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Monday, February 14, 2005
Are You a Helicopter Parent?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Time magazine story looks at well-intentioned parents who might be impeding their kids’ self-reliance with their efforts to make sure everything goes smoothly for them at school.
The Helicopter Parent is known for constant hovering. For example, such parents interfere too much in their kids’ discipline issues at school, challenging every reprimand. Or they jump in too quickly to dispute the grade a teacher gave their child on the paper. Such parents are always at school, which can be a blessing for teachers who feel like they can’t accomplish all that’s expected without such support. But when a child appears with a science project so perfect it’s clearly the creation of the beaming parent standing beside the child … parental involvement has gone too far.
Is it hard to know when to jump in and when to pull back at school? Do parents get a mixed message about how involved they should be in their child’s schooling?
(Thanks for DeKalb dad Ernest Brown for alerting me to this story, and for acknowledging that perhaps he just might share a few characteristics with such parents on occasion.)
