteem and confidence. If parents always protect the child from challenges and failures, he will never develop the coping skills.
If children do not get enough time to spend all by themselves then they might get depressed. If the parents always fulfill every demand of children, they will never learn the value of things and this can hamper their later life. Children are supposed to learn various life skills that help them to deal with challenges in life, but if parents always save their children from the adversities then they will never learn the ways to live life.
Therefore, parents should never be over-protective and over-caring for their children, as such behavior comes in the way of normal development of children.
