Helicopter Parenting - What is it and Where Does it Come From?

Parenthood in a helicopter is a relatively new term in our cultural lexicon. It refers to the current cultural tendency to parent with a keen eye to protect our children from all potential sources of harm, risk and / or disappointment. In many ways, helicopter parenting is synonymous with the notion of 'over-parenting' and / or 'over-parenting'.

The origins of the term "helicopter parenthood"
The term was first used in the 1990 book titled “Parenting with Love and Logic: Teaching Children Responsibility” in a section on “Ineffective Parenting Styles”. From there, the term was taken up in educational circles to refer to the intensive intervention of some parents in the daily aspects of their children's educational life - their classroom activities, their lessons and grades, their communications with children. teachers and professors. , etc.

This way when the term helicopter parenting is used pejoratively, it means parents are high today. too much - that there is too much protection, too much parental control, too much supervision, involvement and intervention. Indeed, the end result of a parenting parenting approach that aims to eliminate as much risk, disappointment and physical / emotional injury as possible is to constantly hover, like a helicopter, over the minutes of children's daily lives. .

The argument against helicopter parenting, then, is that a certain degree of disappointment, physical / emotional injury and risk, and a certain degree of "handling things yourself" is necessary for children to become responsible, resilient. , capable, autonomous and autonomous. -members of the company.

Where does helicopter parenthood come from?
The desire to minimize, eliminate and manage risk is do not specific to the field of parenthood. Indeed, "risk awareness" is itself a central feature of modern life. The quest to understand, calculate, communicate, manage and otherwise minimize or eliminate the myriad of risks associated with our daily lives has become one of the defining characteristics of modern post-industrial societies.

In this context, the trend towards helicopter parenthood is do not simply an isolated issue of overzealous parenting - a case of 'ineffective parenting' or 'over parenting' that is somewhat at odds with broader cultural behaviors and trends. In fact, our larger contemporary obsession with risk and risk management waits and demands that parent us with a keen eye on the various things that could possibly cause any form of physical or emotional harm, injury, discomfort, pain or disappointment.

Modern parenting culture expects parents to have a moral and social responsibility to be extraordinarily “risk-aware” to their parenting philosophy and behaviors. Scholar Ellie Lee, for example, argues that in today's risk society, “cultural norms ... construct the 'good / responsible mother' as the conscious mother of the multiple risks that contemporary society presents to her. his child (ren), and considers it his duty to manage these risks by referring to the opinion of experts. "

In other words, the helicopter parenting trend is - rightly or wrongly - the utterly logical result of a culture already obsessed with risk and guided by experts.

In defense of parents
Understanding where helicopter parenting comes from doesn't mean it's necessarily a good or bad thing to do. It is, however, to say that the tendency to want to protect our children from all potential sources of risk (often accomplished by hovering, intervening and "helicoptering" over our children) is little more than a extension of broader cultural trends that define modern risk society.

However, parents are often caught in a trap. On the one hand, helicopter parenting is interpreted as “excessive parenting” and is viewed in a negative light. However, if and when we reduce our level of control and involvement and allow our children to be exposed to more risk in their daily lives (that is, if we consciously question the philosophical foundations of parenthood in a helicopter), we again dealing with the possibility of being judged negatively, especially if that longer leash results in some form of physical or emotional injury to our child.

The implicit cultural expectation is that parents are neither too unfavorable nor too tolerant of risk, but that they must strike the right balance; basically, to figure out how to walk a tightrope.

This implicit expectation of modern parents concerns me seriously, especially if it is primarily professionals and "experts" (as opposed to parents themselves) who have the primary power to define and judge what "fair parenting" is. What the optimal mix of risk exposure and risk aversion could be for a single child. Behavior that might be considered “too risky” for one family might be well within the realm of acceptable risk for another. This, I believe, is a good thing and do not something that should be reduced. We should have variations in our parenting styles and in our risk assessments. It makes us think, it keeps us on our toes, and it prompts us to debate and talk about one of the most important jobs in the world, educating the next generation.

Suggestions for further reading
Parenthood in a helicopter is an important phenomenon to discuss, as it evokes some of the main strains of modern parenting culture. As such, I have a few suggestions for "reading more". One is an interesting and balanced article recently published in Time magazine titled "The Case Against Excessive Parenting".