Witnessing your child make a mistake, experience failure or struggle with stressful emotions is challenging for any parent. But for helicopter parents? It’s flat out unbearable — which is why they “hover” close to their kids in order to intervene at the first sign of a tough situation, whether it be social, emotional or academic. Sound exhausting? It is, and today, helicopter parents are not only burning out their children with their micromanaging, but themselves, too.
What exactly is helicopter parenting? We looked at the current thinking in the child and family psychology area to define what it means to be a helicopter parent, how it impacts both kids and caregivers, and the best ways to avoid falling into the helicopter parenting trap.
What is helicopter parenting?
Helicopter parenting refers to a parenting style adopted by caregivers who are overly involved in their children’s lives, often to the point of controlling every aspect of their activities and decisions.
Helicopter parents may also have tendencies of frequently correcting their child and have strict rules and expectations in an effort to help their child achieve success. They may also limit their child’s opportunities to make their own choices.
Generally, helicopter parents are known to bail out their kids when tough situations arise and solve their problems for them. Professor Lisa Barnett of Melbourne’s Deakin University recently conducted a study on the subject. As she points out, “if everything is super safe, kids don’t have that opportunity to test themselves and test their boundaries and work out what they can do and what they can’t do, and then you have kids who don’t really understand their own abilities.”
How the definition of helicopter parenting is changing
While definitions of the four most well-known parenting styles have remained consistent through the years, the definition of helicopter parenting continues to evolve, according to experts.
The concept of helicopter parenting was first introduced by child psychotherapist Haim Ginott in 1969 in relation to the negative parent-child relationship that can form between teens and overbearing caregivers. In 1990, child development researchers Foster Cline and Jim Fay coined the specific term “helicopter parent” to describe how overprotective “hovering” behaviour was becoming increasingly prevalent among parents with children of all ages.
Today, the term “helicopter parenting” is just as prevalent as ever, but it is overlapping with “intensive parenting.” This style of parenting not only includes “hovering” to stay overly involved in a child’s life, but investing an increasing amount of time, money and energy to ensure a child’s “success”. This can take many forms, including micromanaging marks and assignments through online portals to prevent bad marks or spending more money on extracurricular activities, sports or tutors.
So, why are helicopter — or intensive — parents doing more than ever? Much of it has to do with today’s educational achievement culture, or the widespread belief that the better a student performs in school, the better their chances of success. This idea has both increased the stakes — and competition — when it comes to getting into university, and helicopter parents are swooping in more than ever to try and help. In fact, most of these parents feel completely responsible for their kids’ academic success.
The thinking is that their kid needs really good marks, academic rigour and impressive extracurricular activities to get into a good university in order to be successful and happy in life. With standardised test scores playing such a big role when it comes to getting into university, the process can feel very data driven which is fuelling many helicopter parents to feel even more pressure and, in turn, intervene even more.
Examples of helicopter parenting at every age
Helicopter parenting can occur through all stages of a child’s development. Here are some age-by-age examples of helicopter parenting and how they impact kids:
Helicopter parenting of toddlers
Helicopter parenting patterns can start as early as not allowing your toddler to fall when learning to walk and catching them every time — even when there is no risk of injury.
Other examples of helicopter parenting at this age are hovering over a toddler as they play on the playground, not allowing them to interact with other children without close supervision, directing their play or speaking for them. This overprotective behaviour depletes opportunities for kids to gain confidence and mastery over new skills, according to experts.
Helicopter parenting in preschool
Being overly protective is still a go-to trait for helicopter parents during the preschool stage, as is the tendency to overhelp. For example, helicopter parents may volunteer in a child’s classroom to an excessive degree in efforts to make decisions for them to avoid them experiencing any pain, unhappiness or discomfort. They may also tell their children what toys they may play with and even dictate who they can be friends with.
Helicopter parents may do too much for their kids at this stage rather than let them do age-appropriate things. This is a developmental period that is marked by limit-testing that is necessary to develop a sense of self. Too much “helicoptering” here may contribute to feelings of anxiety or rebellion.
Helicopter parenting in primary school
When kids start primary school, helicopter parents most notably start to micromanage academic work, according to our experts. Helicopter parents may complete or oversee homework assignments, closely monitor marks and even meet with their child’s teacher or principal to demand changes to marks or special treatment.
On the social front, helicopter parents may overschedule their school-aged children’s activities, provide conflict-resolution with friends or clean and organise their child’s room. But this can backfire in a big way at this stage because tweens are naturally prone to pull away from their parents in favour of their peers on the cusp of primary and secondary school. Family conflict can escalate during this time if parents are trying to manage their kids’ lives too much.
Helicopter parenting of kids in high school
Many helicopter parents kick micromanaging into high gear around academics in high school with the belief that “perfect” marks are necessary to be successful after graduation. Helicopter parents often check school grading portals daily and text their children at school with questions, concerns or other thoughts. This can trigger anxiety in children and affect their relationships with their parents.
