Parents who hover over their children and micromanage their lives are widely known as helicopter parents. While they do this out of love and wanting the best for their children, it can actually cause a lack of independence and hinder the development of some key processes that kids need to develop in order to be become more independent. More specifically, studies show that helicopter parenting can lead to the inability for children to manage their own emotions and behaviors which can affect how they develop emotionally and socially.
Children with helicopter parents actually have more challenges growing up in that they are ill equipped to deal with issues on their own, so they don’t know how to manage their own problems. An article published in June 2018 on USAToday.com titled “Helicopter parenting actually makes life harder for your kids, not easier” cites research from a psychological study about the development of children when their parents are always “smothering” them. This makes it much more challenging for them to excel in the school environment with both learning and making friends since they typically act out more in the classroom due to their lack of knowledge for regulating their own emotions. When parents interfere with the managing of emotions at young ages, children miss the opportunities to learn the skills required to successfully regulate their own emotions. The article suggests that these parents should be there to support their children, but instead of telling their kids how to feel, they should help them to control their own emotions by talking to them about their feelings. They can help their children learn some coping strategies including taking deep breaths, coloring, listening to music, or going to a quiet space. The research shows that kids who are better able to control their own emotions by around five years old were less likely to have emotional and behavioral issues by 10 years old. With both of these comes fewer problems in the long run.
The psychological study described in the parenting article on USAToday.com was completed at the University of Minnesota over a period of eight years, and was published in 2018. Throughout these eight years, the researchers examined any associations between the over controlling parents and childhood. The first process was to recruit a sample of children who may be at risk to develop future behavior issues who also represented a variety of races and different socioeconomic statuses. All of the groups of people were recruited through day care centers, health departments, and women, infants, and children programs. Roughly an equal number of genders was recruited with 422 children participating and approximately 52% of them being girls and 48% of them were boys.
The study began when the children were 2 and it collected data at ages 2, 5, and 10 years old. At age 2 they observed the mother’s behavior, and at age 5 they observed the child’s self-regulatory processes. At 5 years old they observed the child by having the children complete tasks that should elicit emotional and behavioral responses and they videotaped them completing them. These videotapes were then used for behavioral coding. When the kids were 10, they self reported to the researchers what school problems they were having. At both 5 and 10 years old, the teachers reported the kids’ academic productivity and their social skills. Many measures including race, sex, externalizing behaviors at 2, maternal overcontrol at 5, and emotion regulation at 5 were used in this study so the results could be broken down further into categories based on these measures.
The study found that as externalizing behaviors (aggressive, destructive, or oppositional behaviors) increase at 2 years old, children were more likely to encounter emotional problems, school problems, have less social skills, and were slightly behind academically at 10 years old. At 2 years old, maternal overcontrol was negatively correlated with emotion regulation of kids at age 5 meaning that the more the mothers attempted to control their children at age 2, the less control over their emotions the children possessed at age 5. The more maternal control over children in toddlerhood, the more likely that the children would have difficulties regulating their emotional expressions and controlling their behavior in their early childhood years. At 5 years old, the kids who had more regulatory skills were more likely to increase their academic productivity and social skills and also decrease their emotional and school issues as they approach adolescence. The study shows significant evidence that kids who have over controlling parents early in life may not be as equipped to deal with the school environment which can result in less social, emotional, and academic adjustment while the kids who successfully develop the ability to handle their own emotions and inhibit certain inappropriate behavioral responses are able to adjust to the preadolescent school context with more ease.
The parenting article on USAToday.com seemed to do a pretty good job converting the information and findings from the study into an article that is non-scientific and more easily comprehended by the public. It didn’t include all of the details that the psychological study did, but that doesn’t seem necessary since its purpose is to summarize the study and relay the important general information from it. The psychological study included all of the details about it including recruitment of subjects, the procedures, and the results because it is meant to be more detailed and scientific for other psychologists to learn about it. The parenting article does not seem to introduce any discrepancies as they took their findings directly from this study even including quotes from it. I also found it constructive that at the end of the USA Today article they added a few sentences on what the parents should do instead of hovering over their children all the time. It would have been unhelpful to simply preach to the readers that helicopter parenting can negatively affect your kids but offer them no alternative on how to change because they wouldn’t know what to do.
Personally I believe that regulating one’s own emotions and behavior is critical for success in both academic and social settings. Infants rely on parents or caregivers to regulate for them, but as they get older and enter toddlerhood, they need to begin to develop some independence and self sufficiency. Even by about 5 months, infants are picking up some strategies to self soothe and regulate their emotions. If adults do allow them to have control over their own emotions they will begin to develop this ability and utilize it. However, if a parent is constantly controlling and making decisions for their children, they will never make emotion and behavior regulation a habit because they won’t pick up the skill which is a critical piece of development. When asked to do so kids can inhibit behaviors, but helicopter parents don’t allow kids to make their own decisions so their kids can’t self regulate well as a result. By dealing with one’s own behavior, they can develop coping strategies in order to navigate emotional struggles, but just like any other skill, the more practice with this skill the easier and more second nature it becomes. In order to be socially competent, it is necessary that children develop these abilities as it is easier for them to achieve their personal goals in social situations while simultaneously preserving the positive relationships that they have with others. It makes sense that children of parents who allow them more independence and more opportunities to practice and fine tune how to handle their emotions and inhibit certain behaviors would be more independent and equipped to handle themselves in social interactions. While on the contrary, children who don’t know how to handle their emotions and behavior will not be prepared for social interaction with peers which sets them up for a tougher adjustment to school. Rather than managing their kids’ emotions and behavior for them, helicopter parents should support their children in times of distress and work to guide them down a good path so that they can learn how to properly regulate their emotions while having control over the situation.
Helicopter parenting is a style of parenting that may emerge when parents are overly concerned with the safety and well-being of their children to the point that they want to make sure their children do everything right by essentially doing things for their kids and taking away their independence. While their behavior stems from their love for their children and wanting the best for them, it can actually inhibit their children’s development which may add to the challenges of navigating school and social situations. A parenting article from USAToday.com summarizes the findings from a psychological study that took place at the University of Minnesota regarding the issue of helicopter parenting in an effective way by focusing on the important conclusions from the study. They suggest that rather than parents watching their child’s every move to make sure everything goes right, that they give them some more control over their own lives and offer them so helpful guidance to form their own thoughts on how to regulate their emotions and behaviors. While helicopter parents may feel that they are doing what is best for their children, in the long run there may actually be some negative consequences that result from this style of parenting.