How to Stop Hovering as a Helicopter Parent

The more a parent trusts, believes and has confidence in their child’s decision making when they are away from the parent, the less controlling the parent needs to be.

 Problem: Helicopter parents are usually driven by anxiety and not being able to leave anything to chance. It’s usually something they learned from one of their parents. As a result they are overly involved running their children’s lives. Over time the child will either become angrily defiant because of an internal need to feel independent or if the parent is too much of a helicopter parent the child may lose initiative, because they may feel that whatever they come up with as in thinking or doing, their parent will always jump in and force their point of view on the child. The sad thing is that the parent does not see themselves as controlling and intrusive, but as loving and caring. And if the parent does recognize that they may be, they usually don’t see it as important enough to change (usually because their anxiety overrides this).  

Solution: The more a parent trusts, believes and has confidence in their child’s decision making when they are away from the parent, the less controlling the parent needs to be. To achieve that the parent should have conversations with their child when they are driving together (vs. face to face giving advice the child doesn’t want) such as: “How can you tell which kid in your class is likely to get into real trouble this year? And why?” Then just listen to your child and don’t give advice. Instead say, “Hmmm, that’s really interesting.” Another question might be: “How can you tell the difference between a class at school that you can study for at the last minute and one that you need to stay on top of?” Again, respond to their answer with, “Hmmm. Really! That’s interesting.” In each of these cases you are helping your child develop judgment and improve their decision making skills. When you see them doing that, you will become less anxious when you are away from them and less controlling.

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