I saw a quote today that reminded me of this thread. "Happiness is not the absence of problems, it's the ability to deal with them."*
It's easy for me to drift into a mild helicoptering mode (I've absolutely never contemplated cheating for my kid and never would but I have to watch the amount of advice I give on projects, etc...) The one thing I try to remember that is if my kids don't learn to deal with problems on their own they will be miserable adults. These parents aren't protecting their kids but merely postponing the inevitable and making it worse. (Health concern helicoptering excluded.)
I'm not ever going to be a free range parent who drops my 8 year old at a public park and goes away for two hours. But I am going to sit on the bench and let him play alone or ride his bike around the track, even if I have to silently hold my breath for the 5 minutes I can't see him.
On a slightly related note- has anyone read this?
http://www.amazon.com/Last-Child-Wo...&sr=1-1&keywords=last+child+in+the+woods I've only started it, but it seems to make the point that kids need to play outside- without direction or strong supervision- in order to meet problems and be forced to solve them independently.
* (I've seen it attributed to both Charles Louis de Montesquieu and Steve Maraboli- I'm guessing wording by Maraboli and gist by Montesquieu)
