Helicopter Parenting: Is It A Bad Thing?
Helicopter parenting is a style where a caregiver is highly involved in the minutiae of their child’s life. As with all parenting styles, there’s widespread research and discussion on the topic of whether it’s healthy for children in the long run.
In this article, we will explore the effects of helicopter parenting and if there are any benefits despite the caregiver’s best intentions.
What is helicopter parenting?
A helicopter parent is one who constantly “hovers” over their child, keeping an incredibly close eye on everything they do. This is particularly true when it comes to their educational pursuits. For instance, a helicopter mom may call her child’s teacher to complain about a bad grade they got on a test. Or, a helicopter parent may continue to call their college-age child every morning to wake them up for class.
The term “helicopter parent” was first used in the 1969 book Between Parent and Teenager, written by Dr. Haim Ginott. The book contains an anecdote from a teenager who complained that their mother “hovered” over them “like a helicopter”. The term was picked up by the larger culture and began to receive more widespread usage in the early 2000s, primarily as a way to describe how some Baby Boomer parents were intruding upon their Millennial children’s lives with this style.
How does helicopter parenting affect children?
There’s a growing body of research that points to helicopter parenting as a style that can be harmful to children. While having active, involved parents is generally a good thing for child development, it often has a negative impact when taken to the extreme.
Children of helicopter parents may have a stunted ability to make decisions and mistakes for themselves, which can be debilitating once they reach adulthood. It can also teach children that perfection is the ultimate goal in everything they do, which can lead to anxiety and other difficulties.
An 2018 study found that children with helicopter parents may be less able to deal with the challenging demands of growing up.
A 2013 study surveyed college freshmen about their parents. It found that those with helicopter parents tended to be less open to new ideas and actions, and were more vulnerable, anxious, dependent, and self-conscious.
Another 2018 study found an association between children with helicopter parents and stronger symptoms of mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression as well as poorer emotional functioning, academic functioning, and decision making.
Signs you may have been raised by a helicopter parent
Recognizing the signs of helicopter parenting in your younger years can help you in the process of learning to become more independent as an adult. If you were raised with this parenting style, you may resonate with some of the following.
You consult with your parents before making decisions
If you grew up with parents who tended to fight your battles for you, you may not have learned the skills or confidence to handle conflicts or decisions on your own. While they have more life experience and can certainly offer advice in certain situations, relying on them for crucial input about most every move you make can be limiting and prevent you from living your own life.
Your parents are your best friends
A good relationship with your parents can be a source of joy. However, if they’re who you’re spending most of your time with, you might be missing out on other opportunities and parts of life. Getting to know other people and expanding your social support network can broaden your horizons and offer you more diverse perspectives on life.
You have anxiety
There are many different potential causes or contributing factors of anxiety disorders, and it’s certainly possible that a person’s anxiety has nothing or very little to do with how they were raised. However, it’s also possible that helicopter parenting could result in a child having anxiety as an adolescent or adult. One reason could be that this type of parent is often highly invested in their child’s success—in academics, sports, or their career, for example.
This can lead the child to feel constant pressure to succeed or to make certain choices. Another reason could be that an adult child of helicopter parents could have gotten so used to someone else making their decisions for them that they struggle to know how to make them on their own, which can be anxiety-inducing.
You have trouble managing difficult emotions
Helicopter parents may go to great lengths to help their children avoid experiencing pain, rejection, or other difficulties in life. Living such an emotionally sheltered existence can result in the child not knowing how to manage their own feelings as an adult, since they weren’t allowed adequate practice in their formative years. Those raised by helicopter parents may live out their emotions in extremes, which may negatively impact their ability to cope with challenges or maintain stable relationships.
You have a strong fear of failure
Many children who were raised with this parenting style were held to high or even impossible standards growing up. Perfection may have been expected of them, whether in academia, work, extracurricular activities, or other areas of life. As adults, they may consequently be afraid to take risks or reach for goals or dreams because they’ve been conditioned to see failure as the worst possible outcome rather than as a crucial learning experience.
