Is Helicopter Parenting Crippling Our Children's Independence?

I will never forget some of the insane messages I would receive on Instagram when it came to parenting. There was one particular day a few years ago when I posted a picture of one of our kids rooms and the fan in the middle of the room was next to the bunk bed….within minutes I had people telling me how hurt my child could get from the fan being next to the bed. Well, guess what hasn’t happened yet?

Surprisingly enough (insert eye roll), our kids don’t seek to get hurt and when you talk to them about something - i.e. the dangers of putting your head or arms out into a ceiling fan - they typically avoid it. Yet, what made all of those people send me messages that day? Why did they feel the need to “parent” my kids from afar? This all led me to the question of — Has there been a rise in helicopter parenting?!

I have been thinking about this for years since my time spent on Instagram and all the messages I received throughout the years of people who felt the need to tell me how to parent my own children. As I read Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation” last month I realized that I was not alone in this thinking…..

“Like young trees exposed to wind, children who are routinely exposed to small risks grow up to become adults who can handle much larger risks without panicking.”

“These findings were confirmed by more rigorous research. In the United States, Canada and Britain, children used to have a great deal of freedom to walk to school, roam around their neighborhoods, invent games, get into conflicts, and resolve those conflicts, beginning around first or second grade. But in the 1990s, parenting changed in all three countries. It became more intensive, protective and fearful.”

“The human brain contains two subsystems that put it into two common modes: discover mode (for approaching opportunities) and defend mode (for defending against threats). Young people born after 1995 are more likely to be stuck in defend mode, compared to those born earlier. They are on permanent alert for threats, rather than being hungry for new experiences. They are anxious.”

Content in the rest of this post:

• But is it safe for my child to be more independent outside?

• How can I implement this at home with my own kids?

• Research to back up the importance of risky play and independent play