Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Article:What is causing helicopter parenting

I used to have the rotors whirring ready to scramble at a moment's notice before my DD was skipped and what some call helicoptering I call advocacy.

Post skip a lot of my DD's issues throttled down a few notches and now she is in middle school we are encouraging her to self advocate.

As for coddling, sensitivity training in my house means teaching how not to be overly sensitive and grow thicker skin LOL

But do you notice how columnists who write about these problems cite one or two examples and assume it's happening all over? I don't think it is; I certainly don't see much of that where I am.

There is certainly a conversation happening about sexual assault and one about the racist histories of campuses in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement; but these are not the only or the main thing going on in most institutions of higher ed.

I think there's a lot of faulty/overzealous journalism about higher ed...

I wish the "safety" thing would work - I felt the same way until I had (my) kids. We made pretty much no progress on swimming lessons until DD11 decided that she wanted to do it. Then she got herself to swim class after school, and progressed rapidly through levels, and is now a pretty competent swimmer. DS7 still won't put his ears or face under water, no matter what, so I just keep paying for level 1 classes over and over again. I think we're going to take a year or two off and try with him again when he's more interested.

Well, there is that. DS7 also refused to put his head under water - until one day he just decided he was going to learn to do this - and spent a whole 30 minute lesson doing only this. On his own. Without anyone encouraging it.

I've no idea why he decided that was the moment, except that maybe he listened to his friend who a month or so earlier had told him putting your head under water was 'easy'. so...

Don't think there was anything we could do to speed up the process - other than keep taking him to the pool...

Isn't it interesting how easy it is to have principles before children. :-)


There may be some use in finding an "adapted swim" program. These are generally aimed at kids with a variety of disabilities-- which for swimming purposes can include "terrified to be there."

Our adapted swim teachers did a lovely job convincing one of my kids to not be terrified of water on his head. They started with *DS* sprinkling *her* with a watering can, and went from there. It was very nice.

OTOH, you are the parent, and if this feels like a bad investment to you at this time, you probably aren't wrong...

You are so right.

I may be jaded because of the adapted program we found for DD when she was little. Kids were fitted with life jackets with lots of flotation, so they couldn't sink if they tried, and then the floats were gradually removed as they progressed. They were allowed to dog paddle during this stage, and they didn't switch to "normal" swimming skills until the kids could comfortably get themselves to the edge of the pool on their own when they needed to. DD completely stalled out, and refused to relinquish even one float, and they never even got to thinking about putting her face in the water - but we were spending an exorbitant amount every week for her to refuse. At least the lessons DS is in now are cheap (and I still think we're going to give it a break for a while).

But back to the topic of the thread....

A recent poll found that 63% of 800 surveyed nationwide college students favor the use of trigger warnings. This finding implies that the problem is widespread.

And honestly, there are too many reports for me to think that the safe-space and speech restriction stories are isolated incidents. Brown, Yale, Amherst, Claremont-McKenna, the Uni. of Louisville, Colorado College, Rutgers, Brandeis...the list goes on. For an example, look at this list of disinvited speakers since the year 2000, and note how it's grown since 2009.

I understand that we can't blame parents for everything that their kids do, but that doesn't mean that helicopter parenting doesn't do damage. In my opinion, one way it can do damage is by creating thin-skinned students who shout down or disinvite speakers like Ayaan Ali Hirsi or Geraldo Rivera because they disagree with them.

I also understand that individual parents aren't acting in vacuum, and that our society's overly risk-averse posturing also creates thin-skinned young adults.

A striking example of both the parents and the society doing damage together is that many elementary school kids aren't allowed to walk home from school alone or with friends these days, because so many people are afraid they'll be kidnapped or abused (yet crime statistics show that the US is a much safer place than it was when Gen Xers like me were running around town on our own as kids). The same is true for people not letting their kids play outside unsupervised, and people calling the police because they see kids walking alone. All of these things send kids a message, which is that the world is too dangerous for them (I met a 3-year-old once who told me that if she went into the hallway of the mall alone, someone would kidnap her and kill her). Given the circumstances of their upbringings, it's hardly surprising that a lot of newly-minted adults fear the world and want to run from people or ideas that aren't like them. Some of them must be both terrified and lacking in skills for coping.

