Are Helicopter Parenting Beneficial to College Aged Children (Essay Sample)

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Are helicopter parenting beneficial to college aged children?
Helicopter parenting arises out of a number of reasons. To begin with, a parent may have feelings of anxiety over the job market or the economy in general thus pushing them to take more control over their children’s lives in an effort to protect them. Further, parents who feel that their childhood was neglected or unloved may over-compensate their children. This occurs in an effort to cure a deficiency that such parents may have felt in their own upbringing. The fear of grim consequences may also lead a parent to be overprotective of their children. Another reason is that, observing other parents take control of their children lives may also pressure parents to do the same. While helicopter parenting usually starts with good intentions, it usually denies children the chance to learn from everyday experience. The purpose of this paper is to access negatives arising from helicopter parenting.
Helicopter parenting inhibits children from learning from life experiences. Helicopter parenting helps in building self confidence, feelings of acceptance and love. However, as parenting gets more engaged, children do not learn from the challenges and failures their face in their everyday activities. According to Gordon and Kim (1) however, many children are okay with their parents’ protectiveness. A UCLA survey released on 24th of January 2008, 84 % of first year college students believed that their parents had the right level of involvement in their lives. Arguably, helicopter parenting for college students leads to decreased self esteem and confidence. This is largely because children feel that their parents do not trust them with making the right choices or decisions. Further over involvement of parents in their children lives may lead to poor coping skills (Bayless, 2011). When parents are always there to clean their children’s mess, the children will never be able to learn from the disappointment, loss or failure. The children will on the other hand feel less competent in handling stressful situations on their own.
Micromanaging a child leads to increased anxiety and undeveloped life talents. College students are older enough to be physically and mentally capable of performing tasks that will help them learn to master skills which are of importance later in life (Bayless, 2011). Having a child’s social and academic life being dictated by a parent leads to the development of a sense of entitlement. A child will always feel entitled to favors and other things. This tends to inhibit the child’s ability to make life decisions including but not limited to making career decisions, interacting with others in the society or how to choose courses in their school (Bayless, 2011). As opposed to solving problems or preventing them from occurring, parents should let their children to become disappointed, struggle. When failures occurs, the parents should help their children work through them thus helping them to built self confident and reliant children.
College students seem oblivious of the danger that hovering parenting may have on their lives. Over and by large, when parents may be over concerned of their children future in terms securing the right job, they may however prevent their children to live happy lives in the future. Following the right career path does not necessarily involve getting the right grades, making the team or choosing the right units. It also involves following one’s passion. Micromanaging a child often hinders him or her to follow their internally desired career paths (Bayless, 2011). As aforementioned, a micromanaged child will not realize their full potential and talents. This poses a threat to the future economic security of such a child. The parents will however create a lifetime burden of protecting and providing for their grownup children even when such children can be able to be constructive on their own.
Children needs not take after the material lives of their parents. Being financially successful as a parent does not necessarily mean that your child will follow in ...