Helicopter parenting is nothing but too much of involvement of parents in their child’s life. It has both good and bad effects on your child’s life. Extreme is the word, if you are extremely involved in your child’s life it can have ill effects on his future, his decision making abilities and also his capability of surviving in this competitive world. Involvement is required however within limits, preferably to monitor what your child is doing and to create a little bond between your child and you.
Helicopter parenting makes you more aware
Helicopter parenting is very essential at times. You know, you would never harm your child and neither would you ever let anything bad happen to your child. However if you wouldn’t have even slightest involvement in your child’s life you wouldn’t know what is happening in his life or what sort of people is he with. Helicopter parenting gives you a chance of becoming your child’s best friend. By doing so you develop a bond with your child, which help you communicate freely with your child. You can be his guide and help him take his decisions. Your help in a few other issues can also really be very supportive for your child.
With the aid of helicopter parenting you can get to know about your child’s life. Like everyone knows lonely teen are prone to get addicted to drugs, alcohol, smoking and also teen sex. Your involvement can help you know what your teen is up to, where does he go, type people he meets, etc, all this information is really very important at times. As you become your child’s best friend he will know he has a support to fall back on and will come and discuss his finest issues with you. Helicopter parenting will help your help your child better and more freely.
It is very normal to learn from your mistakes, you might have made mistakes and learned from them as well. At times you get protective about your child and would want him to commit mistakes you have committed. You act as a shield for your child and tell him your experiences, to get your child aware of the consequences involved with the situation. This is where helicopter parenting is used. Only if you are involved in your child’s life will you know about the situations he is into and only then can you guide your child. Helicopter parenting here helps you help your child from falling down just the way you did.
Too much involvement is always bad
The word weakness here means the problems, the issues and the inconvenience you create for your child with helicopter parenting. Helicopter parenting is too much of involvement in your child’s life, be it for his good or for his bad, this involvement can get your child depending too much on you. If your child is not independent enough, he can face problems with his future. He would look for your support in everything he does, which is not right as he won’t be able to face problems associated with his life, himself. By you creating a shield for your child, your child will not have his own experiences to learn from.
Too much of your involvement in your child’s life will make your child live the way you want him to live. He will peruse your dreams, your way, which means your child will have no dreams of himself. Living your dreams will also mean that the child will not have the ability of creating his own dreams. If he doesn’t dream he will have no ambitions of making his dreams come true. All this is not right; your child is an individual and need to learn how to live in the world by himself, by accomplishing his own dreams.
When your child grows up into an adolescent he would want to live his life, his way. Too much of your involvement and interference in his life can also make your child rebel against you. A rebellious teenager has the potential of purposely doing what is not to be done by him. He knows what is right and what is wrong however would deliberately choose the wrong path to provoke you. He will not realize that the wrong path will harm him.
The bottom line
Helicopter parenting has both good and bad consequences. You must get involved in your child life where it is required to stop him from things that are really harmful for him. However too much of involvement can get you and your child into unmanageable situations. Let your child make mistakes and learn from them.