Over the summer, DD was actually escorted home by a police officer. She was 9 at the time. DD claims that her friend, who has a cell phone, accidentally butt-dialed 911. Since his English is very weak, he couldn't answer the questions of the dispatcher, so DD took the phone. The dispatcher demanded to know her name and age and exact location (her exact location was the sidewalk about 2 houses down). I had told DD to not give info like that to strangers, esp. since about three days earlier we got a police announcement that there was a perp in the neighborhood who was approaching kids claiming to be the "candy man". DD didn't know she was speaking to the "authorities", so she freaked out and made up a fake name and told them she's 13. Her fake name was something like "Gloria". She hung up the phone and then the police called back on the cell phone and demanded the correct information. DD told them the call was a mistake and they weren't in any trouble. But the police showed up and picked the kids up in the squad car. Now there is a police report in the system about this, because the police think that DD was deliberately cranking 911. They didn't believe her story that it was an accidental call. The police claimed they had to make sure it was not an actual kidnapping situation. So that's an example of how easy it is for people to get worked up and things to spiral out of control. DD was crying and freaking out after the cop left. The whole thing made me wonder if I messed up as a parent . If DD had been a year or two younger we probably could have had a CPS investigation because the kids were unsupervised. It turned out she wasn't old enough to get into "real" trouble for purportedly calling 911, but old enough that we didn't get into trouble as parents for letting them play down the block.

The additional end result of Val's latter observation is that when truly unavoidable horrible stuff does happen to your child-- a lot of judgment ensues. That's right-- in the bonus round, your family will accept SHAME for not preventing it from happening.

Never mind that "stranger danger" doesn't teach kids a darned thing about that nice teenaged babysitter they've known since birth... that lawnmower parenting your way through Mommy-and-Me gym classes don't prevent your child from developing a life-threatening medical problem, etc.

The real stuff still happens. The big stuff, I mean. It's just that now, there is a genuine expectation that it doesn't happen to the RIGHT kinds of parents. Er. I mean, their kids. Sure I do.

Speaking as a parent who has pretty much heard it all over the years about how we (apparently) didn't love our child enough to not cause her to have a life-threatening chronic medical condition (because we vaccinated/didn't feed her right/kept her too clean/let her play with animals/sent her to daycare/didn't have five siblings/take-your-pick)... um, yeah. You'll have to pardon my family if we snort in the general direction of trigger warnings and all that comes with them.

WORDS and ideas aren't what makes spaces safe or not, in general. And yeah, I get that I'm saying some of that from my privileged position of majority... but still.

This is pretty small stuff, when you consider what it means to live without your basic needs met as a human being. Real trauma is pretty problematic in that it unfortunately doesn't follow the rules about what is triggering in the first place-- which means that all of this is just a tempest in someone's teacup to begin with. I kind of want to grab a bullhorn and tell the people sitting in and swearing that they could do some good in the world with all of that energy. They could start by volunteering to help families with children who are critically ill or disabled. Maybe volunteer at the local women's shelter or food bank or something. Then they could appreciate what privilege really looks like.

But that's me, being middle-aged and cranky, I am sure.

I'm surprised that these articles don't address demographics and their attendant economic impacts as influencing parental behaviours. DeeDee suggested wisely up thread that what is perceived as negative behaviour could well be a rational response. Consider that fertility rates have fallen well below replacement levels in much of the western world, with the US just hovering at or a hair below replacement levels.

Speaking in the crass terms of human investment, parents are less broadly diversified in their offspring than in previous generations. As a result, the expected biological and financial rates of return to reproduction are lower on an aggregate family level than previously. Add to this phenomenon the fact that age at first childbirth of educated women, in particular, is rising. In a not insignificant share of the population, fertility is delayed to the end of women's reproductive years, at which point the ability to respond to shocks in the family "portfolio" by having more children is limited.

At the same time as fertility rates have fallen, costs associated with credentialing children into fields with a high probability of high earnings and stability are outpacing average income growth a few times over. (Here's a brief article on the Canadian case, which isn't atypical of the west: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ort-warns/article4535869/?service=mobile)

Add to that climate the belief among economists that the west is poised to enter a long term period of sub-2% real economic growth, with attendant hits to employment opportunities and real wage growth. In many countries, slower forecast economic growth is accompanied by fiscal instability and intergenerational overhang of pension and other social safety net costs. (Average per capita Canadian public debt alone is approaching $40K, so newborns are inheriting a hefty load.) I urge you to refe, as well, to this info graphic on private debt in Canada as cautionary, particularly the reference to the 12% of the population-- basically adults under 35--whose household debt is >2.5x gross income. Given the share of private debt from mortgages in this segment, there is arguably a professional class that is disproportionately overexposed to housing market risk in the younger generations. Considering these economic drivers, is it surprising that we're witnessing more risk averse parenting styles among a segment of the population?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/glob...atistics/article24322565/?service=mobile

So, families are relatively resource constrained and less broadly diversified, and the demographic and economic drivers are poised to soften over the next decade. What do they do in response? They intensify their attentional resources on their small stock of offspring to maximize the probability of their children successfully self-sustaining and reproducing, as proxied by chaperoning developmental decisions to a greater degree, and later in the child's life, than witnessed in previous generations. Rational? Yes. Prone to maladaptive application? Also yes.