Would you add a microchip to your preschooler?
The other night, I watched a program about helicopter parenting. Simply put, parents are keeping a tight rein on their children these days. Partially it’s because we’re older when we become parents, and we place heavy expectations on our children. It’s also because we’re afraid of losing them, whether that’s to injuries or to children.
Surely these concerns make sense. Parents want to make sure that their children are happy and fulfilled and have a great career. Parents also want to make sure that their children are safe. These concerns make sense, but what is the impact of micro-managing every minute of our children’s days?
The program focused on the effects of this micromanagement. Kids are enrolled in the best preschool program to pass the tests to the best elementary school and then get into the best secondary and post-secondary institution. On top of this, they take five different sorts of lessons at which they are uniformly told that they are brilliant, or else. All of this results in parents who are involved in micro-managing their children’s lives well into adulthood: into university and into the work place.
The problems emerge when children have no time for free play or down time. They emerge into stressed-out adults who have never had time to just be, but must always be doing, doing, doing and achieving well at that doing. Since these adults have always been coddled, in the work place they have unrealistic expectations of their work environment. They expect to come in late and get a lot of perks at work, instead of working hard. Granted, many do work hard, but they suffer from stress and a sense of “how did I get here, anyway?”
My goal as the parent of a preschooler is to drop out of the crazy race. I’d like my child to be happy, but I don’t know that the best preschool and the best university are going to achieve that. I was a pressured kid, and it’s taken me years to unlearn it.
What do you think about helicopter parenting?