Helicopter parents must learn to drop their kids
- Source: Global Times
- [21:16 September 08 2010]
- Comments
Illustration: Liu Rui
By Patrick Mattimore
It's been fascinating reading the various stories over the last few weeks about Chinese parents accompanying their children to universities. The theme of the stories has generally been that these overly protective parents are afraid to let the children go off on their own.
Some of the parents stay at hotels near the universities for weeks after school starts, while others rent apartments.
In the US, the term for parents who refuse to let go is "helicopter parents," and it refers to a parent who hovers over his child, insisting upon micromanaging the details of that child's life.
A close cousin of the "helicopter parent" is the "lawnmower parent," who tries to cut down all the obstacles in her child's path in order to make life go smoothly.
Most of the stories about "helicopter parents," in both China and the US, suggest that the parents hang on as a way to express their love or concern for their children. To some extent, that may be true, but more often than not, a helicopter parent is meeting his own needs, not the child's.
Children crave independence. The well-researched "terrible twos" stage of rebellion, when children love saying "No," insist on doing things for themselves, or frequently resist parental suggestions, is a cross-cultural phenomenon. While parents will nevertheless keep two year olds on a short tether, that cord should be cut by the time a student goes off to college.
One danger of helicopter parenting is that by insisting on controlling or guiding a young adult's life, the parent fosters unhealthy dependence. The message to the child is that he can't take care of himself and mom or dad will.
Another problem is that when a parent insists upon being around to either manage or smooth things out, a child begins to take the parent for granted, may well resent the parent and begin to act disrespectfully.
Finally, in two-parent families, the continuing attachment to children may be a way for the parents to avoid intimacy with one another. A child reaching college age is a natural time to let go and the fact that one or both parents is or are unable to break away may signal that they are uncomfortable with relating to each other without the child as a buffer.
Here are five signs that indicate a parent is still too attached to a child who has reached majority age. The first is if they write about their child's challenges in the plural.
Here are two examples from a college admissions website:
"I think my son and I were just caught off-guard about how difficult it would be to schedule classes for that first year."
"We actually came across a similar problem, but not as severe as yours."
Then there's if the majority of the time parents spend with their friends, they are still talking about their children. That was fine when their children went to first grade together, but it's time to move on.
What about insisting on speaking to their child every day on the telephone? That's too much! The children have a life and the parents need to get one.
Then there are those parents who at the slightest indication of trouble, such as when a professor has given their child a bad grade, feel the need to step in and rescue her.
Obviously, if their child gets into serious trouble with the law, they should be willing to recommend a lawyer or advocate, someone other than themselves!
And finally there's spending weekends with the child. I knew a parent who flew literally thousands of miles every weekend to watch his daughter play volleyball matches.
Just like birds know enough to kick their young out of the nest to force them to fly on their own, parents must learn to trust their children's wings and not insist upon going along as passengers or pilots.
The author is an adjunct professor at Tsinghua/Temple Law School LLM Program in Beijing. patrickmattimore1@yahoo.com
