My wife and I deal with “helicopter parents” often, the worst being called “blackhawks” (as in the attack helicopter).

Give me free range parenting and free range kids. Hard to imagine getting back to that in cities any time soon but I hope this show will give us some hope.

Richard, Stef here -the producer on this hour. I’m curious to know, in what manner do you and your wife deal with helicopter and black hawk parents? As an educator? Or just as another parent on the sidelines of the soccer match?

Part of parenting is making sure that children are cared for and prepared for their future in an age appropriate way.

In many cases lack of resources, lax teachers and mediocre curriculum necessitates that parents who care about their children provide additional support.

There is a fine line between crispies and well prepared kids.

Tom:

Like a lot of other things, media attention has distorted parenting. Helicopter parents were one box…now we have free-range parents?

How about balanced parents that (try) to give each child what they individually need and what is called for in a specific situation or stage in life?

When its hovering that’s called for, I hover. When they need me to back away, off I go. It is not always perfect, but it ain’t rocket science.

My first red flag was about twelve years ago while shopping for a baby shower gift in a large retail store. For sale in the Infant & Children’s department were baby wipe warmers, a small contraption into which you could put the cold wipes, to warm them before touching them to your precious bundle’s delicate bottom. I understand that this is now a standard item in the modern nursery. Oh, dear.

We ave lost the tribe. Extended family that are eyes and ears that watch and care for children from a less restrictive environment.
You should talk about the changing role of the extended family. It is much harder to help a teenager than a toddler. There are more dangers for the teenager than toddler. The best time spent together is the family dinner. It is where the issues of the day can be discussed in a way to teach without focus on direct instruction.

There is merit in failure.
People/children learn the best lessons through failure.
Failure is a teacher.

Parents with fewer children are creating people who are unable to think and act indepenently.

The goal for my four children was to teach them how to make good decisions as teens while they were 60 miles away going 60 miles an hour.

My mother’s helicopter parenting is a consequence of her being a child of an alcoholic father, and growing up fearing that what was dear to her would be lost.
All throughout my childhood and adult life my mother pointed out to me the dire consequences that would occur were I to take even the slightest initiative involving risk: crossing a street when I was little, to taking a long motor trip when I was an adult. It was impossible not to internalize this, and I grew up believing that I wasn’t capable of accomplishing anything, and have suffered profound clinical depression all my life, and today I’m in my sixties. Why even have a child if you’re going to be a patghologically overprotective parent?

Thank you. My husband is a believer in standards based teaching; he makes his students earn their grades, but offers a lot of help along the way. Parents can’t understand why their students aren’t getting A’s off the bat and complain that he is ruining their children’s self esteem. What happened to teaching children that self esteem comes from working hard.
Be involved in what your child is doing, be an advocate, but make sure your kid is doing what they need to do.

One issue that comes in to play with this problem is economic considerations. I’ve been blessed to be a stay at home mom but it comes at a price. We have to watch our family budget carefully and there isn’t a lot of extra to worry about tons of extra curricular activities, pricey private school or french tutors. I feel grateful that these constraints have kept me from falling into the trap of over-consuming and over-parenting.

I am glad to hear this conversation, and curious as to what others do when one parent is a “helicopter” parent and one is a “let kids make mistakes” parent.

I’ve been teaching college students for twenty years. I’ve noted the very disturbing results of helicopter parenting in recent years. Students who aren’t allowed to fail or learn how to succeed through their own hard work and through striving to improve turn into underachieving adults. This is especially true of kids from upper middle-class backgrounds. Students have gotten lazy, disrespectful and incredibly entitled. They think their work is brilliant and praise-worthy and can’t handle any form of criticism. When I get the rare student who is intelligent, polite, hard-working and humble I feel like shouting it from the rooftops.

I fear for the future of America; what sorts of leaders and creators will we have when everyone wants to be given the top prize and effusive praise for barely showing up?

I walked to school every day, played outside every day, and did very well in school. I never took it for granted when I won a spelling bee or a trophy or a scholarship because I worked for it. I feel badly for children whose parents shelter and coerce them and don’t let them learn simple survival and social skills. It’s okay to fail, and it’s okay for one kid to be the best; this makes kids try even harder to succeed. I have seen first-hand the result of the “everyone wins” philosophy and it is a disaster.

These hovering parents are definitely going to regret it in their old age. Hovering children will follow the examples set, coming back to bite them. Scott in Plymouth, Iowa.

EGO = BAD PARENTING

It is the one lesson I have learned and the one reminder I constantly give myself. The quality of my parenting (both for my children and society) rises is in direct proportion to the extent to which I can remove my own ego from parenting.

I always considered myself a free-range parent, a firm believer in down time and kids wandering around. However, when my son started college this fall, I found myself hovering, even to the point of straightening out his online course registration. I always used to comment on helicopter parents here in the Boston area, but now (as my wife likes to remind me), the shoe is on teh other foot.

Hi Tom,

Great show. I have a question which I believe is relevant to the conversation. Has anyone seen a difference in parenting when the parents have an only child versus whether they have 2 or more children? I am 25 years old and have a brother who is two years older than me and I remember when I was growing up, my friends who had no siblings had parents who were much more restrictive. Thus, does having more than one child lead to less “hovering” parents?

Thanks,
Ken

So glad to hear some of the transportation issues! So many of our streets are empty of people, especially kids. Many kids are always strapped in, never to have their feet touch a sidewalk, at least not to get anywhere… Yet many of us remember the great feelings of independence of walking or taking a bus or subway on one’s own!

Four years ago, in Cambridge, a group of us started a new monthly holiday, called Walk/Ride Days, when kids (and adults) are invited to actually do it – get out of their cars! In whatever way they like — foot, bike, scooter, bus, train. Even walk part-way!!! Even carpool… something! Anything!

People love Walk/Ride Days and they have spread to schools and businesses throughout the Boston area, to Portland, Maine, other US states and to the UK.

Walk/Ride Days are on the last Friday of every month (even winter!! ) Would love for you all to join us… Of course, once people “go green” once, they do it many times throughout the month!

Janie
mom of kids ages 8, 11, 13

THANK YOU for this great show/topic. I recently read Free Range Parenting and it really spoke to me. I see parenting as a ‘gray’ issue – looking at parenting as black and white does a real disservice to our children. No parent wants to put their child in harm’s way – but we need to trust that WE know our children and their capabilities and let them roam – if we feel they can handle it. Condemning each other for the way we do or don’t parent OUR our children isn’t helpful.

Read a book recently, “The Parents We Mean to Be” by Rick Weissbourd and the takeaway I got was that parents now say that their children being happy is a high priority and that is a recent phenomenon. I think when parents worry more about their kids being happy, but not responsible and “good” people, we get in trouble. I try (but don’t always achieve) to be consistent in expecting my kids (ages 3 & 6) to be respectful, honest, etc., even if they can’t always get what they want. I hear many other parents say, “Oh, my child would never cooperate like that or stand for that, s/he would flip out, scream, etc.” Which makes me think, “Well, s/he needs to have those disappointments and figure out how to cope with them, so they don’t flip out again and again.” Anyway, the pursuit of happiness may be a bit much.