Signs that you may be a helicopter parent
People may develop helicopter parenting tendencies for a number of different reasons. One potential cause is being raised by helicopter parents yourself and internalizing their approach, or the opposite—being raised by parents who were uninvolved or even neglectful and striving to be different. Helicopter parents may also have low self-esteem and be relying on their children to provide them with a sense of self-worth. Or, it could simply be a desire to keep their child safe and happy that ends up being taken too far. You might be a helicopter parent if some of the following sound familiar:
You routinely fight your child’s battles for them instead of letting them exercise their own problem-solving skills
You take their health and safety to extremes, like not letting your child learn to ride a bike without training wheels or going to great lengths to shield them from germs
You take over or redo your child’s school projects and assignments to make sure they get good grades
You have very specific ideas of what you believe your child’s ideal future looks like and may push them in this direction
Behaviors like these may begin with good intentions, but they can hold your child back and even have consequences for their mental health in the long run. Recognizing signs of this parenting style in yourself is the first step toward adjusting your approach for the benefit of your child or children.
How can you be the best parent for your child?
Completely shifting your parenting style will almost always be a gradual process. Here are some tips to help you make changes over time so you can allow your child to be better prepared for a life where they’re emotionally stable, in control, and well-equipped to take on challenges.
Let your child fail
Making mistakes is part of the human experience and generally crucial for learning how to cope with life’s ups and downs. Practice stepping back and letting them make decisions, experience consequences, and take what they learned forward with them.
Equip them with important skills
Doing everything for your child is not going to help them learn how to take care of themselves and navigate life. Teach them what you know about how to solve problems, handle conflicts, weigh options to make decisions. Focus on giving them practical skills they can use instead of handing them a cheat sheet to any problem they face.
Manage your own emotions
Letting go of helicopter parenting tendencies can bring up a variety of emotions. You may feel anxious, sad, or even angry as you start to step back and let a bit more of life happen to your child. Sitting with these emotions without letting them control you or make you fall back into old habits can be difficult, but it’s worthwhile in the pursuit of providing your child with a more well-rounded upbringing that will serve them as they progress through life.
An online therapist can support you with parenting
Finding a therapist in your area is one option. Or, if you prefer seeking this type of guidance and support from the comfort of your own home, you can try online therapy. Research suggests that it offers similar benefits to in-person sessions. With a virtual therapy platform like BetterHelp, you can get matched with a licensed mental health professional who can help you work through the challenges you may be facing.
Try therapy
A therapist may be able to help you work through the difficult feelings that can come up as you start to adjust your parenting style. They can help you pinpoint where these emotions may be coming from—perhaps experiences from your own past or mental health conditions like anxiety—and assist you in identifying strategies to help you transition to a potentially healthier way of relating to and raising your child.
Takeaway
What are the symptoms of a helicopter parent?
Helicopter parents may routinely fight their children’s battles for them instead of letting them try to figure out problems for themselves. They may take their children’s health and safety measures to extremes, like not allowing their kids to take the training wheels off their bikes or going to painstaking lengths to defend their kids from germs. Helicopter parents may take over school projects or redo them completely to ensure their kids get good grades. These parents may have very specific ideas of what they want their children’s lives to be like and may push them in that direction, regardless of whether or not it’s what the child wants. While these behaviors may start with the best of intentions, they can actually hold children back and lead to long-term mental health issues.
Is helicopter parenting healthy?
No, helicopter parenting is not healthy. This parenting style is also called “over parenting” and can stunt a child’s ability to make decisions for themselves, which can have significant effects once they reach adulthood. Children tend to learn that perfection is the goal, which can lead to anxiety issues and difficulty meeting life’s challenges.
There are multiple child and family studies that show the effects of helicopter parenting. One 2013 study surveyed college freshmen and found that those who had helicopter parents were less likely to be open to new ideas and were more self-conscious, anxious, vulnerable, and dependent. A study in 2018 found that there appears to be an association between helicopter parents and symptoms of depression and anxiety as well as poorer decision making, emotional functioning, and academic functioning.
