This month marks the beginning of the school year, and with it, a city full of anxious parents.
This month marks the beginning of the school year, and with it, a city full of anxious parents. The last decade a trend has emerged where parents are becoming increasingly involved in their children's schooling – their teachers, classes, grades and projects. This trend has become specific to those in high school and even university and graduate students. It is a term known as “helicopter parenting.”
The term "helicopter parent" was first used in Dr. Haim Ginott's 1969 book Parents & Teenagers by teens who said their parents would hover over them like a helicopter; the term became popular enough to become a dictionary entry in 2011. Helicopter parenting refers to "a style of parents who are over focused on their children," says Carolyn Daitch, Ph.D., director of the Center for the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders near Detroit and author of Anxiety Disorders: The Go-To Guide. "They typically take too much responsibility for their children's experiences and, specifically, their successes or failures," Dr. Daitch says.
My grandfather often used the phrase, “Nervous mother; nervous baby.” Just as infants react to their mother's emotions, young adults gauge their emotional response on their parents.
So, what is the cause of this sudden outbreak of helicopter parents? Technology, yet again, could be blamed. With a constant connection to our parents via text, Twitter and Facebook messages, it is that much easier and perhaps more tempting, for parents to become more involved in the lives of their children who, as young adults, should be learning to take steps on their own.
Some also suggest it is peer pressure amongst this generation of parents, a passive competition for the most successful child, that fuels helicopter parenting.
I found a more recent example of this, in an invitation to a family orientation for University. While in past years orientation was an experience for students to get to know the campus and to ask any questions, many schools now hold a separate event for parents to get to know the campus, and ask any questions on their children's behalf. According to a study by Psychology Today, encouraging this type of parenting leaves both children and parents increasingly anxious whenever new responsibility is placed on the child. With no responsibility, how can children be expected to learn and grow?
Continuing this style of helicopter parenting throughout high school, results in professors of graduate students getting calls from concerned parents regarding test scores and missed assignments. Yes, graduate students.
I am not a parent, nor is it my place to tell others how to parent, however many scholars and doctors have noted the psychological effects of helicopter parenting.
Ultimately, if children are never given the time or space to make mistakes on their own, they will never be able to be completely independent adults. High school and post-secondary education is the time to separate yourself from your family, make mistakes and grow from them.
Jennifer Hamilton is a local student and writer.