Question for guests: Are there any studies on whether the broad phenomenon of helicopter parenting is correlated with an increase in older parents – may have had careers they have given up to raise kids, more driven and nervous, perhaps because replacing career-drive with focus on kids?

I am a parent of three kids who is not a helicopter (altho my parents are shocked by how much parents, including us, do with their kids)

The only way to make decisions is to practice – from an early age.
Experience is the best teacher.

Back off, parents!
I felt badly for the teachers in my upper-class town of Westford where parents talked endlessly about the virtues and failures of every elementary teacher.

It wasn’t fair to the teachers– who are human!

I’m a product of parents who went out of their way to make me as independent as possible. Now that I’m older I kind of wish they were a little more protective and involved. As an adult, I’m not as close to them as I wish I was and I think they could have helped protect me from some big issues I had as a kid.

Question: How much is this really about the needs of the child? A lot of today’s parents are former latchey kids who may want the parenting they never got.

There has to be a balance. In some areas of life, in some places, and at some ages, you have to watch more carefully, even if you don’t step in immediately. If the potential harm is a skinned knee, I let it go, but there’s no biking without a helmet!

I am a big believer in kids learning to entertain themselves. My child NEVER complains to me about being bored because both times he did I said “Great! You can help me mop the kitchen floor!” Needless to say he learned very quickly to come up with something to do himself (tv was NOT one of the options). My child has an extremely well developed ability to entertain himself now, to the point that he once kept himself occupied on a plane for two hours with two shoestrings and the emergency plane info card.

I consider this one of my greatest successes as a parent of a 10 year old.

I grew up with free range parents. In terms of my education this was not healthy because I had learning disabilities. Like so many I was past from grade to grade. I finally received help 4 years after graduating high school.

YES- everything a kid does is not a GOOD JOB!

I call kids like that “praise junkies”

Chores are so important to develop self-discipline and genuine self esteem – not self-excess-steem nancy is talking about.

I was shocked when my twin daughters were in their first soccer league (age 4) and the team parent asked me for money for the trophies. Considering that there was no tournament and no champions, I was confused as to why there was a need for trophies. She said that is what the teams always do and that other parents were interested. I told her it wasn’t necesary. At the final game I was shocked when the team parent gave my girls trophies. I was told that I was the only parent pay for trophies and she said she would feel bad if they did not have one. I ended up giving her money for the useless mementos. This was my first encounter with the “everyone is a winner” parenting style, and unfortunately not my last.

Does anyone has a reasonable answer to how a child who have everything a child can have – love, education, good examples, … becomes a criminal, use drugs?

I am so glad you choose to cover this topic. I work as a full-time Nanny and have been employed by many families. I agree the early years are the most influential in a child’s social and language development. By allowing children the knowledge and time to process stressful situations, they learn how to identify their emotions and by watching how their caregivers and mentors, they can learn how to respond. Parents responsibility is in knowing when and how to guide the child.

Parents do not appear to see the inconsistencies in what they are teaching
their children. They go to health clubs with a “No Pain, No Gain” mantra, they are teaching their children “Fear of Failure” when they are so success driven themselves, and the biggest sin of all is the “Micro-management” they complain about at work because it stifles their careers.

A “fearless” look in the mirror should be practiced every morning instead of taking daily cell phone pictures.

I wrote a poem that is just “on topic.” I continue with this struggle daily with my kids.

Attention

On the carpet,
“Watch this!”
“Wait, that’s not it.”
“Wait, that’s not it.”
“Watch me!”

Maddie is transparent,
thrilled that both parents will be at the soccer game.
At the moment she glances across from the defense line,
if my eyes are on her I have won
she has won,
if my eyes are averted when she checks,
if I am reading or talking to another parent
we lose.

Watching TV alone as a child,
a friend felt deserted by her father, lonely.
When my parents watched with me, I wallowed in the warmth.
If I watch with my children but my eyes are closed or in a book or I am folding laundry,
are they lonely?
I struggle all day to ensure they are not lonely,
I fret when they are.

I am distracted by ringing phones, burning pots
and by a nagging boredom with the show.

Baseball in the yard,
do I have to be with Joseph or can I just watch?
Do I have to watch or can I just dispense bat, ball, and glove?
Who loses, and how much, when I ignore him?

The walk I needed in the woods,
the speed I ached for,
to stomp sanity up my boots
to my core,
I had to share with five girls seeking fairies today.
I didn’t get the serenity.
I gave.

At age eleven, showing stories to my mother,
her feigned interest waned,
became an empty “mmhmm.”
She slipped off the other edge and couldn’t summon
the attention.
I don’t want to slip.
But I don’t want spoil, either.

Franny Osman
October 19, 2002

I teach college English and I have seen the tide turning in a positive direction–most of my students are both hard working and morally sound.
They understand that their efforts are proportional to their performance and grades.
I treat them with kindness and fairness and not with the sort of derision I am hearing here.
If they have lacked good parenting or have a sense of over-entitlement, it is part of my job to correct and guide them with respect and gentleness…they are not responsible for the bad parenting or teaching they received.
They are good people who are willing to learn new approaches and attitudes.

Guess I have to rephrase. My wife is a helicopter parent; that worked really well when they were four, but today I have two kids scared of their own shadows. Kids have to fail to learn how to fail.

I’ve always likened raising children to playing a big fish on a thin line. You have to know when to let the line out, so you don’t loose them, and you have to know when to reel them in, so you don’t loose them. Brute force doesn’t work, nor does laxity. This,of course, requires energy and patience. Both helicopter parenting and neglect are one size fits all approaches that ignore the complexities of child raising.

A program dedicated to “old fart” talk. I remember when I was a kid and I was bored and my mom told me to fold clothes. When I got my first job, I worried about how to help the company, not how it would help me. These darn kids today all feel they’re entitled compared to us.

Y’know, comparing how our kids are raised to how we were, implies that we turned out pretty well. Looking at the world we helped create, our personal lives, can we say our childhoods provide much of a model?

2 huge contributors IMO:
1. fewer children. It’s so different having 2 than having 5 or 6 which seemed like a normal family size as I was growing
2. Guilt! I know so many parents who have one very loved child but overcompensate w/ gifts etc. because both parents work full time and can’t devote the time.

Kathy has it right–we often re-parent our students!

I totally agree with an earlier caller and the feeling that we have and are raising a generation of people who feel entitled to success in every aspect of their lives. I am a mother of a 8yo boy and an 11yo girl. From an early age I have seen them rewarded with ribbons and trophies for doing nothing more than showing up for soccer practice, not goals scored nor good sportsmanship. My 11 yo is applying to private school for next year, and I have been astounded to learn of the number of people who have hired consultants to guide them through the process, tutor their kids and hold everyone’s hand! What happens if that child is accepted and is lost without such focused attention?
As another commenter stated, there does seem to be a correlation between affluence, this helicopter parenting and the “brattiness” that results. My husband and I tend to let our kids solve their problems on their own. We don’t run to the school on a daily basis to confer with teachers or call another parent if an issue arises. That is not to say that if a serious issue developed that we wouldn’t address it. These days, our efforts to nurture some independence is thought of as tough love. What a shame.

A parents job is simply to transition them from total dependece to total independence. Our older boys developmental years were spent in Germany. To give you a difference between the cultures, the boys helped prepare breakfast and cut up vegetables at the age of 5. They even went camping overnight at the age of 6. In contrast we know of parents who had angst to send their kids to scout camp at the age of 11.

