Joanna Marie O. Santos
July 19, 2023

As a parent, there is nothing you want more than to raise your kid right, but that might be easier said than done. Is there even a right way to raise a child? How do you know you’re doing a great job? 

 

Your parenting style can have a long-lasting impact on your child’s psychology into adulthood. During your child’s early development, it’s important that you enforce a healthy and supportive parenting style. Negative parenting styles can have a bad influence on your child’s emotional, social, and physical well-being.  

 

Every parent has their own set of beliefs and ideas of what approaches will work best. A parenting style is unique to each parent, but there are four main types that researchers have identified. These are authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and uninvolved or neglectful. There’s also the case of helicopter-style parenting. 

 

What Is Helicopter-Style Parenting?

 

Helicopter-style parenting is a highly involved and overprotective type of parenting. It can negatively impact a child's mental health, self-image, coping skills, and more. 

 

The term “helicopter parent” was first coined in Dr. Haim Ginott’s book “Between Parents and Teenagers” where teens reported that their parents would hover over them like a helicopter does. 

 

A helicopter parent is one who is “over-controlling, overprotecting, and over-perfecting, in a way that is over responsible parenting,” a licensed psychologist has described. To put it simply, helicopter parenting refers to over-parenting. 

 

What Is A Helicopter Parent?

 

It’s perfectly natural to be protective as a parent, but sometimes that desire to protect can heap too much pressure on your children. According to therapists, helicopter parents take too much responsibility for their children’s experiences and their successes or failures. 

 

Helicopter parenting can apply at any age, from constantly shadowing your toddler to when they’re college-aged yet you still don’t leave them alone. There are different aspects to helicopter parenting, and this style may look different in every household. Helicopter parents put too much pressure on their children to succeed in school or activities, and have a tendency to control their child’s friends and activities. 

 

College administrators largely use this term to describe parents who keep watching over their children who have gone away to college. For example, it’s when parents micromanage their capable high school or college-aged children’s tasks.

 

Some reasons helicopter-style parenting can develop are fear of dire consequences, feelings of anxiety, overcompensation, and social pressures to succeed as a parent. These are parents who feel extra worried about their child getting hurt and therefore never want them to experience failures in life. In other cases, it can happen when adults who were neglected as children tend to overcompensate with their own children because they don’t want them to go through a tough childhood. 

 

With these in mind, you might question if you are a helicopter parent yourself. 

 

Effects of Helicopter-Style Parenting

 

Helicopter-style parenting is not always a bad thing, as long as it’s not taken to an extreme. In fact, many helicopter parents start with good intentions–to ensure their child’s safety and success. 

 

Kids raised by helicopter parents tend to receive an abundance of love and support. Because they closely monitor their child, helicopter parents always know what and how their child is doing. However, this style has harmful consequences, and your kid can start feeling suffocated and apathetic. 

 

Lowers self-confidence

 

Your constant over-involvement with your child’s life can send a message that you don’t trust they can do anything on their own. As a result, it fosters low self-confidence in your child as they grow older. Experts say helicopter parenting contributes to self-esteem, problem-solving, coping, decision-making, social interaction, responsibility, and adaptive functioning issues.

 

Hinders independence and life skills

 

Helicopter parenting can backfire when your kid grows up to be overly dependent on you as an adult. It’s important for kids to develop problem-solving skills, which they can later use to tackle their own issues on their own. With helicopter parents, they tend to solve their kid’s troubles. If you don’t allow your kid to thrive on their own, they would never learn to master the life skills needed to survive in the world.

 

Negative impacts on the parent-child relationship

 

Your child may feel like you are constantly nagging them and watching their every move. While you mean well, your child may feel negatively about your intentions and interactions. They may start to push you away, which can then cause a strain in your relationship. 

 

4 Parenting Styles and How They Can Impact Your Kids

 

There are four other parenting styles that can be helpful for you to understand:

 

1. Authoritarian parenting

 

We often hear authoritarian parents saying, “Because I said so” to their kids. They strictly enforce rules. They may use punishments to “discipline.” Children raised using this style may foster anger towards their parents as they grow up. 

 

2. Authoritative parenting

 

Authoritative parents set limits, enforce rules, and give consequences, but take their child's feelings into consideration. According to research, this approach is a developmentally healthy and effective parenting style.

 

3. Permissive parenting

 

Permissive parents are the lenient type and don't give out consequences very often. Their kids are more likely to struggle academically.

 

4. Neglectful parenting

 

Children of neglectful parents tend to not receive much guidance, nurturing, and parental attention. Their parents lack knowledge about child development and are sometimes overwhelmed with other problems.

 

Adopting Good Parenting Style

 

Every child is different, and different approaches work for different children. As a parent, what you need to do is to learn and adapt according to your kid’s unique needs. Maybe your kid needs you to closely monitor their development, or maybe they prefer a freer environment. 

 

It’s all about striking a perfect balance: knowing when to let go and when to help. There’s no perfect parenting style. These are just guides to ensure your kid grows up to be a responsible and physically and emotionally healthy adult–that’s when you can finally sigh in relief because you know you did a good job.