Research Website: Helicopter Parenting

When it comes to parenting, there is a particular kind of parental behavior that has been making the news. 

Known as helicopter parenting, the name is given to parents who closely watch over the lives of their children, even into adulthood. Often, the helicopter parenting styles that make the news can be so extreme, it is hard for some to even believe it. For example, a mother volunteers in her child’s classroom just to videotape her child all day, everyday. She threatens to sue the elementary school if the school did anything about it. The videotaping finally ended in middle school when they told her no, but that did not stop this mom. She gets caught videotaping her son outside during physical education class, and when the police finally get involved, she pulls her child out of the public education system and homeschools him.

In this research paper I will be examining helicopter parenting and how it effects children in the United States as well as countries around the world. I will be arguing that helicopter parenting styles have detrimental effects on the development of children not just psychologically, but sociologically, both short term and long term.

Parenting is defined by Cohen as the activity of raising a child (Cohen, 2015, p. 340). Like the mythological Lock Ness Monster, the helicopter parent is something more talked about then actually seen. The helicopter parent, like aforementioned, is described as a mother or father who is closely associated with the lives of their children. From solving problems for the child to guiding the child throughout life, the helicopter parent has inserted himself/herself into the lives of their children. Of course, parenting is not something you go into already knowing how to do it, but rather is a learning experience that people get better at with time.

The term parenting came into common use in the 1970s, along with a massive amount of popular books and articles peddling all kinds of advice of advice to all kinds of parents (Cohen, 2015, p. 340). However, if you’re wondering if helicopter parenting is a new thing: it isn’t. The helicopter parent originated during the Millennial Generation; those born between 1981-1996. The term originally appeared in 1969, in the book Between Parent & Teenager by Dr. Haim Ginott, but gained a lot of popularity when people at schools, universities, and even summer camps, started noticing a trend in parenting style. Whereas the previous generation, Generation X, was much more hands off with their children, the parents of millennials were overly active in their children’s lives. In turn, over the last 30 or so years, helicopter parents have been extensively written about and studied (Lewis, 2008). It has become a trope in not just American living, given that in 2016, for the first time in 130 years, more young adults live with their parents than partners. Nevertheless, the U.S. isn’t the only culture to have this: in China, the term “Little Emperor Syndrome” is used to describe how the children of helicopter parents act. 

Children’s need for autonomy increases over time as they strive to become independent young adults (Schiffrin et al., 2014). I believe parents should adjust their level of involvement and control to their child’s developmental level. A study done on high school students found that those who feel as if they are being ‘‘helicoptered’’ also feel that their basic psychological needs are not being met (Schiffrin et al., 2014). This correlates with my belief that when parents engage in controlling behaviors, students’ sense of personal autonomy may be diminished. Students spend 70% of their waking hours outside of school (Hiltz, 2015). Not only is a parent a child’s first teacher, but he or she is their first role model and usually their first advocate. Children’s need for autonomy increases over time as they strive to become independent young adults, therefore I believe parents should adjust their level of involvement and control to their child’s developmental level.

A new study released by the American Psychological Association, proves that if you make it so your child never makes a mistake, this will not adequately prepare them for the outside world. The study followed 422 children of different racial and socio-economic backgrounds over eight years with assessments at ages 2, 5, and 10, with data were collected in a variety of ways (Perry et al., 2018). In conclusion, researchers found that the more a parent was over-controlling or “hovering”, the more it impacted their development negatively. I believe this is because a child can not properly learn to grow, learn, and adjust to the real world if their is someone there doing it for them every step of the way.

The helicopter parenting style has been making headlines over the years across the world, insinuating that this smothering can potentially do more harm than good. Past articles in the New York Times built on these “hovering” parents, such as parents who drop their children off at college and refuse to leave, attending classes with their children for the first week of school, intervening in roommate disputes, and calling professors or administrators when for their every child’s upset (Padilla-Walker & Nelson, 2012). This tends to reflect parents who are simply just highly invested in their children and extremely concerned for their overall well-being, which can cause these well-intentioned actions, to be misdirected. I do believe parents do want the best for their children, going to all ends of the earth to ensure this, but I also know that hanging onto control of a growing human as if they are a robot, is not healthy developmentally.

In 2008, Edward Deci and Richard Ryan published their Self-Determination Theory. According to this theory, the 3 innate needs that all human beings need for healthy development are:

• Basic need for autonomy
• Basic need to be confident in one’s abilities and accomplishments
• Basic need to feel they are loved and cared for

The closer we are to having these 3 basic needs met the more satisfied we are with our lives. The not so shocking part was when these researchers found being too involved or over-parenting in a child’s life, undermined all 3 of these basic needs to different degrees.

Developmental psychologists distinguish between the relationship between the child and parent, which ideally is one of attachment, and the relationship between the parent and child, referred to as bonding (Jackson, 2010). In the stage of adolescence, parents encounter new challenges, such as adolescents seeking and desiring freedom (Jackson 2010). When parents turn to hovering over a child’s daily activities and tasks, the long term affects weigh heavily on their independence, which in turn can have a long-term impact on their personalities and responsibilities. Studies go on to further suggest that helicopter parents tend to raise unemployable children due to their persistence to do everything for their child. People raised by helicopter parents would often find it difficult to land a job, and stick to it, according to Huffington Post. I think all this “hovering” and “smothering”, doesn’t give children and teens a chance to develop social skills which in consequence, results in them lacking the ability to resolve issues with their colleagues in the future.

