If you’ve never heard the term “helicopter parenting,” that’s OK. I hadn’t either until about a year ago. Evidently the title is quite popular these days, though often used negatively, as in, “She is SUCH a helicopter parent!”
As the name implies, helicopter parenting refers to parents who hover over their children constantly, making their offspring the planet around which they orbit. Helicopter parents are entrenched in their children’s lives, so much so that even once they reach young adulthood, ages 18-20, some parents go along with their kids to job interviews and even interact with their college professors.
Here’s the Wikipedia definition:
Helicopter parent is a colloquial, early 21st-century term for a parent who pays extremely close attention to his or her child’s or children’s experiences and problems, particularly at educational institutions. These parents rush to prevent any harm or failure from befalling them and will not let them learn from their own mistakes, sometimes even contrary to the children’s wishes. They are so named because, like helicopters, they hover closely overhead, rarely out of reach, whether their children need them or not.
Extreme? Not to some.
To be continued…
Sarah, thanks for explaining this term. I had been seeing it everywhere and wondering.
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Thanks also for your philosophy of parenting by trial and error. That’s what it’s all about isn’t it! Not perfect parenting, but parenting by learning.
And it should be the same way for kids (IMHO) — they also need to learn by trial and error, instead of being helicopter parented
Bridget, I’m with you on that!
I see too many parents who expect things to be a certain way and operate without the word “flexibility” in their vocabularies. Learning by trial and error is outside their realm of understanding, which is sad for both them and their children. One formula does not work on every child.
Thanks for your comment!