Whether it be tracking one’s whereabouts, monitoring food intake, or checking texts, parents staying involved in the lives of their kids is becoming easier and easier. It’s easy to see how parents could be tempted to participate in what the Drops of Ink staff believes to be an overprotective interest in their child: helicopter parenting.
As far as the intentions of parents when it comes to why they have such a large presence in their child’s life, DOI resolved that many parents’ intentions for their kids are good, wanting the best for their kids. Although DOI believes that the overinvolvement stems from love, many staff members think that the overinvolvement could hinder kids. This is especially true if the parent is forcing their kids to do things they did as a kid or wished they did without taking the child’s wants into consideration. If the kid can never decide what he or she wants to do, how will they be able to find what they really enjoy?
Many DOI members also stated that when parents get too involved in their kid’s life, it can put an unneeded amount of pressure on the child, eventually leading to burning the child out by the time they get to the end of high school – both socially and emotionally. If a child who has a helicopter parent receives a 50 percent on a pop quiz in math that was only worth two points and they know it won’t make a huge impact on their grade, they may obsess over it, worried about what their parents will think.
Conversely, some staff members also noted that parents who are always on top of everything their kids do could lead to positive effects in the future like teaching kids to always stay on top of their own work, staying proactive so they could be ready for their parents. But DOI believes, one way or another, children should take their own initiative.
But how can kids take initiative when they aren’t given much responsibility? And how much responsibility is too much vs. not enough. Our staff concluded that the amount of responsibility for things like going out on their own and keeping track of their own grades should be given to kids gradually.
Furthermore, the presence of parents should not be one extreme or another; there shouldn’t be a lack of parental guidance or the other extreme of helicopter parenting. This would also let kids learn on their own, which many members on staff believed to be more meaningful. By gradually giving kids more and more responsibility, students will still receive guidance from their parents, but they will also learn to be independent on their own, a skill that the DOI staff finds very important especially by the time they get to college.
Deciding how much and how fast to turn over that responsibility differs on a case-by-case basis. We believe that students who continually prove themselves to be capable of gaining new responsibilities should be rewarded with new freedoms.
Overall, DOI concluded that the presence of parents in their child’s life should not be one extreme or another; an authoritative view on parenting is the best, allowing for kids’ mistakes and aiding in the learning process that follows mistakes.