What leads to helicopter parenting?
Anxiety and fear are the biggest contributors to the helicopter parenting style, according to the experts. Managing the urge to hover requires parents to notice and manage their own anxiety in order to support their child’s learning and exploration. When parents struggle with this kind of worry and self-regulation to the extent that it impacts their behaviour, they may engage in helicopter parenting.
Here are the most common triggers that lead to helicopter parenting today:
Desire to prevent “dangerous” outcomes
Parents who worry about the consequences of not managing and intervening are most likely to engage in helicopter parenting.
These consequences can include both real potential dangers, including substance abuse and unsafe social media use, or perceived threats such as bad marks or bad friend influences.
Feeling the pressure to be perfect
Some experts believe the primary reason parents engage in helicopter parenting is the tendency to define aspects of their own self-image in terms of their children’s lives. They believe their children are a reflection of themselves, as well as their parenting skills. Hence, parents hover ever more to maintain an image of being good parents with perfect children.
Personal childhood trauma
The helicopter style parenting can often stem from the caregiver’s own childhood. Parents may have been raised in an unsupportive or emotionally negligent household, and they want to ensure their child never has to suffer the same way. These traits are often rooted in anxiety about their child’s safety or fear of failure for their child.
One expert refers to these helicopters as “reactionary parents” who hover because they believe their own parents were not sufficiently involved in their lives. So these parents overcompensate because of their own subjective experiences as children growing up.
The effects of helicopter parenting
Unlike authoritative parenting or gentle parenting, which experts agree can offer benefits for the entire family, the helicopter parenting style is only known for its drawbacks. According to a psychologist, negative effects of helicopter parenting during adolescence include:
- Lowered self-esteem and self-confidence.
- Increased anxiety and stress in unfamiliar situations.
- Inability to make independent decisions.
- Difficulty dealing with failure.
When it comes to long-term consequences of helicopter parenting, the negative effects extend even further and get more complicated, according to experts. They include:
Delayed development in relation to peers
Children and teens who have helicopter parents learn to be more fearful of the outside world and new challenges, which can make them appear more immature than their peers. This is why recent generations seem “younger” than their chronological ages. For example, it’s now more common for teens to postpone or even opt out of getting a driver’s licence.
Strained family relationships
Experts worry that a hyperfocus on academic success comes at the cost of parents’ relationships with their kids. The last thing they want is to be judged on their academic performance by their parents, when they’re already feeling the pressure at school.
Mental health conditions later in life
Young adults with helicopter parents may also suffer setbacks in university and beyond. They may struggle to cope when they leave home; they lack the experience and resilience they need to navigate this life transition because someone has always taken care of things for them. A 2020 study by researchers at Wollongong University concluded: “Remembered childhood experiences of being overprotected, overvalued and experiencing leniency in parental discipline, were associated with higher traits of pathological narcissism in young people.” Anxiety, depression and substance misuse are further risks in more extreme cases.
Parental burnout
It’s not just children who feel the negative effects of helicopter parenting. Caregivers also feel the pressure to take on an enormous amount of extra responsibilities, and it leads to more parental burnout. Many parents today report feeling responsible for their children’s academic achievements and success. This creates pressure and an unrealistic, unhelpful expectation that can make family life difficult.
How to avoid helicopter parenting
To avoid becoming a helicopter parent, some experts recommend encouraging your kids to be more independent and to face more challenges without setting strict boundaries on how they tackle them. Have conversations with your child about how you are excited for them to learn and grow and will be there to support and work collaboratively with them. If a parent is struggling with letting their child have more independence, they can seek support from a family therapist who can teach them skills and tools.
Here are some other ways of overcoming a helicopter parenting habit:
Value your relationships with your children over academics
Be sure the expectations you have for your child line up with your family’s core values, not those of educational achievement culture. Examples of core values include kindness, resilience, creativity, curiosity and strength, as opposed to getting perfect marks.
Pause before stepping in to solve a problem
This requires some self-awareness and noticing when you are fearful and feeling compelled to “help”. But if you can give kids the opportunity to learn how to manage their own lives, they will feel more confident, competent and connected to you.
Prioritise trust and communication above all else
Letting any process unfold the way it’s meant to requires trust. What that trust looks like in parenting is communication. It’s a lot of listening, empathy and respect. Being a warm and safe place as they go through the tumultuous process of growing up is actually one of the most protective things we can do for our kids.
The bottom line on helicopter parenting
By being overly involved in their children’s lives, sometimes to the point of controlling every aspect of their activities and decisions, helicopter parents compromise a child’s ability to learn critical decision-making skills and independence. This can lead to delayed development, strained family relationships and even mental health conditions like anxiety and depression.
Though the “hovering” of a helicopter parent is often rooted in love, the way that love is translated to the child can be detrimental to both parties. Parents need to find ways to care and love their child in a supportive and productive way instead.
