Helicopter parenting is a parenting style where parents become overprotective by monitoring their children’s activities and schooling to shield them from pain and disappointment while also assisting them in succeeding. A helicopter mother or father is notorious for hovering over their children and becoming excessively involved in their life.     

Helicopter parents are okay if your child is just born or 2-3yrs of age, but as they start to grow up, helicopter parenting might not be a suitable parenting style for your children.

Why do parents do helicopter parenting?

Parents do helicopter parenting for many reasons because you give birth to a child. Your mind is also settled to love and protect your baby from different circumstances nearby. You start to create a shield for your baby because of many reasons. Every parent has their parenting style, and we can never say this parenting style is better or that it depends upon individuals how they treat their child, so helicopter parenting is mainly due to:

Fear of society

We all know that you always want to protect your child from society. What if someone says bad words to your child or makes a difficult situation for your child so that you never leave your child alone.

Fear off failure

What if my child will fail in completing this work, so you start to be overprotective towards your child 

Fear of pressure

The pressure of achieving good grades or looking good or being presentable with manners, so in your mind, there is always a constant thought of making your child perfect, and things work according to them.

Fear of the friend circle

What if your child makes bad friends and gets into bad habits like smoking, drinking, or being a bad human? So you constantly watch your child’s behavior.

Fear of hurting your child

You become extra careful of them in anything like if they play, you try to protect them by not getting hurt, or even your child falling and getting wound.

Pros, Cons, and Causes of Helicopter Parenting

Benefits of Helicopter Parenting

Your kids could get into fewer troubles because you are always with them to guide them. Children feel secure when they know someone is there in their life to protect them. They know they always have their parents as their support system, making them feel secure. 

Demerits of Helicopter Parenting

This helicopter parenting creates many problems in your child, including emotional problems and mental health-related problems. In this hovering parenting, your child will depend upon you because if your child sees their friends of the same age group can do their things alone. It will negatively impact their mind .it will lead to serious mental problems.  

Causes of Helicopter Parenting

Your children become irritated. They don’t like the things you do for them. They start hiding things from you. This parenting could increase anxiety and unnecessary pressure on them. They start getting depression because it’s not good to every time hover on them. Because everyone needs a personal space, every child can take their own decision. Instead, we should empower them to live independently. If you make your child dependent on you, their life will become very difficult because you will not be with your child in every situation. It can lead to psychological problems in them. Because a child has never had to figure out anything on their own, they may distrust their talents as they get older.

What can we do to avoid being Helicopter Parents?

Parenting isn’t easy. You know that having children and raising them brings a plethora of obstacles and surprises. You may make the following changes to your parenting style:

1. Listen to your children and don’t always impose your desires on them to help them grow and become independent.
2. Don’t do everything for your children (including their homework!). Taking small measures to teach kids how to complete activities independently gradually.
3. If you believe the consequences of your children’s behavior are harsh or life-altering, don’t try to assist them in avoiding them.
4. Don’t teach your youngster that they should expect to be treated differently than other kids.
5. Ask your children to develop imaginative solutions to their challenges to encourage them to solve their problems.
6. Teach your children to speak up politely for themselves.
7. Recognize and appreciate your children’s skills and flaws, and encourage them to use their strengths to attain their objectives.

Is Helicopter Parenting Good or Bad?

Helicopter parenting is not good because always hovering around your child is not a good way to handle your child. It can lead to depression in your child, or it may create a situation when your child doesn’t want to live with you, or they will stop telling you about their life matters, their things, or even if they are getting some other problem your child will not like to share with you. And also, in the age of adolescence, they have suicidal thoughts or thoughts about running away from home because they hovered around nature. So it’s better to give your child their personal space where they can handle their situation on their own.

Please make your child independent instead of helping them with every work they do, start guiding them about how to do the work themselves in an interesting way so that they will love to do work by themselves.

Engaging with your child is good because, in this way, they will feel secure about everything they do. They will feel confident that their parents are always standing by my side or feel secure in their lives. 

Don’t be helicopter parents who hover around their children 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In this hovering case, your child will feel irritated with you, and their beautiful bonding with you will start to end.

Conclusion

Things have their pros and cons, so there are also benefits of the helicopter parenting style. We need to keep ourselves calm and be there with our children whenever they need us. But not be overprotective to help them in everything like, what if they fall or they will fail in their exams.