11:53:38 
2025-01-29 
19
What is a helicopter parent? They’re the ones who hover and fly above you.
I’m not kidding, no one tries to be a helicopter parent. But parenting is the hardest job in the world, so most of us sometimes succumb to obsession. We want to be responsive to our child’s needs, and sometimes it’s hard to make decisions. The irony is that many of the things we overdo as parents actually sabotage our children’s healthy development.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a framework that would tell us the difference between what’s appropriate and what’s just flying? Yes. Decades of research has shown what children need to grow into happy, resilient, confident adults. In fact, our tendency to fly doesn’t usually stem from our own concerns about our children, but from our own fears. Here are some antidotes to help even proven hovering parents avoid the most common anxiety-causing mistakes:
Overprotection
While clucking your tongue in worry as your child climbs the play structure may make you feel better, it’s crippling your child’s confidence. Simply ask him if he’s keeping himself safe, then follow up with a breath, a smile, and an “amazing, look at you!” If he falls, you’ll be there to catch him—that’s what encouraged him to try, after all.
Overreacting
When we worry, we often feel an urgent need to do something. That eases our anxiety, but it doesn’t necessarily give our child what he needs. So the first intervention should always be to become aware of and regulate our own emotions. We may then realize that what our child really needs is some role-playing with us to learn how to deal with his baseball coach, rather than picking up the phone and talking to the coach ourselves.
Over-Controlling
No one wants to be the parent who cares more about their son’s basketball success than their son or the mother who lives the celebrity life through her daughter. It’s pathetic. But we all have simpler examples of over-controlling our children, which often begin with potty training and continue through college. Do you feel the need to adjust the wrong buttons on your preschooler’s clothes? Do you support your 6-year-old’s interest in soccer but consider his drawing childish? Whose life is that anyway?
Over-Scheduling
Unstructured time gives kids the opportunity to imagine, invent, and create. If we keep them too busy with structured activities or screen entertainment, they will never listen to the twitches in their hearts that might lead them to study bugs on the sidewalk, build a clay monster, or organize the neighborhood kids to shoot a movie. These heartfelt calls are what lead us to the passions that make life meaningful, and they’re within our reach from an early age, if we take the time to explore our inner worlds.
Overstimulation
Okay, you want your child to go to Harvard. But at what emotional cost? Children learn through exploration and self-motivated play, which is the foundation for creativity and lifelong happiness. You may be proud if your child learns to read by age four, but research has shown that children who attend play-based preschool programs do significantly better academically than children who attend academic preschools. Similarly, pressuring your child to get the highest grades in third grade to help her improve her college chances almost certainly reduces her chances of being happy in life. And if she feels ashamed or like she’s not good enough, you’re doing her a disservice.
Did you notice that overstimulation isn’t on the list? That’s because there’s no such thing as overstimulation. Flying comes from fear, caring comes from love. Every choice we make is, in essence, a step towards either love or fear. Let's choose love.
Reality Of Islam |
|
9:3:43
2018-11-05
10 benefits of Marriage in Islam
7:5:22
2019-04-08
benefits of reciting surat yunus, hud &
9:45:7
2018-12-24
advantages & disadvantages of divorce
11:35:12
2018-06-10
6:0:51
2018-10-16
8:15:37
2023-02-16
3:43:50
2022-11-05
4:26:43
2022-02-21
5:57:34
2023-03-18
9:50:37
2023-02-28
2:34:48
2022-01-18
6:0:8
2023-03-19
5:41:46
2023-03-18
| LATEST |
HOME
