HELICOPTER

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION // LUZ RAYA

HELICOPTER PARENTS

GREG SANTOS // STAFF

Has your parent ever jumped into conflicts with your roommates, peers, teachers, or even bosses? How about track where you are at all times? Or make you tell them about your plans well before they happen? These are signs that you are a child of a helicopter parent. A helicopter parent is a term commonly used as someone who is controlling of their child’s life to an unnecessary extent. This type of parenting has a negative impact on young men and women all over the nation. This type of parenting is a problem in our country. Why does all this hovering over children create conflict? It causes young people to have struggles with their mentality. Since parents are doing everything for their child, they won’t thrive in situations where their parents are not around. Let’s say every problem you’ve had was solved by your parents when you were in elementary school and middle school. When you face more challenging stages in your life, like high school and college, you won’t be able to handle the responsibilities and expectations of the independent world without your parents. Why is this? Your parents didn’t educate you on how to handle those situations independently. In 2010, a study by Neil Montgomery showed that 10 percent of 300 students who are freshmen in college have helicopter parents. The research also revealed that students with helicopter parents tend to be less open-minded to new ideas and situations, and that they were more anxious, self-conscious, and dependent on their parents. Children can also grow an overwhelming fear of failure, or not succeeding with everything. Their parents have held them to an unbelievably high standard, which makes them lack self-confidence for not making their parents proud, or being a disappointment. A study in 2016 from The National University of Singapore that was published in the Journal of Personality states that “Children with intrusive parents who had high expectations for academic performance, or who overreacted when they made a mistake, tend to be more self critical, anxious, or depressed .” If parents don’t let their children have the freedom to discover their purpose, which includes failing in the process, then they will struggle to find happiness in life, negatively impacting their mental health.

Helicopter parenting is a life changing style of parenting that can give their child anxiety and other mental health issues. We all get that parenting is not an easy task, whatsoever, but if a parent really wants her child to succeed, she needs to start making adjustments. Parents want to prevent them from failure by restricting them from making the mistakes that they, themselves, have made in the past. Instead of stopping their children from failure, they should allow them to make mistakes in their lifetime and experience their own hardships. This will gain them wisdom and help them with making decisions later in life. Parents should be more open-minded and support their child’s growth and independence.

Scan this code and take The Antlerette survey so we can better connect with the student body and increase readership!