Helicopter Parents Are Sputtering Out: A Summary

Julie Lythcott-Haims’ article from Slate.com, “Kids of Helicopter Parents Are Sputtering Out,” is a recent article published on July 5 2015. Lythcott-Haims discusses the issues of mental health involving college students. Specifically, she is discussing the possible correlation of strict parental guidance—Helicopter or hovering parents--possibly affecting student’s life skills once they are on their own.

Lythcott-Haims uses statistics as well as different studies to back up her thesis of “helicopter parents” affecting their child’s mental health. One of the studies she uses is from Bill Deresiewicz and it discusses the idea of college students being “excellent sheep” which Lythcott-Haims disagrees and prefers the term “existentially

impotent.” Some of the studies have researched statistics involving students who are experiencing a variety of different emotions including feeling “overwhelmed by all they had to do,” “very sad,” and also “seriously considered suicide.” (College Health Association). Lythcott-Haims also brings the concern of helicopter parents pressuring their child to majors or prestigious colleges like Yale when in fact, it is something he or she doesn’t want to pursue which is seen from a quote from Charlie Gofen’s collegue: “My guess is 75 percent of the parents would rather see their kids depressed at Yale.” However, Lythcott-Haims reveals that college students everywhere are feeling depressed due to parents controlling their children’s life to the point where they are unsure about themselves when going into the adulthood.
Not only is she talking about the issue of possibly over-parenting, she considers a solution for parents to have their child have more control in their lives so they can have more opportunities to “be creative, to problem solve, to develop coping skills, to build resilience, to figure what makes them happy, to figure out who they are.” Because of parents taking too much control in their kids’ lives, these skills are not as developed and they tend to struggle hence Lythcott-Haims’ concern in these mental issues; however, it should not be the point to where the child and parent are isolated.
While Lythcott-Haims demonstrates her knowledge that helicopter parents who take too much control in their child’s life can affect valuable life skills when going to college, the need for parental guidance is still important as college students move onto the real world and there may be other possible factors that affect a college student’s mental health.
Parental guidance is still important in order for their child to progress into their adulthood.

Of course it is hard to draw a line on what is going too far for a parent to control their children’s lives. Lythcott-Haims suggests figuring out “how to get kids to tune into their own motivation, and to get the parents to tune out their motivation to shield their kids from failure and disappointment.” It’s true that parents try to shield their kids from failure and disappointment, but that’s because they want them to learn from their own previous mistakes. With age, there is more experience with failure and disappointment, so parents want their own child to not make the same mistakes. It’s a natural instinct for parents to protect their child from any harm and it may seem extreme to others, it’s probably normal for them. Even with the protection from parents, as young adults, we’re still going to make the same mistakes no matter how much protection there

is.
Lythcott-Haims claims that helicopter parents affect a college student’s mental health; however, she doesn’t claim that the number of helicopter parents is increasing.

While her argument is strong in bringing valuable date of college students into place, there is no specific statistic on how many parents hover over their children; in fact, there might not be any way to measure how many parents are “helicopter parents.” There is a spectrum in Sociology that ranges from being permissive, authoritative, or authoritarian. A permissive parent is defined as being “nondemanding and noncontrolling” (University of New Hampshire). An authoritative is defined as being both “demanding and controlling, but they are also warm and receptive to their children’s needs.” while an authoritarian is considered to be “demanding and highly controlling, but detached and unreceptive to their children’s needs” (UNH). From Lythcott-Haims’ discussion about the girl having her father control her life including her major in economics, her father would probably be described as an authoritarian parent with him not letting her make her decisions. Even though this spectrum may bring a better idea on what kinds of parents are, it still doesn’t show numbers on how many parents fall into each category and that may because of how difficult it would be to fall into one parent style when it’s possible to fall in the middle of certain categories. Because of this, the number of helicopter parents might not be

extreme as Lythcott-Haims thinks it is.
Lythcott-Haims also doesn’t consider other possible factors that could affect a college student’s mental health. She doesn’t consider that a college student can be homesick which can be a common thing students are feeling when being away from home. One can argue that this supports Lythcott-Haims’ argument, but this is a normal psychological feeling that college students have. According to Jenniffer Weigel, a reporter from Tribune Newspapers, that a report from 2007 “by the UCLA Higher Educations Research Institue that found than 65 percent of college freshmen experienced periods of homesickness” (Weigel). From Lythcott-Haims’ statistics on how students are feeling overwhelmed, she does not specify how parents are making that much of an impact. Consider the life skills that are taken away when having helicopter parents: “the waking up, the transporting, the reminding about deadlines and obligations…” (Lythcott-Haims). While it is better for college students to know the basic life skills that adults should know about, but consider some of the parts of adulthood that young adults especially college students don’t think about. College students do not consider identity theft, finances, and news, which may not seem like a big deal at the time, but young adults usually have to learn about this the hard way. Instead of telling parents to back off, parents need to be aware that needs to be a healthy balance between them and their child.
From Lythcott-Haims’ argument, the issue of college students not being able to function as an adult seems a little extreme. Of course students are going to feel stressed about being away from home, but it’s also important for parents to take some part in it. As young adults, there are still events, skills, and other kind of abilities that we’re not sure about it and it may cause stress to ourselves because we’re not familiar with it. While Lythcott-Haims says to back off, parents should still be there for their kids. It’s important to understand mental health is a serious issue so instead of telling parents to back off, let them understand what their child is suffering right now.