Over-Protective Helicopter Parenting

In recent years, excessively-involved parents have been negatively portrayed in social and popular media. Seen as crazy, over-bearing, and intrusive, these parents have been given the name “helicopter parents.” Defined as a parenting style in which a mother and/or father has become over-involved in the life of their child or children, helicopter parenting has been said to in many cases, interfere with the success of students at the post-secondary age. Despite a parent’s best intentions to care for and love their child, helicopter parenting can be detrimental to a student’s ability to be mentally well, confident, and successful when left to their own devices. Especially evident at the post-secondary level of schooling, being reared by over-protective

However, it can continue even through to students in graduate school and beyond. According to Hara Estroff Marano, author of “A Nation of Wimps,” the extensive involvement of parents does not end as a child leaves home, and has the most adverse effects at the post-secondary to graduate school level. Parents being involved in their son or daughter’s post-secondary school choices is nothing new, and is the norm. Serious issues occur when parental involvement intensifies and they constantly encroach on the emotional, intellectual, and in some cases, even the physical areas of their children’s lives. Consistent infringement by helicopter parents on their child’s life could seriously interfere with some of the goals of higher education. These include helping young adults develop self-sufficiency, confidence, and self

Most students with helicopter parents, when questioned about getting a negative review from an employer, proved to be a lot less likely to take the criticism in an adaptive way and improve their work ethic. The more popular answer were that they would either completely give up and quite their job, argue that their boss was wrong, or even ask a parent to call their superior to dispute.  Although having confidence in oneself is said to be an extremely valuable and important trait to have, sometimes it can go too far, and lead to someone becoming narcissistic. The author of Generation Me, Jean Twenge, has been examining recent increases in entitlement and narcissism in post-secondary aged students. She speaks about participation trophies, and their cultural message that says success in today’s society only requires you to show up. The idea of the participation trophy or medal was introduced in the late 1980’s. Ashley Merryman described them in her New York Times piece “Losing Is Good For You,” as excessively-involved parents’ way of reassuring children everywhere that they were all winners, all the time. This may be seen as a positive thing; however, Twenge explains that those who have been raised in a household where they have been given endless awards for doing only the bare minimum for work