This coddling by parents does everyone a disservice.

What about kids with Special needs? While their parents may look overprotective, in fact they may need to parent their kids in a different way or protect them from some very real issues that their children can not protect themselves from or need more time to develop a particular skill.

Over the years, what self-appointed experts tell parents they “should” do has whipsawed back and forth so often that I regard the entire field as bankrupt and ignore it. I no longer believe that such advice is really about children but about making sure that parents (largely women) feel inadequate, ashamed, and sure that their perspectives are not worthy of discussion.

community parenting sounds idyllic. i think of myself as a progressive liberal parent, that would ordinarily champion community parenting. however, this summer i had an eye-opening experience. i was bjorning my one year old in warsaw, poland. he was crying because he was hungry and i was standing in line waiting to buy a roll. an elderly lady walked by and started berating my husband for allowing me to carry my child around in such a position. she told him fiercely that the child is crying because he is tired and he needs to lie down to go to sleep. she then stormed off. i had such a viscerally negative self righteous reaction that it surprised me. i was livid. who was she to tell me what my child needed? i think that ideally, community parenting would provide a number of checks and balances coming from the greater society. the reality is that it will also provide feedback that is not welcomed by the parent. should we just get used to it and grow thicker skins? is community parenting worth the irritation of occasional ire?

I work in college admissions and so many parents take over the application process and do everything for their students. I sometimes wonder who is writing their college essays and applications. It is important for students to take charge of their lives to build the self-esteem that comes with a strong sense of self-efficacy.

Kids that aren’t rich or privileged would not be so quickly excused from some of the rudeness and bad manners described by the professor and others on the show.

Hi Tom,

Having just turned on the radio this morning, I was glad to hear this conversation. I work in higher education, and we are constantly seeing the results of helicopter parents. We experience college students who have no sense of personal responsibility, and like one of your listeners said, feel a sense of entitlement to everything from grades, to leadership positions and to jobs (upon graduation). Parents are calling professors, residence life staff, deans, and even presidents to “fix” problems that their students are having… and following college, they are writing resumes, calling employers, and even attending interviews with their children.
I blame in part technology–especially cell phones that allow parents to connect with students several times a day… rather than a student figuring it out, finding the resources on campus, the first line of “help” is to call a parent who will do the work for them. Also, I blame parents who get so wrapped up in their role as a parent, it becomes their only identity– and they can’t let go even when their child is 30. I am concerned about the ramifications of this type of parenting for our future. What happens when this generation is leading our country and our businesses? And last question, is this only an American issue?

My husband and I have raised two great kids by a method we call, ‘Benevolent Neglect’! It works!

This topic is a “problem” that is almost entirely upper-middle-class.

There is a fine line between being a hovering parent and being an advocate for your children. Unfortunately I feel that the educational system and its sometimes decreasing quality has made parents become more involved in their children’s education both in requiring better quality in their children’s classes (quality academics is not always on top of the list of school administrators and teacher quality is not always at its best) and enroll their children in enrichment classes. I feel that as long as enrichment classes are not chosen only to look good on your child’s college application they do teach children many values. My children have always been on sports’ teams and the coaches teach them responsibility, teamwork, humility and hard work. At the high school level, our freshman/JV and varsity coaches make our athletes do fundraising for their teams and often half the money they raise goes to a charity and the rest is used to support their current team’s expenses. They also learn that talent will help but without hard work it will lead nowhere. Kids maybe overscheduled and they should not be but enrichment activities if well chosen do help make kids better persons who understand that they have some responsibility in making society a better place for everyone.

I do allow my kids to be free to roam our street along with the other neighbourhood kids, as all the parents on my street do. We are so fortunate to live in an older neighbourhood with front porches and no garages, an urban design shown again and again to naturally foster the “eyes on the street” that one of your callers noted are now rare in society. (And I live in a very cold climate in Canada!)

I believe we’ll never get back to that natural, social, benign surveillance until we stop building soulless suburbs and start building human-scale neighbourhoods.

Until then, I don’t particularly blame parents unwilling to let their kids run loose on streets that encourage cars to travel at unnecessarily high speeds, and which lack the kind of social cohesiveness of our older, central cities. An added benefit of such a change in urban design and architecture is the environmental improvement that would also naturally follow.

Agreed with Emily.

Want a crash course in letting go.. send your child on an exchange program. My 18 year old daughter is in Japan on a Rotary exchange. I think it must be a crash course in becoming self reliant.

I never gave up, but it was just SO hard to parent my child (born early 1980’s) the way I’d been parented, I think in part because I was older than the parents of the children my child played with. The earliest helicoptering was just beginning, and, there were more of the other parents than there were of me and my husband. Also, we did not have the words to describe what we were sensing was different, and for us, problematic — the word “helicoptering”. The whole thing was before “curling”, and I do think that over-protecting came before over-scheduling.

But today’s show made me feel so recognized! The guests were so articulate about the differing styles of parenting, and I really recognized my parents (born early in the 1910 decade), who were splendid parents, and I recognized my attempts to raise as I’d been raised, and I recognized that other growing force that made me feel freakishly different than the other parents. My husband and I alone did not have enough critical mass, and I DO tend to question myself, but, as I say, I never gave up, but I was unsuccessful. If your child’s best friend’s mother won’t let her child walk down the street, your child is going to stay indoors with her best friend. That’s what happened over and over. I’d offer to go with the kids, but that only worked when they were young enough to not mind. We, as kids, had been out all day, in the tree tops, literally, and messing about in the brook getting skunk cabbage smell all over us until it was time to come home for dinner (I checked this memory out with my mom: she said “absolutely accurate”), and I couldn’t see my kid just go walking down the street with her best friend because of “societal helicoptering”.

We thought the differences were from raising our child in a different part of the country than those regions we had grown up in. Nope. It was a time difference.

Well, one of the consequences that wasn’t mentioned today is that I think that families are, from helicoptering, too child focussed. That translates in the real world to kids being more important than anyone else: even the elderly, even the disabled. I do think that kids have less of a sense of connection and responsibility for the elders around them in their community than we did. When the owner of the Corner Store told us that he didn’t think our father would want us to be buying “that comic book”, we took him seriously; in part because he had found a way to tell us he wouldn’t sell it to us, all the while connecting us back to our families! This example did not stand alone in my youth. Years later, in high school, when other kids made fun of the old shopkeepers, I felt and expressed a fierce defense of them! Decades after moving from my home town, I’d go say “hello” to the shopkeepers who remained when I visited the town. Even more importantly, I have a general, everyday sense of the older people in my world. I am shocked when kids from four to 27 barge thru a store door, instead of letting me, the older person go first — especially when I was actually there first.

I sent out a request to my neighborhood for help picking up groceries when I was ill. Only one parent (scores of families received the request) suggested her son might want to help.

It takes a neighborhood to raise everybody!!!

Thanks for the fabulous speakers! They were so articulate!

I think Peg said it well, “Students have gotten lazy, disrespectful and incredibly entitled.” And I see this even with the children I have helped to raise, due to two different parenting styles and the influence of absent parents with different parenting styles. It’s confusing for children when the messages are mixed and they naturally gravitate to the more pleasing and easy style.

