Parental involvement can have a positive effect in their children's lives. In what some call the Authoritative Parenting Style, the relationship between parents and children are typically, "...high on warmth and moderate on control, very careful to set clear limits and restrictions regarding certain kinds of behaviors." Of the Authoritative style, further research shows that "Children tend to be friendly and to show development of general competencies for dealing with others and with their environments" (Butcher, Mineka, & Hooley, Abnormal Psychology Core Concepts, Second Edition (2011), 62).
Yet excessive parenting--sometimes called Helicopter Parenting, because of the parents' tendency to hover over everything their children do--appears to have many detrimental effects for all parties involved. That is the subject of a new study from The Journal of Child and Family Studies, and an article by Bonnie Rochman of Time.com.
In particular with adult children, Rochman says the study found "...helicopter parenting decreased adult children’s feelings of autonomy, competence and connection. In turn, feeling incompetent led to increased reports of feeling depressed and dissatisfied."
A related study by the same research group last year found that the helicopter parent experience also negatively affected parents, who often suffered exhaustion and depression as a result of their hyper-involved parenting.
The emerging picture suggests so-called "Helicopter Parenting" does no one favors. Holly Schiffrin, lead author of the study, is quoted by Rochman as saying, "'Parents are sending an unintentional message to their children that they are not competent.'" This appears to erode a child's sense of confidence, independence, and resilience. It also wreaks havoc on parents's health. To top it all, the damage seems to be more-or-less unintended; parents just want their children to succeed.
The study and article further convince me of the difficulties inherent in parenting generally. A growing child seems to need so many contrary things in hard-to-define and ever-changing measure; rules and freedom, security and uncertainty, space and guidance, and so much else. To borrow an idea from the late historian Jacques Barzun, parents seem to require a kind of "double-vision" that they may simultaneously see the contrary needs of their children from both and all angles. This is not easy, and suggests one reason many caring parents resort to helicopter style, despite its shortcomings; that it simplifies--temporarily at least--the burden of rearing and guiding an emerging adult by taking command of various aspects of the child's life. What was double-vision before thus becomes singular. A balancing-act fraught with uncertainty becomes a problem of jumping hoops and achieving benchmarks, a far more straight-forward challenge for most ambitious and driven adults.
Yet a child is neither a ship to be piloted, nor a thing to be perfected. If Rochman and Schiffrin offer any insight, it is that children need three things which helicopter parents cannot readily provide: autonomy, competence, and connection with other people. These constitute the three legs of the "Self-Determination Theory" stool, and by taking control and constantly interjecting into their children's lives, helicopter parents seem to hamper the provisioning of these three needs. Like a ship captain grooming a young sailor for command, the latter only seems to develop autonomy, competence, and connection with others by putting his or her hand to the helm and experiencing the novelty of top-command. A good captain might also know (or learn) when and how these experiences are best attained, building his or her charge's confidence, and thereby, independence. That is the idea anyway, though likely much harder in practice.
For this reason I am cautious to judge anybody put in a position of raising a child or grooming a competent, confident individual in any endeavor. The challenges they face are different yet on par perhaps with those young folks coming into their own in the world. There's much we know about how this process should work, yet like sailor who would command a ship, we may not acquire the captain's touch until we've had the helm in our own hands for a time.
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