Emma Brown in the Washington Post (October 19 th) reports on the increasing problem of “helicopter parents” who are so anxious to see their gifted children succeed that they are on the phone, sometimes several times a day, advising their kids at university.
“They want to help them by shepherding them from milestone to milestone, shielding them from failure and pain”. But in doing so they do them no favours. Parental intrusion robs the children of a chance to learn who they are, what they love, and how to navigate the world. There is a documented rise in depression and other mental and emotional health probles, even suicides, caused by not allowing kids to fail and flounder – things that give you strength and resilence.
Our job as parents is to put ourselves out of a job and make sure that our offspring can take of themselves. Part of the problem is the admissions “arms race” involved in getting to universities like Stanford or Harvard. But the reason behind this frenzy is mostly money, or the expectation of it. Admission to top universities virtually guarantees a high income. But there is more to life than all this stress and preoccupation with money. Those who go through that mill end up “breathless brittle and old before their time”.
As Epicurus is quoted as saying, “Let us live while we are alive”. At this time of life young people should be exploring what life has to offer. They should enjoy it.
As a young person, I totally agree. Parenting should be more laissez-faire: let the children do as they wish, but do not protect them from the consequences of their choices. In Britain, we are more liberal in our approach to raising children than most countries. But this faces two threats:
The first is an increase in a high-pressure style of parenting, where parents spend vast sums of money and a huge amount of time on their children’s education, in exchange for the expectation that their children will excel academically. This approach is flawed insofar as it fails to account for a child’s natural ability. Some will do well at school and university, some won’t. For the most part, no amount of money and no school can change that. Its a terrible shame to see so many middle-income families waste their money on sending their children to private school. State schools are often as good; I’m state-educated, and I know a lot of people, myself included, in the UK’s top 10 universities.
The second threat is morally restrictive parenting, which is particularly common in religious families. Although this is generally in decline, notable exceptions remain. Parents have a right to teach their children what they believe is right or wrong, but they do not have the right to force their children to conform to their moral standards. Morally restrictive parenting is particularly common amongst families who homeschool. (I’m speaking from personal experience here.) This is because unlike schooled children, parents are the sole moral authority for homeschooled children, which often leads to them accepting their parents’ values without question.