HELICOPTER PARENTING MAY ACTUALLY BE GOOD
Experts discuss if ‘helicopter parenting’ is just a wrong phrase in parenting and share tips on finding the balance between overprotectiveness and benign neglect
Many parents take the adage better safe than sorry to heart when it comes to their children’s safety. Sometimes, however, protecting can turn into interfering. How much parenting is too much?
Experts say most of us can stop worrying about being overprotective.
Parents naturally want the best for their kids. And the Internet, countless parenting books, as well as well-wishing friends and acquaintances, are all brimming with tips and warnings about children’s health, safety and wellbeing.
But being bombarded from all sides with information and recommendations can be bewildering. Some parents overshoot the mark with parenting that’s overly “hands-on” while others curb their involvement so as not to be notorious “helicopter parents” who constantly hover over their little ones’ lives.
OVERPROTECTIVENESS AGAINST INCLINATIONS
So how indeed can parents strike the right balance between overprotectiveness and benign neglect?
According to Dr Hermann Josef Kahl, a member of the Association of Child and Adolescent Physicians (BVJK) in Germany, uncertainty over proper parenting seems to have grown of late. “A lot of people stick their oar into others’ parenting, which can be unsettling,” he remarks, adding that the situation is aggravated by pejorative labels like “helicopter parents,” which according to him is “a discriminatory term” and “should be stricken from our vocabulary.”
Kahl estimates that the metaphor likely applies to less than 1% of parents, while 40–50% of mums and dads are afraid of being overprotective and — against their inclinations — become under-protective instead. The consequences can be disastrous.
CONFUSING THE REAL DANGERS
Married couple Silvia and Thomas Hoefer, she a midwife for 40 years and he a toxicologist, recently co-authored a book whose German title translates as Is That Harmful to My Child? Silvia says she isn’t surprised by the outpouring of counsel on child health hazards in recent years.
“Social media, warn apps, advice from parents and grandparents — there are so
many recommendations that parents can’t gauge what’s good for their children,” she says.
She recalls a woman whose family firmly believed that infants shouldn’t be breast-fed past the age of 6 months. “She was afraid to go against the family’s position and wanted to live up to the ideal of a supposedly perfect mother,” Silvia says. So the woman breastfed her baby surreptitiously after 6 months because she sensed the child still needed mother’s milk and closeness.
According to Hoefers, all the information overload and confusion results in the real dangers for children
being often overlooked. Chief among them is falling off the changing table, says Thomas, and later it’s choking, mostly on food.
Another underestimated hazard, he says, is “storage of cleaning products, particularly liquid detergent pods.” If they’re within reach and kids put one into their mouth, it can result in severe chemical burns.
THE GUT OF THE PARENTAL MATTER
According to Hoefers, all the information overload and confusion results in the real dangers for children being often overlooked. Chief among them is falling off the changing table, says Thomas, and later it’s choking, mostly
on food
So how can parents tell whether their parental concern has crossed the line into excessive anxiety?
“If you always feel stressed or feel no more joy in life, then you should shift down a gear,” advises Silvia.
Other warning signs, she says, are not being able to simply spend time with your child, not having a solid gut sense of what’s good and what’s bad for them, and really being afraid of not selecting the “right” nappy or child safety seat. Many parents who are consumed by worries about their child can be helped with “rational information,” says Thomas, explaining that knowing what the true hazards are can make you more relaxed.
“If you care about and look after your child, you’re doing everything right. And who’s to judge what’s excessive?” remarks Dr Kahl, who says he takes parents’ concerns seriously and discusses them calmly. His conclusion: If you spend time with and treat your child with respect, you really can’t do anything wrong.
Kahl estimates that the metaphor likely applies to less than 1% of parents, while 40–50% of mums and dads are afraid of being overprotective and — against their inclinations — become underprotective instead. The consequences can be disastrous