Is some of the time & energy that hovering parents put into their child raising, time that once was given to volunteer organizations and projects?

I haven’t seen so-called “home schooling” touched on here yet. This seems to be the most extreme form of over protection and control. Authoritarianism has taken some new turns in the US but the notion of “control” and protection are nearly synonymous.

Here’s a tip: the holiday shopping season is starting. If you have a son, get him “The Dangerous Book For Boys”. This has been discussed and reviewed in many quarters. You may not be able to stop yourself from picking the kid up and dropping him off door to door right away but the dangerous book is a start. Your son or daughter may enjoy a compass more than a cell phone when the batteries are dead.

There is no ‘Dangerous Book For Girls’ that I know of. Still, the ideas in the boy’s book has applications for both.

What about how competitive the college application process is now? The huge investment in a college education? It all leads to that, if you want higher education for your kids, and we are seeing a huge influx of applications from all over, competing for the same slots. Kids need support in this overwhelming environment. Sorry, we just don’t reward kids’ genuine efforts the way we once did, and many parents know that. You have got to advocate for your kids, or they get run over, slip through the cracks, whatever. The safety net of a strong base of manufacturing jobs in America just isn’t there anymore, and that allowed many parents in previous generations to let kids figure things out on their own.

The Free Spirit in the Garden
By: Anne-Christine Strugnell (View Profile)

She is my mother, so I only know some things about her, and not necessarily the things she would think most important. Her gardening, for example, escaped my notice for several decades. I would have said she wasn’t a gardener, but I would have been wrong.

In the prim suburb where we grew up, our sprawling yard always looked disheveled compared to the others. So when at age sixty my mother moved and told me how excited she was about her new garden—“because you know, I love gardening”—I had my doubts. I couldn’t at first remember having seen her do anything in the garden. Ever. Oh, sometimes she would persuade a reluctant child in need of forgiveness to push the rusty lawn mower around or rake up the leaves. On hot days, if we pleaded, she might drag the sprinkler out and send water arcing over the spiky and yellowing grass that poked at our feet as we ran through the spray. As for the garden itself, I remembered only a few things: some bulbs that came up in orange tiger lilies each spring, azaleas that nearly died every Massachusetts winter, and the summer that a sulky rosebush suddenly burst forth with a profusion of fragrant lemon-colored blooms. My mother had said, “I don’t like these roses much.”

When I focused on it, though, memories sprouted. I remembered her piling us into the station wagon, driving to a wood, and asking us to help her dig up any plants that looked good. We thought most of the plants were boring, ground-hugging growths in dull green and brown. We tried to tell her there were no plants in the woods. But she persevered, and we helped her dig a variety of ferns that now push up their curled heads every spring in the shade of the back of the house. Other little plants, interspersed with rocks, turned a small slope into a rock garden.

Somehow I hadn’t considered those efforts. To me, gardening was about the flowers, strawberries, and fruit trees I’d seen in the garden catalogs and had tried to persuade my mother to buy. Gardening was about putting plants in, watering them, feeding them, trimming them, tying them up, picking their fruit, and clipping their flowers for decoration. Ferns didn’t count. They just happened
And all the while my brothers, sisters, and myself were growing up I thought that we, too, were simply following some natural and effortless process. The same few dinners rotated dependably across our weeks, and we were always fed and sent off to school and bed at predictable times. She wasn’t the kind of mom who styled hair, directed our choice of outfits, or kept baby books. She rarely got involved with homework and only glanced at our grades. She wanted us to be free spirits, as long as we didn’t use bad language and showed up in time for dinner.

Because she was not a vine-tying, artful pruning, edge-trimming type of mom, in my dramatic teens I thought she was less nurturing than the other moms I knew. But as I reflect on it now, it seems just a difference of style. After all, her fern gardens and rock gardens hadn’t just happened; she had collected the plants and chosen where to put them, the sun-loving plants on the south-facing slope with the rocks, and the forest ferns in the little hollow by the cellar door. Perhaps I was as wrong about her parenting as I was about the ferns, carefully planted and left to unfurl into their own shape, where the cool rocky foundation walls would provide them the shelter they needed to thrive.

How odd to call it “overparenting” when the art of discipline is nowhere to be found. As a child of the ’80s and ’90s, I was lucky enough to face a few hard knocks, but it took a while to realize that I was not entitled by birth to a constant stream of sunshine blown up my butt.

My generation’s hippie parents didn’t want to impose any rules or criticism on us, but the focus on stardom and “winning” throughout our youth didn’t combine well with this ethos. Now as my cohort enters parenthood, I wonder how we’ll do?

I find that trying to “keep up” with what the parenting books recommend, or what other parents are doing, makes me anxious and focused on what I “should” be doing. I am a much better parent when I stop comparing and judging myself, scheduling enriching experiences or pushing us into “educational” family activities, and instead spend that energy in being present, calm, spontaneous and connected with my boys.

I’m concerned that none of the on-air conversations on successful parenting mentioned teaching children love of each other, of themselves, and of all that the sweet earth provides; that no mention was made of honesty, kindness, thoughtfulness, consideration, the understanding of others, patience, respect, self-respect, gratitude and good manners and all of the other many qualities that we value in each other as human beings. Values are taught in the home from the very first day the baby becomes part of it. These are the time-honored values that provide the foundation for success throughout life.

I became a single parent when my son was six and my daughter, four.

The FIRST thing I did after the divorce was finalized was to go to my son’s elementary school–the best in the city– and ask the principal and his first grade teacher to hold him back; he was not ready to enter the second grade because of the many trying issues in our home. They were surprised at this request–from a young mother–with a Ph.D.–yet they were happy and grateful to honor a request that was the very best plan for the ultimate success of this little boy.

What made this school the best? The teachers had clear, specific rules and high expectations, and they worked hard to set the foundations for the children to meet them. No one there ever branded my son a flunky. The teachers made sure there were no cruel remarks. The following year my son blossomed and flourished.

I grew up in a home marked by physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Later, after my divorce, when I encountered a parenting problem, I thought how my parents would have handled the situation, and always did just the opposite. It worked, beautifully.

When I took a new job at a university, my children and I moved south from Detroit–a city, then, of 4 million– to what seemed a tiny village of 18,000. What a wonderful thing! The town helped raise my children. This was a safe place that gave my children great freedom, under the watchful eye of teachers, neighbors, clergy, shop keepers, doctors and dentists, city officials and later, employers. The town helped raise my children. And so did my dear students.

As my son and daughter grew into the teen years and presented me with teen-age problems, I took them to my classes: “Would you mind if I asked your advice about something?” I’d say to a class, and then I’d explain the problem at home. My students were so proud to offer me their advice, sharing both how their parents had handled the same situation, and how and why they would handle it differently than their parents.

What a lovely gift to have so many kind people hovering–not doing the tasks laid out in the lives of my children–but standing by, at the ready to lend a hand, correct a misbehavior, give a nudge down the pathway of life.

And I was always there, as mentor, friend, and only very occasionally, as parent in capital letters. We lived by the Golden Rule and created others, over the years, as situations and
events arose that required new ones. I established early an atmosphere of caring, openness and respect. This engendered trust that none of us ever betrayed. We talked. We listened. I can count on one hand the nights we ate dinner in front of the television.
We had many friends of different races, different cultures and different classes. We
learned from one another.

