There are parents who continue to be overly concerned with their children. It may be a way of expressing affection to a child in a parent's perspective, but it can be a problem for a child to grow. Helicopter Parenting refers to a way of nurturing a child, like a helicopter. It circles around your child, protects your child excessively, takes care of all the trivial things, and does everything he can to help you. The term helicopter childcare was first used in 1969 in the book "Between Parent and Teenager," a book by Haim Ginott, a psychotherapist and child care educator.
Characteristics and negative impact of helicopter childcare
Many parents do not know that they are raising helicopters. This is because helicopter childcare is to protect children excessively in the name of love. Parents think that they are doing their best for their children and do not feel their actions are wrong. According to Web MD (WebMD), there are following ways to distinguish helicopter childcare.
Helicopters Parents always like to hang around their child, so they want to engage in their child's study while doing their homework. He can help a child who is having difficulty solving math problems. However, the American Academy of Pediatrics says that adequate stress is needed to develop a child's resilience. When parents continue to help their children with their homework, the child loses the chance to solve problems.
Helicopter parents are always involved when the child is playing sports. Watch your child playing and coach up to the details. Sports is an opportunity for children to overcome conflicts and defeats, to move toward goals and to develop leadership. However, if the parents are always watching the child, the child will lose the opportunity to develop this ability.
Even if your child's house is close enough to walk, you can not drive confidence or independence if you take a car or send a letter confirming every move after your child goes to college. It is not really for a child to do anything like a maid for a child like this. The child will not feel responsible for organizing his own sleeping or doing his own laundry.
Helicopters Parents regard their children as vulnerable and want to protect them too safely. Helicopter parents do not want their children to fail even though they have to try and make mistakes in order to face the real world. Children who grow up under these parents become increasingly difficult to solve problems.
Appropriate intervention is important.
Parents should not be overly interfering with their child's life. This is supported by Richard Ryan and Edward Deci's Self-Determination Theory. This theory suggests that when a physiological need is satisfied, psychological needs motivate behavior. The psychological needs referred to here include the desire for relationship to be socially connected, desire for competence to acquire a certain ability, and desire for autonomy to achieve something by oneself. When these needs are satisfied, we can live a happy and stable life.
In addition, psychologist Mike Brooks wrote in a psychological newspaper, Psychology Today, that helicopter parents are a net to catch their children because they do not trust their children's abilities.
There is no one right answer to raising a child, but Brooks insisted that authoritative parenting is correct. He said that through authoritative parenting, he could provide and teach appropriate instructions, limitations, and love, rather than provide everything the child wants. As a child grows up, parents have to reduce their involvement in the child, so the child can learn to live freely and responsibly.
