Are You A Helicopter Mom?

The term Helicopter Mom or Helicopter Parent is tossed around a lot these days, and as a visual, it almost speaks for itself. While some may see the doting mom as positive, supportive, loving and helpful, my clinical experience has shown this to be a poor tactic.

Being a helicopter mom has few advantages as a parenting style, outside of safety. Kids and people as a whole learn very experientially, and it's through our mistakes and/or barriers that we learn creativity and problem solving abilities. While there are certain mistakes we've experienced that we want to protect our children from, most mistakes really aren't that bad, and overcoming leads to confidence in one's own abilities.

Helicopter parenting robs children of their ability to fail, and then to overcome and succeed. Kids will get their feelings hurt, and they will fall down. Kids will have friends that you perceive as positive or negative, and they will survive these poor choices as well.

To be clear, I am a big believer in nurture, and I don't condone that parents be absent and uninvolved in their kids academic and social lives. Talking to your kids about your values, passions, and worries in life is a great conversation for any kid to have with their parent. We can love and guide our kids down successful paths, without turning them into marionette puppets or extensions of ourselves and our own anxieties and fears. There is an anti-authority gene that flashes during the teen and adolescent years, and being a director who restricts, will only increase the desire to do just the opposite.

Connecting with teachers, getting to know the parents of their peers or significant others is a great way to connect and stay in the loop of concerns, before they really become concerns. This is not to say there cannot be a happy medium, where parents keep an eye on their kids without the smothering aspect of things. I am a parent myself, and while we often want to jump in and rescue our kids, it is just as helpful to watch from a distance knowing that we can spring into action if needed.

Parenting is a hard job for anyone, and I tend to restrict judgment, as we all must do what we need to sometimes to survive. Parents who have more than one, know that they learn from their mistakes, and yes there were mistakes. Hovering over your child can increase their fear to fail, knowing that you will be visibly disappointed. This increases anxiety, and often decreases a willingness to try.

Are you a Helicopter Parent? If you are, stop.

For more information about Allen Wagner, Marriage and Family Therapist, check out his website at http://www.alosangelestherapist.com

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