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Caroline Willis

Instructor: Malcolm Campbell

UWRT 1104

April 29, 2017

Helicopter Parents: Helping or Hurting?

Helicopter parenting means different things to different people. Its typically defined as a

parent who hovers over their child, makes decisions for them, and sometimes sacrifices their

childs happiness or childhood for their future success. Most helicopter parents reach out to

teachers, and become involved in every aspect of their kids life, including school, regardless of

if they are needed in certain situations. To some, helicopter parenting has a negative connotation,

and its looked upon as a hindrance to the children. To others, it is the most effective parenting

style when it comes to making sure your kids are raised to be successful. No matter what your

opinion of helicopter parenting is, you most likely know somebody who disagrees with you;

somebody who raised their children or have parents that raised them in the opposite way. While

there arent any specific sets of rules to decide whether you are a helicopter parent or not, its a

difficult thing to decide when you yourself are in the situation. Due to the fact that we, as

humans, become used to what is consistent for us, we may never know our parents were

hovering over us if we never knew otherwise. I grew up in a house that would be considered

neutral by most, meaning that my parents gave me freedom, allowed me to make my own

decisions, and forced me to do things for myself while still making sure that the decisions I made

were good ones. I wouldnt consider them to be helicopter parents due to the fact that they never

went above my head to get something accomplished. They never contacted my teachers,
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professors, or employers to push for my success and they never tried to get into things that they

know I wouldnt necessarily want them to, as long as I was safe. Some of my close friends and

some of the children I babysit have had the opposite experience. Their parents raised them

attempting to be their friend and shape their lives for them by creating an environment where it

was nearly impossible to make a mistake. Despite going away to college, many people that I

know still have parents who call them multiple times a day, track their location, and check up on

their grades consistently. In this paper, I will be examining the effects of helicopter parents on

childrens wellbeing, particularly in college students.

Helicopter parenting is a somewhat new idea in our society. The significance of going

away to college has decreased over the years, and we mainly attribute that to the prevalence of

social media and cell phones. George Kuh is the Founding Director, Senior Scholar, and Co-

Principal Investigator at the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment. He explains

in an interview with NPR (National Public Radio): The coming of age, breaking away

experience that we thought college should behas a different flavor and shape today. This is a

highly connected society we are in now, and it shows in terms of parents and students. Years ago,

you might write a letter home every two weeks. You might have a phone call on the weekend

Well, these folks are in pretty much, almost daily contact with some member of their family

Parents have easy access to almost everything their kid does while theyre away, along with

nearly everything that everyone who even interacts with their child does as well. Social media

has created an environment where we all know almost every detail of each others lives, and this

type of society is breeding curiosity in parents about what their children are up to when theyre

not there to supervise.

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To understand helicopter parenting, we must first understand why it takes place. In

Parents magazine, Kate Bayless gives us four main things that can cause a parents to hover. Her

list consists of fear of dire consequences, feelings of anxiety, overcompensation, and pressure

from other parents. Often, when an adult was neglected when they were younger, they have a

tendency to treat their children in the opposite way, but its easy to take that too far. Laura

Firestone, MFT, specializes in counseling adults, couples, and families. In Psychology Today

magazine, she states While we felt neglected growing up, our children may feel intruded on.

When parents swing too far the other way, they are still distorting their behavior based on their

history. Rather than deciding on the qualities that should matter to us as parents, we are still

reacting to the things that happened to us. Many researchers have found that the motivation

behind their childrens curfews, expected academic outcomes, and rules regarding relationships

are based off of the opinion of other parents. Instead of doing whats best for their son or

daughter, they base their decisions on what their peers or their parents peer will think of them.

Also, its possible that if a parent feels as if their life didnt turn out the way that they wanted,

they want their children to try harder to achieve what they couldnt. Firestone also discusses

projection onto children: When we see our kids as extensions of ourselves, we then put pressure

on them to either be like us or excel in ways we werent able to. We may expect them to carry on

our own dreams or pursue our interests, rather than finding their own. The problem is that in

this case, the parents often take matters into their own hands and end up doing it themselves.

Although most of these reasons dont insinuate negative intentions, they do often turn out to have

negative consequences.

Barbara Hover, author of The iConnected Parent: Staying Close to Your Kids I College

(and Beyond) While Letting Them Grow Up, stated that college students communicate with their
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parents on average of 13.4 times a week (48). Other studies show that most college kids look

forward to hearing from their parents, and theyre not upset about their parents contacting them

often. How do we decipher between helicopter parents and parents who simply want to maintain

a good relationship with their kids while they are away? Hover said that its not completely up to

the child. She claims that if the hovering parenting style doesnt seem to bother the student, it is

likely because the child has become immune to the behavior. Hover believes that it would be a

different case if the child had grown up in an environment where he or she was given their own

space and freedom. She claims that the hovering behavior would bother the child if it suddenly

began, meaning that it has more to do with what youre used to rather than what would benefit

you most.

