You might’ve heard of helicopter parenting. It’s a fairly common style of parenting that is not effective and has a lot of adverse effects, but it’s becoming more and more prevalent every year. I want to share some dangers of helicopter parenting, and I want to introduce some ideas that I think are much more useful and powerful.
We’ve all heard the term helicopter parenting. These are parents who stand over their kid’s shoulder, directing every move, obsessing about their children’s success and making sure they can correct mistakes immediately. Helicopter parents are overly protective and overly involved, but they see this as being a good parent.
It’s seductive because they’re definitely some of the most hardworking parents you’ll ever find. In fact, many see parenting as their ultimate purpose of being in this world.
Three Types of Helicopter Parenting Behaviors
There are three types of behaviors that exemplify a helicopter parent:
1. Over-Involvement in Your Child’s Daily Life
This looks like needing to know where they are at all times, helping them make all decisions. These are parents that are micromanaging the living daylights out of their kids’ lives.
2. Directly Intervening in Any and All of Their Kids’ Conflicts
If they make a bad decision, like forgetting to turn in their homework, that parent is there to make sure the teacher knows and the kid gets the grade. You don’t let your child handle it, you handle it yourself. If the kid has conflicts with their friends, the parents are intervening.
3. Limiting Their Child’s Autonomy
These are parents that control their kids’ lives, make decisions for them, and if the kid makes a decision they don’t like, the parent will not support that decision at all.
The Research on Helicopter Parenting
You can find a lot of books addressing the topic of helicopter parenting and why it’s not that great. There’s a lot of research showing that it actually keeps kids socially and emotionally immature, inflexible, anxious, dependent, and self-conscious. These kids are more self-critical and more depressed.
Nobody wants this for their kids. So if you find yourself falling into this category, you need to really consider your approach and work on changing.
Another aspect of helicopter parenting is that these parents are working way harder at solving their kids’ problems than the kids themselves are. You are essentially sending the message that you need me to solve all of your life’s problems. You can’t do this on your own, and you will never be safe without me.
A Real-Life Example
Let me illustrate this with an example. I recently spent some time with an almost 18-year-old young man who had stopped attending school. He was depressed, anxious, and self-medicating with a lot of marijuana. The story I got was that this boy had grown up as a really high-achieving, very bright young man. He was a star athlete, and he was a star in just about anything he did.
That is until about a year ago, when he started to crash and burn. At this point, he’s sleeping all day, he’s refusing to do anything around the house, and he’s missing huge amounts of school. This was a boy who was previously on the Ivy League track, and now he’s doing nothing.
His parents have tried everything. They even tried putting him in a short-term, six-week residential treatment program. He was angry that they put him there, and he complained daily to them the whole time he was there. Before he returned home, he agreed to a behavioral contract that involved attending school, not using drugs, and eating dinner with his family every night.
When he got home, that lasted for nine days, and then he was back to these old behaviors. After several more months of not attending school and getting high almost every day of the week, his parents talked him into going back and attending the same treatment program again. It took a lot of effort on their part and they essentially lied to him. They told him that if he’d just go for a few weeks, they’d buy him a car when he got home.
Their plan all along was they were just hoping that he would get with the program and then he would want to stay in treatment because he was feeling better. But it did not turn out this way. He was so angry about being there primarily because of the structure and rules that were in the program. All he did was complain and then threaten his parents that if they didn’t take him home, he would emancipate from them.
This turned into another early exit with the same behavioral contract, and this time he lasted for three weeks. A few months later I was called to come work with his family. He was skipping school and now expressing feelings of depression, anxiety, and hopelessness.
The Pattern I Observed
I spent the day with this boy. I found him to be remarkably bright, but he was angry, irritable, depressed, and unmotivated. He was angry at his parents, and he basically blamed them for all of his problems.
While I was with him that day, I probably received 15 text messages from his mother, asking me how he was responding to me. She was letting me know in various ways how supportive they were of him. They would do anything for him. She kept sending me messages over and over, letting me know that they would do anything. They were unbelievably willing to help him and do whatever was needed.
But this was, in fact, both the truest fact of the matter and perhaps one of the biggest obstacles that they were dealing with. They just didn’t realize that part of the issue had to do with how willing they were to help and how hard they were working at it.
They were, and they had been for his entire life, over-functioning for this boy. I would say they were working much, much, much harder at getting him better than he was working at it. The funny thing about it was, he resented them for all of the over-functioning they were doing for him, but at the same time, he demanded that they do this, that they take care of him, that they give him whatever he wanted.
A Day in the Life of Helicopter Parenting
Let me tell you what a typical day in his life was like. He would wake up and refuse to go to school because he was too tired and depressed. There was his mom, every morning, literally trying to cheerlead him out of his bed. I mean literally. She was honestly so pleasant about it.
But this cheerleading included waking him up, offering to make him breakfast, and begging him to go to school. She just so badly wanted him to finish high school. She’d do anything to help him. He was irritated by this. He resented her every morning. He resented her attempts at waking him up, and he would ask her to leave him alone.
That’s all he ever really wanted, actually, was for her to leave him alone. Except for the one time that she had a work meeting that lasted into the evening, and then he berated her for coming home so late. Why do you think he was mad? Because he couldn’t find anything to eat. Normally, she made him all of his meals.