I have had the good fortune of being a teacher now for more than 30 years. I now teach the helicopter students. Many of them are dishonest, rude, and feel entitled to high grades without effort—and many of them are not this way.
I treat all my students in the best way possible—with respect. I have clear, specific rules and the same high expectations I’ve always had, and I still work just as hard to set the foundations for my students to meet them. I invite students to work independently with me if necessary, but I always let them decide whether they want the extra help. Finally, I allow all my students to earn the experiences and the consequences of their actions, decisions and efforts.

A wise adviser to faculty at the university told me recently to treat helicopter students as I would any individuals who had come from a culture different from my own, whose values were different, and who would not necessarily be equipped to think, speak, or write the language—Standard English. In some cases, this has proved to be profound advice, in others, not.

Students, above all else, are individuals shaped by environment. Our greatest job is to teach–not to judge.

“so called homeschooling”?

I homeschool, but I also bought my child the dangerous book for boys and he’s allowed to use power tools with permission, has pocketknives, etc. I drop him off at group activities and leave for hours. SOME homeschooling parents are over protective, but others are not. My child actually has to take more responsibility for himself than many school children who are told when to get up, when to arrive at school, when to do math, when to eat lunch, whether or not to wear their jacket home (school rule: if you wore a jacket to school you had to wear it home, even if it was hot by then!) He also has to learn to deal with and play with people of more ages- he does not spend all his time with children that are all exactly his age. If you think about it, this is a much better education in how to get along with others and it provides more (and better!) models for how to behave. Frankly, spending all your time with 5th grade boys can be a little “Lord of the Flies”. I would rather my child saw more people behaving the way I want him to behave (along with the people he sees making bad choices). We can talk about those things and learn from them either way. Homeschooling does NOT necessarily = overprotection.

Tom excellent program. In my experience, I see many parents thinking that their children belong to them. I know that my children are my stewardship, but I don’t own them. I have to love them, teach them, give them a good education, be an example in my contact with other family members,neighborgs, etc.etc. They are children of God and I need to teach them how to go back to their home where they came from to be here to have their own experience of life and get a body of flesh and bones. This is a topic for another program, is so vast. Tks.

I have two daughters, 10 and 8 yrs old. After an experience when my eldest had failed to follow through on a project and had to suffer the miserable disappointment of not getting to do what she wanted, she declared she NEVER wanted to have to feel that way again.

We had a good discussion about why life lessons taught through mistakes had much stronger impact than those taught by success. Because it was her mistake, she owned it and it taught her more than I ever could through hours of nagging.

As a parent, I think it is important for kids to be free to make mistakes and learn within the relative safety of “home” in order to make them wiser and more resourceful as adults. I cannot shield them from all the mistakes and hardships they may face in life– my job is to give my kids tools to deal with those problems and set them free to do it.

Dr.Paula Quinn I wish you are the teacher of my 6 yr old daughter. It is the environment and the people around a child that will make a child succeed in life with emotional Intelligence and family virtues. You reminded me of Filipino teachers in the remote villages in the Philippines like Mindanao.

I growing up alone in my life without a father and a mother to talk about my problems of being a kid and a teenager, I am 41 yr old now and I grew up a honest,nice,loving and caring because the environment that I grew up with was full of positive people. I grew up in Mindanao

Interesting–as a childless person, I view this differently, perhaps. Like many teachers commenting here, I was shocked at student attitudes when I recently taught basic reporting to college students after 20 years away from teaching (high school), my first love. The first complaints (about me, to the department) were timed with the return of their first graded papers–and the department response was for me to cut materials from the syllabus THEY had provided! As a result, I cut material, added “optional” assignments and turned-in grades that were–by design, apparently–grossly inflated!

Meanwhile, there was another cohort of students who thrived and seemed genuinely interested (curiosity being crucial to reporting) in learning–I helped one obtain a scholarship and she’s in grad school now. These students missed out on the opportunity to be challenged, to learn and (yes) to fail. Of those who bothered to show up/participate, the majority of students were extremely unprepared, disinterested and incredibly anxious to maintain a “B” average, which entitles students of even upper-middle class students in Georgia to free college tuition/fees. That was what they were interested in. So I wonder if the educational “systems” in which all this parenting is taking place has played its own role in parent attitudes?

I was extremely devastated to be treated by the department as though I had done something wrong by requiring future reporters to form a sentence–especially since I’m single and self-employed and put my fiscal/professional future on “hold” to “give back” by returning to a profession (at least briefly) that I’d abandoned early-on in order to earn enough to pay off my own student loans.

But enough about me. The main thing that bothers me about the helicoptering I see all around (including my sisters kids, who were driven to school, around one mile away from their safe, upscale neighborhood, all the way up until they could drive themselves) is the lost concern for society as a whole.

It’s as though once people have children, no other beings (juvenile or not) are of concern to them. It’s a race and they’re in it to win–even to the extent that volunteer work and charity drives are seen as college application fodder. So much parent-looking-at-child-looking-at-parent and so little two-people-exploring-the-world-together.

And one thing that seems to have resulted is a genuine loss of curiosity about other people, about issues of the day, and maybe even about what really matters.

THat said, who knows if helicoptering alone is behind all this–which leads me back to the issue of institutional impetus. Discuss.

Stef: I’m sorry it took me so long to get back to you. I posted the first comment, then proceeded to listen to the show while cleaning my gutters (thank god for the last time this year).

Both my wife and I are involved in the the learning disabilities world: me as a technology consultant for 25 years (recently retired) and my wife as the head of academic support at a New England prep school.

The LD world adds more layers to this issue: spin, denial, “my kid’s a misunderstood genius,” and much more.

I retired before this got to be the problem it is now but my wife still deals with it daily, be it parents in denial about their kid’s abilities or parents who want the LD label for extra time on an SAT but want to shuck it all other times or parents who push their kids to go to colleges that are too rigorous for them so that they (the parents) can drop that school’s name at a cocktail party (BU is an example that comes to mind).

A good example anecdote:

My wife had a student who did poorly in math her first term in high school. She had obviously been misplace in a higher level math class than she should have been but her grades in math leading up to entering the school were excellent.

The school sent her home for spring break with a math placement exam with explicit instructions to take the exam herself, in her own time as it would help the school place her in a math class that she could handle.

She came back with the exam and turned it in. After looking at the exam the school was perplexed: she tested well enough to be in an AP math class.

A few days later the girl opened up to my wife: “my mother took the placement exam for me.”

I agree with some above who say that this is primarily an upper middle class problem but in fact, this well educated and upper middle class parent was clueless as to what a placement test is for and why fudging it hurt no one but her daughter (well, it frustrated her math teacher for a while too). Just because it’s primarily an upper middle class problem doesn’t make it less of a problem. A problem is a problem.

I saw the problem in my years as a technology consultant too. I did talks to parents and teachers about the various tools that were available and how they might scaffold a student’s weaknesses in school. These talks covered everything from hiliter pens to tape recorders to computers and various pieces of software including high end stuff.