Parents everywhere want their children to be happy and do well, yet how parents seek to achieve this ambition varies enormously across the world. For instance, American and Chinese parents are increasingly authoritative and authoritarian, whereas Scandinavian parents tend to be more permissive (Doepke & Zilibotti, 2019). In China, parents shepherd their children from the time they are born, until they leave college (Han & Dong, 2009). When their child enters college, the parent choses the major, arranges for transportation, and securing them their jobs right after they graduate (Han & Dong, 2009). On the complete opposite spectrum is Sweden, where they too like every other parent, want their children to do well in life and to be successful. In countries like the United States or United Kingdom- an unequal socitey where there are lots of opportunities if one does well and very negative outcomes if one is less successful—parents will be more worried that their children won’t become high achievers in school. But if you go to a country like Sweden where there is less inequality, parents may be less worried about that, not because they care less about their children, but because the negative outcomes aren’t as bad.

In the United States, this helicopter parent can also be a product of the steadily increasing divorce rates and a parent feeling even more bound to the growth and well being of their child. The dominant household structure for children 60 years ago was a household with two married parents (Cohen, 2015, p. 336). In every group since then, a greater diversity of arrangements have arose beneath broad categories such as; divorce, extended families, same-sex parents, and informal cohabiting relationships (Cohen, 2015, p. 336). The modern attitude toward children as unique and process, naturally leads to increased protectiveness on the parents part, but that tension between freedom and constraint fits with how parenting practices changed over the twentieth century (Cohen, 2015, p. 347). Parents can now be seen trying harder to foster their children’s sense of autonomy and self-expression, and with good intention. However, over-fostering this emotional development has proven to metaphorically suffocate a child’s every movement, in fear of their parents control (Sullivan, 2013). I am not saying parents should be totally hands off in a growing child’s life, I am saying that there are boundaries, important boundaries that can either aid or fail the child when it comes to those crucial years of brain development and also finding themselves in the world. There is nothing wrong with parents advocating for their child, for example between 1990 to 2015 the high school graduate percent increased from 21 percent to 71 percent (Kim & Lee, 2017). Studies show that this is caused due to parents watching over them more (Kim & Lee, 2017). Love, support, and approval is something we all seek for from our parents, but helicoptering a child will result in them pushing their parent away just at moments they most hope their child would want to confide in them.

Being a parent is by no means an easy job to take on, but it is for sure a rewarding, and that is made clear by parents across the globe. Every individual is different and comes from somewhere different, and therefore will bring various attitudes of compassion to the table when it comes to having a child of their own. My hope is that before a couple choses to have a child, no matter where they are in the world, that they chose to educate themselves on the ways to most efficiently and effectively bring up their child, to ensure proper development and autonomy and with that, happiness and joy will reap. Hovering and smothering does no good for anybody, so like many firsts of this generation, lets be the first to land these helicopters for our future children across the world.

Discussion question:

Do you have a(n) helicopter parent(s)? If not, have you ever witnessed a parent “hovering” over their child?

References:

Cohen, N. P. (2015). The family: diversity, inequality and social change. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Doepke, M., & Zilibotti, F. (2019). Love, Money, and Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids. Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvc77fr1

Han, F. B., & Dong, J. M. (2009). ” Helicopter Parents”in Colleges of China. College and University, 84(3), 75.

Hiltz, J. (2015). Helicopter parents can be a good thing. The Phi Delta Kappan, 96(7), 26-29. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24375846

Jackson, L. (2010). Smothering Mothering: ‘Helicopter parents’ are landing big in child care cases. ABA Journal, 96(11), 18-19. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20789779

Kim, J., Lee, Y., & Kim, P. (2017). Intergenerational Transfers Between Young Adult Children and Their Parents in Korea. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 48(2), 217-241. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/44509183

Lewis, A. (2008). Parents: Time to Get Organized. The Phi Delta Kappan, 89(9), 627-628. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20442592

Padilla-Walker, L. M., & Nelson, L. J. (2012). Black hawk down?: Establishing helicopter parenting as a distinct construct from other forms of parental control during emerging adulthood. Journal of adolescence, 35(5), 1177-1190.

Perry, N., Dollar, J., Calkins, S., Keane, S., Shanhan, L. (2018) Childhood Self-Regulation as a Mechanism Through Which Early Overcontrolling Parenting Is Associated With Adjustment in Preadolescence. American Psychological Association, 54(8), 1542-1554.

Schiffrin, H. H., Liss, M., Miles-McLean, H., Geary, K. A., Erchull, M. J., & Tashner, T. (2014). Helping or hovering? The effects of helicopter parenting on college students’ well-being. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 23(3), 548-557.

Sullivan, B. (2013). Hover Charge: Daughter pushes back against pushy parents. ABA Journal,99(3), 71-71. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23425102