How to Change If You’re a Helicopter Parent
How do you change if you’re a helicopter parent? What do you do if you’re over-functioning for your child? Here are three ideas for you:
1. Stop It
I know this sounds simple: Stop it! If you’re doing this, do whatever you can to stop. Get professional help if you have to, but you have to stop this because you are actually creating the problems that you’re facing.
Don’t do things for your kids that they can and should be doing for themselves. For example, if your child struggles with math, please do not do their math homework for them. Don’t write their essays for them. How many times have I seen this over the years?
You must allow them to struggle and encourage them to persist when things get difficult. Be willing to allow your kids to have pain.
2. Never Intervene and Stop Consequences from Happening Due to Your Child’s Behavior
For example, if Susie did her homework but forgot to turn it in, and now she has makeup homework to do, let her experience that consequence.
Natural consequences are often the best teachers. When you constantly rescue your child from the results of their choices, you rob them of valuable learning opportunities.
3. When Your Child Has a Problem, Ask Them to Come Up with a Creative Solution
Teach them to think independently, and by all means, quit giving them the solution to everything. The dilemmas they have now are minor in comparison to the dilemmas they’ll have as adults, and the more they can learn to problem-solve, the better.
Why Helicopter Parenting Feels Like Love
It’s important to understand why helicopter parenting is so common. Parents who hover and over-function are usually motivated by love and genuine concern for their children. They want to protect their kids from pain, failure, and disappointment. They want to give their children every advantage possible.
In our competitive culture, many parents feel pressure to ensure their children succeed academically, socially, and in extracurricular activities. The fear of their child being left behind or not reaching their potential drives many parents to become overly involved.
Additionally, some parents derive their own sense of worth from their children’s achievements. When the child succeeds, the parent feels successful. When the child struggles, the parent feels like they’re failing in their most important job.
The Hidden Costs of Over-Functioning
When parents consistently over-function for their children, several harmful patterns develop:
Children don’t develop problem-solving skills. If parents always swoop in to fix things, children never learn to work through challenges independently.
Children become risk-averse. When parents prevent all failure and disappointment, children don’t learn that they can handle setbacks and recover from mistakes.
Children develop external locus of control. They begin to believe that their success or failure depends on outside forces (usually their parents) rather than their own efforts and choices.
Children struggle with decision-making. When parents make all the decisions, children don’t develop the confidence to trust their own judgment.
The parent-child relationship becomes transactional. Children learn to expect parents to solve their problems rather than developing a relationship based on mutual respect and genuine connection.
What Healthy Support Looks Like
Supporting your children doesn’t mean doing everything for them. Healthy support includes:
Being available for guidance when asked. Offer advice and perspective when your child seeks it, but don’t force it on them.
Teaching problem-solving skills. Instead of solving problems for them, walk them through the process of finding solutions.
Allowing natural consequences. Let your children experience the results of their choices, both positive and negative.
Expressing confidence in their abilities. Let them know you believe they can handle challenges and learn from their experiences.
Celebrating effort, not just outcomes. Focus on the process and the learning rather than just the results.
The Connection Between Helicopter Parenting and Anxiety
There’s a strong connection between helicopter parenting and increased anxiety in both parents and children. When parents are constantly worried about their children’s success and happiness, they communicate anxiety rather than confidence.
Children pick up on this anxiety and begin to believe that the world is dangerous and that they’re not capable of handling challenges on their own. This creates a cycle where anxious parents raise anxious children who then become anxious parents themselves.
Breaking this cycle requires parents to do their own work around anxiety and control. This might include therapy, mindfulness practices, or simply learning to tolerate the discomfort of watching your child struggle without immediately intervening.
Building Resilience Instead of Dependence
The goal of parenting should be to raise children who are resilient, capable, and confident in their ability to navigate life’s challenges. This requires allowing them to face age-appropriate difficulties and learn from their experiences.
Resilient children:
- Bounce back from setbacks more quickly
- Are more willing to take appropriate risks
- Have better problem-solving skills
- Are more emotionally regulated
- Have stronger relationships
- Are more successful in school and work
- Have better mental health outcomes
The Long-Term Impact
Children who are raised by helicopter parents often struggle in adulthood with decision-making, relationship skills, and emotional regulation. They may have difficulty launching into independent adult lives and may remain overly dependent on their parents well into their twenties and thirties.
On the other hand, children who are raised with appropriate support and allowed to develop independence within a secure relationship with their parents tend to thrive as adults. They’re more confident, more resilient, and better able to form healthy relationships.
Finding the Balance
The alternative to helicopter parenting isn’t neglect or abandonment. It’s what researchers call authoritative parenting, which combines high expectations with high warmth and support.
Authoritative parents:
- Set clear boundaries and expectations
- Provide emotional support and warmth
- Allow children to make age-appropriate choices and experience natural consequences
- Are available for guidance without being controlling
- Focus on the relationship rather than just compliance
This approach builds both connection and credibility with your children. They feel loved and supported while also developing the skills they need to become independent, capable adults.
Remember, your job as a parent isn’t to ensure your child never struggles or fails. Your job is to provide a secure base from which they can explore, learn, and grow into the person they’re meant to become.
If you want to learn more about finding this balance between support and independence, and building relationships with your children based on connection rather than control, check out my comprehensive parenting course, Connection and Credibility, available on my website at https://www.drtoddtalks.com.
