Helicopter parenting is a buzz term for new age parents who hover over every aspect of their children’s life.  It can affect either mom or dad.  Are you a helicopter mom or dad?  Do you things for your children, you feel they can’t or shouldn’t have to do for themselves, in the interest of making their lives easier?

If your children are past the age of diapers, then I am clearing you to land the helicopter, and start allowing your children to wake up and be accountable.

I think this generation of children blame us more than we blamed our parents (if at all possible). As helicopter parents, we have controlled so much of their destiny, that they are hard-pressed to take control of the wheel, and just fly.

They seek our approval and then don’t want our approval. They want our opinion and then hate our opinion. They want wings to fly, and then they want their wings slightly clipped so that they can stay and be nurtured.

But parents take it too far in the interest of taking care of everything for them.  Treating kids from middle school on up, as if they are not capable.  Calling teachers and professors to iron out issues, instead of teaching their child to do the communicating.  We are treating our kids as if they just don’t have what it takes to grow up in this world.  And yet, who is it that many turn to when they can’t “google” or turn on a television?

Two of my daughters while in college as under-grads were always on the verge of tears. Ready to turn on the waterworks at any given moment. If you were to look at either one crooked, they burst into tears. Why? What is so tough?

What is so tough is that they go to school (yes, even in grad school)  with a bunch of kids that were raised by helicopter hovering parents. Unable to fully cope on their own, these kids rely on one another for life vests and oxygen masks. Queen Bees and Kingpins take over and decide for our grown kids what websites are hip. What politics you should believe in. Who is the end all be all of the moment. What is a good movie, bad movie, a good book, bad book. They rob your child of any trace of core values that you have instilled. If you are religious, they find atheism. If you are an atheist, they find religion. You can’t win. It is a new kind of rebellion.

“Hey, mom! Stay out of my life! But um’ can you do my laundry, and can I use your house for a party? Oh and I need spending money, and my cell phone bill is due. ”

Now finishing up Grad school, the tears have lessened, but rear their ugly heads once in a while, because neither has reached the golden age of 25 where new thinking says their brains are fully developed.

And in my house, we are not yet finished.  Dad tends to helicopter more than I do, and the two still in high school have to often take control of the steering yoke, and remind him they will be OK.  His desire to control every bump in the road to adulthood may be magnified by the fact that they are the “babies.”  Even their grown sisters hesitate to see them grow up.

As a seasoned mom and nanny, I know it is OK to give up the control and catch them if they fall.  I don’t need to be there for every single moment of every single day.  I remember a time when I went to high school, that parents were never seen, unless someone was in trouble, or you needed a trip chaperone.  But in no way did they hover on campus all day like many do today.

In the interest of a “cushy” pain-free life, did we do too much?

You may have done everything right. Nighttime dinners around the table and dedicated homework area.   Involvement in school – Sports shuttle – Music lessons, and private tutors.  You had the safe house where all of the kids can come over to unlimited snacks for all.  You gave your child what you may or may not have had.  The perfect childhood.  Bumps and bruises free!

But bumps and bruises, and even a bit of scarring is a good thing.  It gives us character and usually reminds us of survival.  That is a gift we all owe our kids.  The gift that we believe in them, and we know they will survive the great big world, and if it gets unbearable, we will be there to catch them when they fall.
Clear to Land!