Some parents took my handout away with them and presented it to the school their kid attended as a laundry list of things they wanted the school to buy or add to the kid’s IEP. Understand that few people use all of these tools, one or two can make a nice difference for a student but all of them would overwhelm anyone and lead to problems. Some parents would hear none of it, thinking that the more money the school threw at the problem, the better things would be and the fact that they weren’t buying everything on the list was grounds for a lawsuit.

The kids almost always suffered in the end and were overwhelmed with too much stuff given to them too quickly.

From this excellent show I can see that some of the things that I thought were confined to the LD world exist outside it as well. In the LD world many of us think there is a bit too much learned helplessness and professional victimhood but from the show I learned that even Yale students suffer from this stuff. Of course, I knew this but it was interesting to hear that professor who called in.

I’m curious whether anyone thinks the Obamas are helicopter parents? Don’t get me wrong, I’m still (precariously) a fan of Obama’s but I do see evidence of maybe a bit too much pressure on those girls. When the parents are busy grandma takes over. Just a thought.

Richard wrote “I’m curious whether anyone thinks the Obamas are helicopter parents? Don’t get me wrong, I’m still (precariously) a fan of Obama’s but I do see evidence of maybe a bit too much pressure on those girls. When the parents are busy grandma takes over. Just a thought.”

What evidence? The Obama daughters are correctly kept out of the public eye. They go to school. But think a little bit harder. They’re the president’s kids. They correctly get secret service protection. As for grandma. Why not. It’s called an extended family.

One of the ultimate examples of heli-parenting I ever saw happened when I lived in Brighton more than 25 years ago. A twenty something guy crashed the car he was driving onto the Comm Ave service road island tearing open the oil pan. Fortunately I was able to get him to turn off the engine he was revving before he destroyed it.

A curious crowd gathered and for more than an hour he went around asking people how he could get the car repaired before Monday when the neighbor he had borrowed the car from returned from a trip. The consensus of all the bystanders along with his friend who had driven down from Newton was that he needed to man-up and confess what had happened to the owner’s car.

The make a long story short his dad intervened and said he would get it taken care of AND the neighbor wouldn’t have to know what happened.

Rick: I don’t have any evidence that the Obamas are helicopter parents except the fact that I think both parents seem to be highly competitive and probably not the “free range” types. I’m sure they’re doing all the right things with the girls and grandma is no doubt a better daily monitor than a nanny.

An underlying piece of this issue that was not discussed in this show (that I remember) is what the author Judith Rich Harris calls: The Nurture Assumption which is also the title of her controversial (and I think excellent) book.

Many parents think they can mold their kids like clay, forgetting the fact that kids don’t come as blank slates; they come with “natures” which the parents contributed to once. A lot of this “hovering” may be based on the false assumption that hovering = molding and that molding always has the desired effect.

The nurture assumption is built into many of our cultural attitudes about behavior and what our effectiveness might be in changing the behavior of others.

Just be there.

I listened to this program while driving today and have been thinking about it ever since. My daughter will be 26 in less than a week. She went to public school for a couple of years and was then unschooled. She grew up living in an underground house on an organic farm. We were homesteaders half of the year and traveled the other half.

I could not help thinking there have to be other people like her out in the world. When talking about the “E generation”, I do not think she has an attitude of entitlement for THINGS. She does feel entitled to live life to the fullest.

To explain Heather, I would have to write a long book….and it would not even scratch the surface. By 15 she had already built a 17 ft sea kayak. Over the years she has built her own house, fixed up several vans and trucks, hiked for months, bicycled across the US and on and on and on….

It’s not easy to let your child be free to explore, but it was for the best. Sometimes I was nearby Parts of her life are chronicled in our web pages….
http://peaceandcarrots.homestead.com/

Right now she is a carpenter, married, pregnant and living in Austin, TX. I can’t wait to see what her son turns out to be like!
http://wendyusuallywanders.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/heathers-nesting-instinct/

I am an educator. I have taught and mentored middle and high school students and have taught at the college level. I teach teachers in the K-12 system and do a lot of teacher training.

I am concerned about this negative view of parenting. Your guest needs to understand that protecting our children is a fundamental, biological drive. It is “hard-wired” in order to maintain survival of the species. I know that teachers have serious problems with parents who advocate for their children, but the reality is that our schools are seriously broken.

There are a variety of factors that contribute to this, not the least of which is that our teachers are under incredible amount of stress to produce acceptable test scores.
As a parent, I am very willing to let my child fail. It is the school that is not. The pressures on children to succeed in school are greater than they have ever been. Children are sent to be “tested” for behaviors that only 50 years ago were seen as normal, and medicated in order to maintain focus and achieve in school.

If schools would allow the options for children to fail without penalty, children would be able to fail as part of learning, as your guest suggests. Children do not have that luxury today. Today, almost everything is graded and assessed. Of course there needs to be assessment, but come on—even homework is graded. When can children experiment, try, fail and learn? It is not the parents only who are overly concerned with “success.” Our schools are also guilty.

I believe that parents have to be advocates for their children. The system is broken, there is an incredible amount of unfairness in schools—especially along gender lines as it relates to boys. We wonder why only 35% of our college student graduates today are male. It is not because our boys are lazy or stupid. It is because the school system of the last century are not preparing them for 21st century life. The disfunction of the schools demands that parents protect their children, or see their children cast aside.

Let’s not blame the victims. Let’s look at the real issues that good parents are struggling with every day.

Here is a personal story. My son has mild asperger’s syndrome. He is very bright and has always done well in school. When he hit some roadblocks in his senior year, the reasons were entirely related to the unwillingness of his teachers to accept that child as bright as he might have some difficulties in understanding assignments, etc. that others saw as simple. When I tried to explain that there were some communication issues that were unique to his situation, they decided that I was the problem. If I would only back off and let him be independent, they “guaranteed” me that my son would be fine.

I did this. Three weeks before the end of the term, the principal called me. “Apparently your son was not as ready for the developmentally appropriate independence he as seeking as we thought.” He is failing everything. Can you please come in and help. That was 5 years ago, and I am still angry that the situation was simply dismissed as my overparenting, and the school refusing to listen to the reality of the situation.

Let’s have some data on these dreadful behaviors of today’s children. The statistics show that there is a drop in teen pregnancy, crime rates are down, children are better behaved by these measures than their parents’ generation. Where is the data on what parents are requiring of their children in terms of responsbility at home?

Dear god, all you parents and child raising experts are over-complicating this topic. Just talk to your children and give them an equal say in what is ultimately is their own lives.

I live in NYC. I see young teenagers on the train everyday. Sometimes, completely misbehaving. I’d love to say something as part of a larger “parenting family” but, frankly I’m afraid of the reaction they’ll have (and some of them are so big in size and aggressive about expressing themselves), so I leave them alone.

another manifestation of overpopulation coupled with greed and jealousy. what else do you expect in such a world?

please do a show on the real cause of most of the world’s problems – overpopulation.

Julie Coates (RE: your posting November 25, 7:42 p.m.)

You said: “My son has mild Asperger’s Syndrome….When I tried to explain that there were some communication issues that were unique to his situation, they decided that I was the problem.”

IT IS ABSOLUTELY UNBELIEVABLE HOW OFTEN SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAPPENS TO THE PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH MILD ASPERGER’S!!