According to Reema Kharis from NPR, about 30 percent of colleges have created

services to respond to the questions and anxieties of parents. Similarly, more than 90 percent of

colleges offer a specific orientation for parents of freshmen before the start of classes. Rodney

Johnson is the executive director of George Washington Universitys Office of Parent Services,

which is a fairly new office that was established in order to meet the needs of students parents.

He claims that the office receives about 15 calls each day, adding up 2,500 calls per year. What

do these parents typically ask? Most inquiries are about admissions, maintaining grades,

internships, and on-campus jobs, says Johnson. Each one of these mentioned is something that,

in my opinion, needs to be done by the student themselves. Finding internships and employment

is a basic life skill, and it probably doesnt leave the best impression of the student when a

company or boss is contacted by a parent; it may come off as if the student isnt interested in the

position. This is one of the negative aspects of helicopter parenting that could truly end up

affecting a person in a significant way.

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When parents become too involved with teachers, professors, and employers, it often

ends up hurting more than helping. This behavior can also have a negative effect on parents;

studies have shown that parents are often even more emotionally distraught over bad grades than

the student is. Professor Florrie Ng Fei-yin, who is a professor in the Department of Educational

Psychology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, has been studying parent-child

relationships. She has looked at matters concerning grades and academics and their correlation to

parenting in great depth over two studies, on in Hong Kong and the other in the United States.

Ng Fe-yins studies further proved my point: We would leave the parent and child in a room

alone for five minutes; some children performed well on a test and others performed poorly. We

observed immediately that the parents who were over-invested became mean right away. They

frowned, refused to look at their child, and one mother even went so far as to say that her child

failed. These same parents also agreed to statements such as When my daughter fails I feel

bad about myself. This was consistent throughout all of Ng Fei-yins studies. Overall, the

hovering parents became significantly more frustrated with both themselves and their child over

a negative test result.

Hara Estroff Marano brings up another side to this in Psychology Today magazine, where

she is Editor-at-Large. She states Adults, of course, rationalize their intrusive behavior by

pointing out that they're the ones paying the bills, so they are entitled to know what's going on

with their adult children. But commandeer the process? The money rationale rings awfully

hollow. Parents have long paid the way for their offspring, usually with the clear aim of seeing

that the kiddies acquire the knowledge and skills that support independence. One of the main

defenses coming from parents who are overly involved in their college students life is the

money factor. They claim that since theyre paying for it, its up to them how the student uses
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their time. Since college has become so expensive, parents have begun to view it as an

investment, meaning that they have a say in how the student goes about college life. The odd

thing is that the parents who hover typically dont stop at academics; they usually meddle in

personal lives as well. I believe that there is a certainly a line here; its fair for parents to be

interested and somewhat involved in their students grades, especially if theyre funding the

education. On the other hand, I feel that it is unfair to dictate someones decisions simply

because you are voluntarily funding them.

The effects of helicopter parenting on college students are still somewhat unclear due to

the fact that this is a somewhat new issue. While there have always been some parents that could

be considered as hoverers, social media and cell phones have completely changed how we

communicate and how much we can know about somebodys activities, friends, and

whereabouts. Because of this, it is impossible to have any long term research completed on the

topic of helicopter parenting while children are away at college. However, there have been some

short term studies that have told us more about college students feel concerning the way they are

treated by their parents, whether near or far.

One study performed by Terri LeMoyne and Tom Buchanan, who are researchers at the

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, showed that college students who claim that their

parents are over-involved in their lives had lower psychological well-being and were more likely

to take medications for depressions and anxiety. This study proves to us that students really do

feel the pressure coming from their parents, and needing to take medication for self-induced (or

parent-induced) depression or anxiety is not usually looked upon as a positive thing. Another

study done by Chris Segrin, who has his Ph.D. in Behavioral Sciences, found that parents of

college students who reported that they were very involved in their childrens lives had children
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with lower levels of satisfaction in their family life. This study proved to us that helicopter

parenting can even be detrimental to parents, and a family as a whole. Some parents within this

study also shared that they wished they werent hovering over their child, but that they feel they

cant help it. I found this to be interesting because parents are basically admitting that they know

their behavior isnt beneficial to their child, yet they dont change their parenting style. Parents

typically know their children better than researchers do, and if some of the parents are admitting

that helicopter parenting is often a negative thing, I believe that speaks volumes about the effects.

