Also called “overparenting,” it is really something we’ve all seen. It’s the parent who’s on top of their kid constantly, always controlling everything they do and interact with. Nobody wants to be “that” parent, but at the same time, it’s easy to understand the urge to play goalie for your kids. But you shouldn’t. Here’s why.
Kids Need Structure, Not Control
The main problem with helicopter parenting is that it’s not about safety but about control. Often helicopter parents don’t deal with anxiety well and, as a result, they manage their kids as a source of anxiety, not as independent beings with their own ideas.
Granted, children have all sorts of terrible ideas that need to be addressed. Left to their own devices, more than a few kids would probably spend all day playing video games. So building structure helps to limit the arena for bad ideas. For example, parental control programs mean you can lock out kids until homework is done or play time starts. Set boundaries, standards of behavior, and other structures that create a safe place for kids to explore, learn, and think while limiting the video games and home destruction projects.arena for bad ideas. For example, parental control programs mean you can lock out kids until homework is done or play time starts. Set boundaries, standards of behavior, and other structures that create a safe place for kids to explore, learn, and think while limiting the video games and home destruction projects.arena for bad ideas. For example, parental control programs mean you can lock out kids until homework is done or play time starts. Set boundaries, standards of behavior, and other structures that create a safe place for kids to explore, learn, and think while limiting the video games and home destruction projects.arena for bad ideas. For example, parental control programs mean you can lock out kids until homework is done or play time starts. Set boundaries, standards of behavior, and other structures that create a safe place for kids to explore, learn, and think while limiting the video games and home destruction projects.
Kids Need Mistakes
Were you a perfect child? Probably not. Perhaps some of us never broke a window or ate a cake they weren’t supposed to, but you can probably remember at least a few incidents from your childhood where you made a mistake and had to deal with it. You might have dealt with it in a way that made it worse, but in the end, you learned from your mistakes.
Every kid needs that. The simple reality is, sooner or later, kids become adults and move out to interact with other adults. Understanding the consequences of our actions, and taking responsibility for them, needs to be taught from an early age. Often experience is the best teacher. By getting over obstacles to what they want, and accepting responsibility for accidents and mistakes, kids learn to be resilient and to be responsible.
Kids Need Space
Finally, stop and consider how you feel, as a parent, having people butt into your life. Thanks to social media and smartphones, every parent has had the experience of discovering everybody else knows exactly how to raise somebody else’s children. It’s annoying, right? They don’t know what’s really going on! How dare they?!
Perhaps your kids feel the same way. Especially as they get older, children are going to be more independent. They’re going to want more time with their friends, they’re going to want to do more online, they’re going to ask for phones and video game consoles. And kids need some degree of space to be social, to interact with peers, to learn about new ideas. Remember that boundaries aren’t just for your kids, they’re also for you.
This doesn’t mean if you don’t see an incipient disaster, you shouldn’t step in. But build a structure, have standards, and trust that your kids will embrace them. A little space goes a long way. If your kids know they can come to you, they will.
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