But doesn’t research show that helicopter parenting can be psychologically damaging at least to some young people? A handful of small studies have, it is true, shown that extreme versions of helicopter parenting sometimes go hand-in-hand with anxiety or a diminished sense of well-being. In each of these studies, however, questionnaires were given to students only at a single college, and the strength of the results weren’t particularly impressive. In one, Tennessee researchers found that having a helicopter parent explained less than 9 percent of the variation in students’ well-being. That study attracted attention in the popular press; the unimpressive effect size, however, is never mentioned.
Look closer, in fact, and you’ll find two caveats to all of this research that are even more damning. First, the findings offer no support for the conclusion that helicopter parenting caused the problems with which it was associated. One set of researchers admitted that “when parents perceive their child as depressed, they may be more likely to ‘hover.’” Those in another study acknowledged that unhappy students “may view their parents as more intrusive.” Here, in other words, we have two alternative, perfectly plausible explanations for the (weak) correlation. One: if the parents are hovering, it’s because the kids already have issues. Two: students who are struggling may be more likely than their peers to interpret whatever their parents are doing as excessive involvement. (Remember: the helicopter parenting label is attached solely on the basis of the students’ questionnaire responses.) Either way, the evidence doesn’t prove that helicopter parenting makes kids unhappy — again, a fact ignored by every article in the popular press I could find that summarized any of these studies.
The second major caveat is truly intriguing; its implications extend to the heart of what’s meant by “overparenting” of children of all ages. When you read the research closely, it turns out that what’s classified as over-, intrusive, or helicopter parenting might more accurately be described as excessive control of children. The items that college students are asked to check off on those surveys — or that parents themselves check off in studies hunting for evidence of overparenting of younger kids — are less about being indulgent and making things “too easy” for children than about parents who want (or need) to be in charge of their kids.
This offers a very different lens through which to view all those warnings that parents do too much for their children and are overly involved in their lives. If the problem is actually control rather than indulgence, we’re forced to rethink the “coddled kids” narrative offered by most critics of helicopter parenting, a narrative that fits with current claims that frustration and failure are good for children, that they have things too easy and need to develop more grit and self-discipline.
To whatever extent helicopter parenting is going on, then, it might be described not as permissiveness but as virtually the opposite of that: a variation of the traditional way of raising kids for which many conservative critics of indulgence seem to be nostalgic. Maybe old-fashioned, control-based parenting was never discarded after all; some parents just switched to a slightly different, more intrusive version.
The ideal alternative, according to a growing body of research that I’ve written about elsewhere, isn’t less parenting but better parenting. It’s not standing back and letting kids struggle, then kicking them out of the nest and demanding they make it on their own whenever we (or pop-culture scolds) say so. It’s being responsive to what the child needs. That may be the right to make decisions. It may also be a continued close connection to Mom and Dad.
What seems clear about HP in particular is that it’s neither as pervasive nor as pernicious as is commonly assumed. Strident declarations to the contrary may tell us more about the people who make them than about the reality they presume to describe.
Alfie Kohn is the author of 14 books on education, parenting, and human behavior, including, most recently, The Myth of the Spoiled Child (Da Capo Press) — from which this article is adapted — and Schooling Beyond Measure (Heinemann). A version of this article appeared earlier
"We don't want to politicize miseries of farmers. But, the party would constructively contribute for their welfare," he added. The Indian Army and the whole nation are celebrating the golden jubilee of our proud victory in the 1965 Indo- Pak War. In the series of such celebrations, the Army Aero Nodal Centre (AANC), Mhow started its Micro light flying expedition which started in Mhow on Saturday. The fleet of three micro light planes carrying six officers will cover 12 cities of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana and then return back to Mhow on September 18.
Military College of Telecommunication Engineering (MCTE) commandant Lt Gen RS Panwar flagged off the flying expedition at the AANC node situated near Hema Field Firing Range on Mhow- Pithampur road on Saturday morning. Before flagging off, Panwar handed over the expedition flag to AANC in charge Lt Col MS Chawla and a group photo with the team was taken. A large number of officers and other ranks were present in the function, in which the three planes passed one by one through the spectators. Capt Ritu Malik and Lt Bhartendu Shukla narrated the commentary.
The pilots taking part in the expedition are Lt Col MS Chawla (team leader), Col MS Randhawa, Maj Aby TM, Maj SM Gupta, Suja Ram and Bahadur Singh. The lamprey is a 400 million year-old prehistoric fish-monster that predates the dinosaurs by a good 200 million years, can grow up to 3 feet in length and has, instead of jaws, “a circular disc of razor sharp teeth.” And England was this close to getting rid of it forever.
But in a turn of events that the U.K. Environment Agency is for some reason very excited about, lampreys have returned, after 200 years, to English rivers — the result, the agency says, of efforts to clean up industrial pollution and to remove river structures that were blocking their migration routes, and which had very nearly driven them to extinction.
“Now that water quality has improved and some of these barriers have been removed we are seeing lampreys return to the upper reaches of rivers such as the Ouse, Trent, and Derwent, where they were absent as recently as 30 years ago,” Environment Agency fisheries expert Simon Toms boasted in a statement.
“These are fascinating fish, living fossils, that have a special place in the history and traditions of this country, and we hope that with a helping hand from us they will be able to thrive in England’s rivers once again.”
Aside from featuring in an episode of Game of Thrones, lampreys are also important parts of river ecosystems, helping to process nutrients and serving as a food source for other fish and birds. And so everywhere but your nightmares, this does count as good news.