In our case, our child never even received an I.E.P., BECAUSE the school (so many professionals at the school) decided that my communications, asking for help, represented me being the problem! Our child didn’t even get diagnosed until two years after high school graduation, and that was by a fluke! By then, she’d missed out on so much learning, that she has impairments still. She could have learned to recognize her condition & to utilize coping mechanisms. She could have learned more of what school had to teach.

When we finally happened upon an M.D./PhD. who made the diagnosis, do you know what he said? That all my descriptions of her behaviors and difficulties were a perfect portrait of Asperger’s!! Yet, not a ONE of the school professionals had recognized her condition, nor were any of them even curious enough about what I was describing to follow thru, as any true professional would.

Some of the other parents in our town had the same problem, none of us knowing that Asperger’s was the issue. The M.D. said that Asperger’s was known about during this time period, so there was no excuse for the “professionals” being unaware.

Mirabel –

It’s very likely that things have gotten worse over the years. I used to be on the New York City subways every weekday and lots of weekend days/nights for at least a decade, ending about 1976. Back then, I used to marvel at the comportment of the teenagers. They acted calmly and maturely. My main impression was that they were “old hands” at using public transportation (as was I, but I lived in the suburbs). My main route had stops in some of the poorest neighborhoods in the City, and sometimes I’d be riding as late as 1:30 in the morning. I was always alert, but I never felt that nearby unruliness could threaten my safety. I’d say things have gotten worse. If so, that is very disempowering for all the other citizens who need to use the subway, like you. That’s one reason why these issues apply to all of us, not just to families with children. Someone wrote earlier, and I quote: “it takes a neighborhood to raise everybody!”.

A friend of mine described the result of “over-parenting” as creating a generation of “hot house roses” The analogy refers to the common problem of receiving a beautiful rose bud from a nursery or florist, only to see it flop over instead of “blossom” once it’s in your house. The “hot house rose” can’t take the shock of an unprotected environment and often end up with serious stress issues as adults. When I was on our local School Board, I saw too many parents running interference for their kids, apparently dedicated to making sure their kids experienced no disappointment, never failed, or never got into trouble… even lying for them! As a result, theses kids are ill-prepared for the real world, where they will have to pay real consequences for their actions and decisions.

Kids need to be allowed some unstructured time to play, solve their own conflicts, and use their creative imaginations. That doesn’t happen when an adult is hovering or if all of their “free” time is organized with adult supervision.

No parent can guarantee their child’s happiness or success. Parents can and should model the values they embrace and set limits according to those principles. But, ultimately, children need the space to learn from their own mistakes and establish their own rules for living.

I think parents who jump in at the drop of a hat to do homework or projects for their children, are doing their children a huge disservice. I was one such child, and believe me, it did not help me, and only hindered my development and self-esteem. As a mother, I have seen a lot of “smart”, well-educated, “supposedly” well-meaning parents do a lot of dumb things. When my 11 1/2 year old son was in third grade, he had a school project to build an Eiffel Tower. You would not believe the number of very complex elaborate structures that came into school!!! 90% of these Eiffel Towers appeared to have been constructed with a great deal of parental intervention and support. I even know one mother who admitted to doing it for her son. However, my son’s Eiffel Tower looked as if it was done mostly by an eight year old…which it was, with no supervision by me.. and not too much from my husband. The most we did for him was purchase the materials for him. His Eiffel Tower, constructed with straws, fell apart in three days time. Last year when my son was in 5th grade his friend’s mother, told me very non-nonchalantly, she just went ahead and did a Hebrew school art project for her son, on her own. This same mother has also admitted to bribing her son with a video game to join the middle school Math club. This is another whole area that greatly troubles me. This whole area of contention leads me to believe that a lot of parents must not have a lot of faith in their children

I’m 29, but have recognized and lamented at this insanity for several years now. Wish I had remembered this article during the live conversation, to better be able to share. But better late than never- it’s The Onion’s “Earth To Be Made Child-Safe” article from 1996. Quite funny, and on point. New regulations include filling the Grand Canyon with soft plastic balls for children to play in.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30359

One person in this discussion by the name of “Scarlett Martin” said something about how a child who claims to be bored can be told that it is good because then he or she (the child) can help with chores. So supposedly this kind of a remark to a bored child should keep the child from complaining about being boredom.The idea seems to be that it will teach him or her a lesson. I would say that that is a bad adult attitude and approach. Often a child is bored because he or she is unusually intelligent and needs his or her intelligence properly channeled and such dismissiveness of adults is just an act of the adult being annoyed and punishing the child with chores that can only bore him or her even more. It will only teach the child to shut up, but it won’t do any of his or her unique abilities any good. I know about this because,as a child, I once told my dad I was bored and he replied with a very sarcastic “How nice. I will help you with that, spend the entire night awake..”

Later in life when I was in an adult-education course, a more-thoughtful teacher said that some teachers and parents make kids write their names over and over, or do a lot of homework as punishment, but it is a mistake for parents to make homework or chores a punishment since it only teaches a child that learning, and work are to be avoided. “Helicoptor parenting” is said to be what creates overly protected kids who are afraid of risks and whom feel too entitled to an easy life, but doing the opposite and letting a child go through frustration, hurt, (etc)so as to supposedly “build character” can result in a depressed child who only knows about being victimized by the world.

Also there is no “right amount” of “protection” or “risk-allowing.” It depends upon a child’s own individual ability personalit, and personal situation.

The person in this discussion by the name of “Joel Najman” claimed that he is in his 60s and suffered emotionally due to his mother’s “helicopter parenting” since she just excessively reminded him that it is too dangerous to take any risks, and with Mr Najman, there wasn’t such a term as “helicoptor parenting” back when he was a kid, but it goes to show that there are a lot of psychologically harmed older people whom came from a generation that has a reputation for being “The Greatest,” but actually, I would say that Mr Joel Najman’s case is a matter of parential neglect. The way in which it was done was by utilizing psychological chains and ignoring the child’s need for self-autonomy. The adults whom raised a lot of todays 60-year-olds and people older, were known for limiting their kids and not letting them know about smoking, drinking, driving cars,gambling, partying, skipping school, risking complete ignorance by missing one homework assignment, etc. Today some people consider it a rite of passage to let kids learn by experience about those behaviors.

While I was growing up in the 60s my own dad ( whom himself grew up in the 1920s) used to play a game in which he had me and my siblings race each other from one end of the block to the other for a prize of a piece of gum, but no matter whom won, he would break the stick of gum in three to give each of us a piece. Sometimes I would complain about how it does not acknowledge that someone won and deserves the entire prize due to more effort. My dad would say that it does not matter because no one should feel that he or she is more important than the other and it is so that no one feel that he or she is entitled to more than anyone else. As a kid I felt this was a dumb idea.

So the irony is that the same method can be used with different intents, or different methods can be used with the same intent and all can ruin a kid’s life.

As I read some of these comments, I come to the conclusion that we are a country of complainers. Sure, some of us had imperfect parents. Well they were human and are prone to that human condition known as screwing up. Don’t get me wrong, some people should never have children and are abusive. I’m not talking about these monsters.

My parents made mistakes and my life has been affected by some of these decisions but you know what at some point people need to get over it. Stop blaming your parents.

