Don’t Be a Helicopter
“It is not what you do for your children but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings.” ~Unknown
One of the new entries into the modern dictionary (2011) is the term “helicopter parent” which according to Merriam-Webster is a noun defined as, “…a parent who is overly involved in the life of his or her child.” As a parent of three children, I understand the feelings of wanting to protect your child from danger, from failure, from all the hard knocks that life can sometimes throw at them. I love my kids and I ache every time they feel anxiety about school or the kid down the street or how badly they get thumped playing soccer. We all love our children want to see our kids succeed and grow up happy and therein lies the trap. When we as parents are always there to catch them before they fall or find scapegoats for them when they fail, we are creating a world which is not realistic and ultimately set our children up for failure as adults rather than prepare them for success.
The old saying of, “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day…teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime,” is a simple example of what I’m talking about here. The idea is that we as parents should be teaching our children how to be self-sufficient and the only way to do that is to let them do for themselves and not do it for them. A toddler learns not to walk in Legos by the pain they feel on their little feet, not by the parents rushing in and scooping the child out of the way of the Legos and then cleaning the building blocks out of the way. Why then do parents hover so closely over their children? According to Parents Magazine, the four biggest reasons parents hover over their children are fear of dire consequences (like poor grades or not making the team roster), feelings of anxiety (fear of our children getting hurt or failure), over-compensation (for lack of feeling love from their own childhood) and peer pressure from other parents (feeling guilt for not acting like other helicopter parents). The consequences of being overly involved in every moment of your child’s life are decreased confidence and self-esteem, underdeveloped coping skills, increased anxiety, a sense of entitlement, and underdeveloped life skills.
How do we do it? How do we show and express our love and concern for our children but not hover like a helicopter? Backing off and giving our children room to grow involves some suffering, for our kids as well as for us. “In practical terms, this means letting children struggle, allowing them to be disappointed, and when failure occurs, helping them to work through it. It means letting your children do tasks that they are physically and mentally capable of doing. Making your 3-year-old's bed isn't hovering. Making your 13-year-old's bed is…Remembering to look for opportunities to take one step back from solving our child's problems will help us build the reliant, self-confident kids we need," (http://www.parents.com/parenting/better-parenting/what-is-helicopter-parenting/ ). As parents we want the world for our kids but in order for them to reach their potential and find the happiness we all wish for them, we as parents need to allow them to find it. As always, thanks for reading and I hope you all have a great weekend. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me anytime. Take care of yourself and each other, remember, we’re al in this together.
Wm Reid
Best Home Care Services
325 N Eastern Ave
Connersville, IN 47331
765-827-9833
wmreid@bhcshealth.com