What is considered helicopter parenting?
The term helicopter parenting is used when a parent hovers over their child and keeps a close eye on everything they do, particularly their education. This can occur in childhood or adolescence when, say, a parent calls their child’s teacher to complain about a grade. It can also affect a college students well being if the parents call their adult children to make sure they get up for a college class.
What are the different parenting styles?
There are multiple types of parenting styles. The four recognized by the APA are authoritative, permissive, authoritarian, and neglectful or uninvolved. In family psychology, authoritative is often considered the ideal parenting style because it champions warmth and communication while also making it clear that the parents are in charge. Parents make the rules and explain the reasons behind them and the consequences for breaking them, but they still listen to their child’s opinions.
Permissive parents try to be their child’s friend instead of an authority figure. They are warm, open, and talk to their children, but they don’t have a lot of rules and generally have low expectations.
Authoritarian parenting is when the parents have high, inflexible standards. They use punishment to control their child’s behaviors. These parents often have strict rules, and the children may not even know that a rule exists when they are punished for breaking it.
Neglectful parenting is when the parents meet the child’s basic needs but pay little attention to them beyond that. They have low expectations for their child and offer minimal nurturing. This type of parenting may not always be a decision the parents consciously make; sometimes, it can happen just because of the circumstances. For example, single parents, those who work late shifts, or other family troubles can affect the amount of time and affection the parent can give. A good example is Baby Boomers in the 1980s and the latch-key kids who came home from school and were on their own until their parents got home from work.
There are many other types of parenting styles, too, including helicopter parenting, gentle parenting, tiger parenting, elephant parenting, dolphin parenting, attachment parenting, and free-range parenting.
Is a helicopter parent a narcissist?
Not necessarily. Research shows that helicopter parenting may be driven by anxiety, not narcissism. Interestingly, other research has found that children raised by overly involved helicopter parents were more likely to display signs of narcissism, including traits related to both grandiose and vulnerable narcissism.
How damaging is helicopter parenting?
Helicopter parenting can be pretty damaging. Studies found that helicopter parenting is associated with children having symptoms of anxiety and depression as well as poorer emotional development, academic functioning, and decision making. Other research shows that grown children of helicopter parents are more likely to display signs of vulnerable and grandiose narcissism.
Can you reverse helicopter parenting?
You can adjust your overdefensive parenting style, but it may take time and effort. Here are some tips to help you make small changes.
- Let your child fail. Everyone makes mistakes, and learning how to deal with them teaches us how to cope with the ups and downs of life. Step back and allow your child to make their own decisions and allow them to deal with the consequences, good or bad.
- Give them the skills they need to navigate life. Stick with what may be more appropriate parental participation: teach them how to solve problems, make decisions, and handle conflicts.
- Manage your own emotions. It can be difficult to step back and let your child experience life without you watching over them and challenging not to slide back into bad habits. If you need help or support, talking to a therapist can help you manage your emotions.
Are helicopter parents toxic?
Research shows that helicopter parenting can significantly affect children’s behavior and emotional well-being, which some people may consider toxic.
How do you fix helicopter parenting?
Changing how you parent may not be easy, but it can be done. One way to start may be to step back and allow your children to make their own decisions and to deal with the consequences of those decisions. Don’t get directly involved in your children's experiences; instead, teach them what they need to know to navigate life, including how to handle conflicts, make decisions, and solve problems. Talking to a therapist can help you manage this transition in parental involvement as you work through the challenges and emotions that come with it.
Why is helicopter parenting so hard to stop?
Helicopter parenting may be driven by anxiety, which can cause you to feel like you need to control as much of your child’s life as you can to prevent them from failure or physical or emotional pain. In order to stop helicopter parenting, you may also need to work on your own mental health issues, which may be challenging. Individual or family therapy can help you and your kids move through these challenges.
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