On the contrary, Laura Padilla-Walker and Larry Nelson from Brigham Young University

performed a study in an attempt to establish a measure of helicopter parenting that was distinct

from other forms of parental control, and to examine parental and behavioral correlates of

helicopter parenting. It studied 438 undergraduate students from four different universities

around the United States. The verdict was different than what other researchers have found when

studying hovering parents relationship with their college students. Padilla-Walker and Nelson

found that when children reported that their parents engaged in helicopter parenting, they

described their parents as involved and emotionally supportive. The aspect of this study that was

consistent with other studies is that the students felt that their parents did not grant them

sufficient experience in self-governing before sending them to college. Therefore, this study

proved that helicopter parenting is not always a strictly negative thing.

Overall, through looking at studies, reading interviews, and listening to experts opinions,

I have concluded that helicopter parenting does not have a good effect on college students.

College is a time where you must learn how to do things for yourself and gain skills when it

comes to staying organized, finding employment, and communicating with professors. Outside

of the academic realm, its still important to find your own friends, learn what risks to take, stay
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healthy, and make connections with others for yourself. If our parents are constantly doing these

for us or intervening when we need to be learning these tasks to prevent mistakes, we will never

grow. Of course, there are two sides to everything, and there are certainly some positives to

having parents who are very involved with your life. I dont believe that theres anything wrong

with communicating with your parents daily or letting them help you make decisions. The issue

arises when they are dictating your life, and Im glad that this is becoming a prevalent topic in

our society so that we can prevent the negative types of parent involvement while supporting

positive and close relationships.

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Works Cited

Bayless, Kate. What is Helicopter Parenting? Parents, n.d.,

www.parents.com/parenting/better-parenting/what-is-helicopter-

parenting/. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.

Estroff, Hara Marano. Helicopter Parenting- Its Worse Than You Think. Psychology Today,

31 Jan. 2014, www.psychologytoday.com/blog/nation-

wimps/201401/helicopter-parenting-its-worse-you-think. Accessed 1 Mar.

2017.

Firestone, Lisa. 7 Ways Your Childhood Affects How Youll Parent. Psychology Today, 30 Jul.

2015, https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/compassion-matters/201507/7-ways-your-

childhood-affects-how-youll-parent. Accessed 25 Apr. 2017.

Hofer, Barbara, and Abigail Sullivan Moore. The iConnected Parent: Staying Close to Your Kids

in College (and Beyond) While Letting Them Grow Up. Atria Books, 2011.

Khrais, Reema. Phone Home: Tech Draws Parents, College Kids Closer. NPR, 25 Sept. 2012,

www.npr.org/2012/09/25/161716306/phone-home-tech-draws-parents-

college-kids-closer. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.

Kuh, George. Interview by Alison Stewart. Helicopter Parents Cant Stop Hovering, 6 Nov.

2007, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16034303.

Accessed 2 Mar. 2017.

LeMonye, Terri, and Tom Buchanan. Does Hovering Matter? Helicopter Parenting and Its

Effect on Well-Being. Taylor and Francis Online, vol. 31, no. 4, 9 Jun. 2011, pp. 399-

418. doi:10.1080/02732173.2011.574038. Accessed 31 Mar. 2017.

Ng Fei-yin, Florrie. The Dark Side of Overly Intrusive Parenting: Parents who are too involved
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in their childrens lives end up harming their offspring. The Chinese University of Hong

Kong, June 2015. http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/english/features/professor-ng-fei-yin.html.

Accessed 27 Apr. 2017.

Padilla-Walker, Laura M., and Larry J. Nelson. Black hawk down?: Establishing helicopter

parenting as a distinct construct from other forms of parental control during emerging

adulthood. Journal of Adolescence, vol. 35, no. 5, 3 Oct. 2012, pp. 1177-1190.

doi:10.1016/j.adolescence.2012.03.007. Accessed 28 Mar. 2017.

Schiffrin, Holly H. Helping or Hovering? The Effects of Helicopter Parenting on College

Students Well-Being. Journal of Child and Family Studies, vol. 33, no. 3, 2014, pp.

548-557, 10.1007/s10826-013-9716-3. Accessed 1 Mar 2017.

Segrin, Chris. The Association Between Overparenting, Parent-Child Communication, and

Entitlement and Adaptive Traits in Adult Children. Wiley Online Library, vol. 61, no. 2,

13 Mar. 2012, pp. 237-252. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3729.2011.00689.x. Accessed 30 Mar.

2017.