Good Parents Gone Bad

Helicopters? Hovercrafts? Black Hawks? Stealth Fighters? No, these aren't names for an aeronautics course, but rather for well-intentioned parents who care so much about the outcome of our children’s lives that we hover over them and endlessly micromanage their lives.  Some parents go beyond overbearing, and into the unethical - writing children’s college essays and even making threats to school administrators.  But the hovering starts well before college -- or even preschool -- with wireless video monitors, knee pads for crawlers and even pre-natal music.  We all want the best for our kids.  Obviously.  However, by striving to give them the best, we might be unwittingly giving them the worst.

It’s not always easy to tell the difference.  Last year, Lenore Skenazy, a nationally syndicated writer from New York City started a firestorm.  After her nine year-old son clamored to use the city subway to get home on his own, she decided he was ready.  He had already experienced walking independently home from school and taking the bus because he grew up using public transportation.  So, after giving him $20, a transit fare card and a subway map, she left him on his own at Bloomingdale’s.  Afterwards, she wrote about the experience in her newspaper column in the New York Sun.  Immediately the comments section lit up.  Was she was the most irresponsible parent ever (“How would you have felt if he never made it home?”) or, as others argued, the most evolved. 

Skenazy believes parents infantilize their children because of their own misguided fear. She writes about this in her blog at freerangekids.com; “There’s something weird about the way we’re assessing risk.  I believe in taking safety precautions, but I don’t believe in not letting my kid out of the house.  The problem with this ‘everything is dangerous’ outlook is that over-protectiveness is a danger in and of itself.  A child who thinks he can’t do anything on his own eventually can’t.”

There’s a lot of information at our fingertips.  We’re aware of child abductions, murders, mass school shootings, even “balloon boy” floating through the air, the instant dire stories happen.  This type of information breeds fear.  Combine fear with our desire for our children’s success?  Well, it’s not a pretty mix.  By attempting to control all aspects of their lives, parents create anxious kids instead (see Richard Weissbourd’s book, The Parents We Mean to Be).  University admissions officers, the same ones calling us parents “helicopters,” “black hawks” and “hovercrafts,” call our children “crispies” and “teacups,” so fragile and overstressed, any small problem can break them.

And here’s another irony.  Our propensity toward safety and control can backfire on us.  Warwick Cairns claims in his book, Live Dangerously: Why We Should All Stop Worrying and Start Living, bicyclists who wear helmets actually cycle less carefully than those who don’t.  He claims drivers who pass bicyclists wearing helmets are less likely to be careful as well.  How many accidents have been avoided because a driver was super careful driving past a non helmet-wearing cyclist?

Of course, we’ll never know.  Which is why we choose the most careful path possible.  I saw this most clearly when we purchased a large rectangular trampoline... against the strict recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics and most of our very dear friends.  

“Do you know how many children are injured on tramps?"

"I  just talked my neighbor out of getting one.”

“Your insurance will increase astronomically.” 

Broken bone and neck and head injury stories bounded through every conversation and against “expert” advice, we dug a hole and put “the springy death rectangle” right in the middle of our yard.  The trampoline has become the most well worn, fun and healthy investment we’ve ever made.  Our children jump every season of the year in New England.  The trampoline company (that makes trampolines, but does not manufacture their own nets) says this, “We believe nets can cause jumpers to be more careless on the trampoline.”

So how do we teach children responsibility?  One thing is for sure. If we create an atmosphere in which our kids don’t have to do anything difficult, they won't magically learn how.  Haven’t we all learned the biggest lessons in our lives from taking responsibilities, failing and then getting right back up and trying again?  So why try so hard to protect our children from the disappointments and failures that actually help them grow character, strength and virtue?

I’m not saying we should burn all helmets and car seats – they’re helpful.  I’m also not saying children can raise themselves – they need us to guide them.  But guidance doesn’t mean doing everything for them.  We need more than “put your helmet on” methods.  We need loving, intentional and active parenting.   And then – if you’ll forgive another bicycle analogy -- it’s time to let go.

by JEAN YIH KINGSTON, who co-founded SixSeeds.  She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.