The idea of over protected parenting goes way back, they use to call it mothering. You know the phrase mama’s boy and so on.

Parenting is hard that’s for sure, but eventually the child needs to become an adult, learn from their experiences, and if they feel the need get counseling if need be. But in the end we have to move on be adults and stop blaming our parents for our own short comings or abilities to grow up. As my father use to say, “grow up, be a mensch”.

Cell phones for elementary and middle-school age children have contributed to the problem. One very astute observer likened them to a symbolic umbilical cord. And don’t get me started on scheduling “play-dates”. My son’s friend has one such mother who has always scheduled “play dates down to the hour; it’s always from 2:00 -5:00 or 1:00-4:00 PM. Never, ever “come on over for the day or the afternoon. And whenever we have attempted to invite this friend to go somewhere with us such as a movie, a museum or over for a sleep-over, there always seems to be a problem. And this friend is now twelve years old!!! I had an 8th birthday party for my son where my husband and I invited a bunch of my son’s friends to a minor league baseball game approximately an hour’s drive away in Manchester, NH. I reassured all families that there would be several parents along as chaperones. Would you believe that some of my son’s friends still could not go because it was too far away??? it is ridiculous.
I know of very few reasonable, free-flowing parents. Am I just unlucky that I haven’t met very many like-minded parents..or is this how most parents of school-age children are today???

Lon C Ponschock seems to be saying that there is too much “authoritarianism” in the US. It seems to be one of those “Only in America” references. If so, not so. Anyone whom thinks that there is too much “nannyism” does not know what it is like in other countries. In China a child can’t merely do what children are known for doing such as throw a tantrum over having to eat vegetables, or get mediocre grades in school, or run around playing aimlessly in the streets, never mind party with friends, or play hookey, otherwise he or she will be labeled by teachers, psychiatriasts and other authorities as a juvenile delenquent and the state can place the kid in a reform school which is very much like politically brainwashing a citizen. This is really a governmental and social form of not letting a kid make mistakes. It is forcing a kid to only do things perfectly so that his or her parents are not disappointed. Let’s not forget that to avoid over-parenting means getting rid of the idea that your child must never disappoint you or make you feel anything other than proud.

As for home schooling. I was home-schooled, and not in the manner that I have read that a lot of kids today are. I have read that today’s home-schooling parents somehow arrange for their kids to keep up with the progress and courses of school curriculums and there is even some kind of official approval and supervision by the particular school that the child would otherwise attend. Furthermore certain parents group together with other parents to home-school their kids together. But I did not have it this way. My dad decided to home school me strictly as he himself saw necessary, and I was taught to do little other than generally read, generally write, do simple math, and practice typing skills for hours and hours since my father was convinced that I only need to know how to type very fast so as to get a job when I reach the age of about 18. He did not think that it was necessary to learn more advanced subjects that an average person would not use in life. No algebra, civics, current events, critical thinking, science; very little litterature, history,(etc).Those were for people going into science, engineering, politics, law,(etc). My dad used to think that there would always be very accessable, fair paying jobs using a typewriter to type the same copies over and over as what used to be done at the turn of the century (1900s). He did not anticipate that computers would take over that task. I had to go back to school in my mid-20s to learn what I did not in my childhood and teens.

Nevertheless, though home-schooling did not work out for me, I would not say that parents are being “overprotective” by not sending their kids to school and allowing them to face bullies, deal with pressure to get good grades, and put up with being just another student in a crowded classroom not getting enough individual attention.
The problem is that in certain situations, a child just won’t learn in school if it is not well run, and/or because of other disruptive students as well as other setbacks and dangers. There shoud be a line to draw and letting a child just go to an especially sub-par school so as not to seem that you are “protecting” him or her too much, can be setting the kid up to only become involved in drugs, crime, and never graduate.

My husband and I have talked about this phenomenon for years — well before our four children (now ages 23 – 19) left home for college & the armed forces — and well before the term “Helicopter Parenting” was coined.

We blended a family when the kids were ages 12 years old to 8 years old. Our philosophies were very much in line (although, I have to admit, there were rocky roads as we each learned the specific actions the other took in reaching the same goal), and we both agreed, in addition to loving and nurturing, our ultimate job as parents was to prepare the kids for life in the real world. That, to us, meant giving age-appropriate responsibilities, while holding each kid accountable for their commitments and actions; and not giving them everything they wanted, but teaching them trade-offs (i.e. if it is “only $10,” then you can use your allowance to buy it); and being consistent and not giving in, no matter how much one pulled your heart strings.

I have stories… Oh, do I have stories! Friends and neighbors, relatives and strangers; at times I wondered if I’d missed some important new-age parenting technique. As an example, the following is one of our OWN family stories too numerous to count.

Suffice it to say, we had our own little Petri dish experiment going. The two oldest of the four children (5 months age difference) could have had the same opportunities, but my stepsons’ mother was definitely a “Blackhawk.” My husband could have taken her BACK to court to make her honor their joint custody agreement, but was finally exhausted and didn’t want to keep the boys in the middle any longer. Where the one child, who stayed with us and was consistently subjected to our “too strict” style (according to our ‘exes’), got offered 3 full academic scholarships and 2 partial scholarships — all to Tier 1 universities — went on to graduate in 3 1/2 years, with Honors; the other of the two, who was not made to respect his father (his mom said he was stressed out — of course! at 17 boys ARE stressed out as their dads try to raise them into young men), went on to flunk out of college his first semester (ironically, the same university from which the second child graduated with Honors), returned to live with his mom, bounced from menial job to menial job and finally joined the service just after his 21st birthday (when his protecting mother was disgusted and ready to throw him out of her house). Joining the military is NOT a bad thing; we feel he’ll finally have to adhere to rules and discipline and may become the young man we always knew he could be. I’ll also add, we are still ‘teaching’ the second child (now 22), but she is getting the hang and no longer acts/responds to us like a teenager.

The moral of OUR STORY is:
- you can’t protect your children from everything (nor should you),
- no matter how hard it feels and is for the parent to teach the tough lessons, the real world is far less forgiving, and
- beware of the entitled, disrespectful, ungrateful, incapable, non-thinking over-sized infant being raised in an over-parented environment.

Great show! I’ve made it a point to read the article in the Time Magazine that arrive a week or so ago!

“Over” parenting?? “Helicopter” parents?? Blackhawks??

These “experts” – and even the more lackadaisical parents – have their heads up where they don’t belong. Parents should be as involved with their own children’s WELL-BEING as much as physically possible. Bad parenting, to little parenting is an unfortunate reality – parenting isn’t easy and never will be.

Why not be absolutely as cautious and safe as physically possible?? So what if stunts “growth” – hopefully it makes sense and will prevent the currently absurd amount of child injury and death.

Safety, health and happiness – support and applaud every single parent and extended family and friend that strives as hard as they are able to achieve those goals for ALL children (and everyone else!) in the world today!!

Of course failure teaches! But let it be a slow natural process not an unnatural, man-made nightmare (like automobile accidents, pollution, man-made “food”, modern life-style/stress induced parental negligence, etc.).

I will hover over my children as much as I possibly can – and hug them and talk to them and teach them as often and as long as I can – in order to make my children as INDEPENDENTLY safe, healthy and happy as possible.