Helicopter Parenting

A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting
$25.00
I picked up _A Nation of Wimps_ because I suspected Hara Estroff Marano was on to something. For years I'd been hearing anecdotes suggesting that the world of parenting had skewed weirdly overprotective: Parents hiring babysitters for twelve-year-olds. Parents not letting young teens walk around the mall by themselves. Parents requiring their kids to take hand-sanitizer to school. I wanted to know if these stray anecdotes added up to a real cultural phenomenon.

In general, I enjoyed the book. Marano writes well and she tells a good story. Particularly refreshing was her lack of a knee-jerk fear response to the Internet and video games, making arguments for the positive effects of both on young users. The "death-grip" parents she speaks of could certainly benefit from reading _A Nation of Wimps_.

And yet, the book wasn't as satisfying as it could have been. I had hoped for hard data -- statistics suggesting how big a trend death-grip parenting really is. She says that college students are using campus counseling centers in record numbers, but she doesn't provide enough evidence to convince me that it's happening for the reasons she says it is.

Marano occasionally contradicts herself too. For instance, attempting to explain why parents went on red alert in the first place, she states:

"Parents erect a hothouse around their children as a way to shield them from a world that likes them less and less ... And maybe they overidentify with their children because no one else in the culture does. Parents must worry excessively about their children because certainly the child-free (they do not call themselves child_less_) will not protect them or otherwise look out for them."

Just two chapters later, she complains that

"The cultivation of preciousness of one's offspring seems to breed in parents the conviction that everyone else in the culture, or at least the neighborhood, is as interested in and delighted by children, specifically _their_ children, as they are."

Well, which is it?

Again, this book is a good read and provides interesting food for thought. But somebody should have reviewed the work as a whole more carefully before publication.

Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry
$24.95
This book is all about putting growing up into context: What's changed since today's parents grew up? The world isn't any more dangerous; in fact, it's probably safer. What's different is that the evening news goes out of its way to run stories that scare parents because it brings the viewers in. What's different is marketers have figured out how to capitalize on worried parents (baby kneepads, to take an example from the book). What hasn't changed is that today's kids need to grow up to be tomorrow's successful adults.

This book asks parents to think back to when they were growing up. Did you ride the bus alone? I did, a lot, starting at age 12. Did you ride your bike all over the neighborhood without your parents watching you the whole time? I did. Did you go off to summer camp and get bit by bugs and think you were going to drown that one time and enjoy campfires and walking back to camp in the dark? I did, from age 11 on, every summer. How did we turn out? I think I turned out just fine, thank you. So why won't you let your kids do the same things?

Nobody's saying to make your little kid do anything he/she is not ready to. This is all about saying yes to stuff your kid already wants to do, and then watching the benefits accrue. Bottom line is, your kid is much more likely to die in a car crash with you driving than getting abducted. It's sad that those things happen from time to time but you can't protect your children from everything so you might as well let them grow up and be independent when they're ready for it. That way they have a fighting chance to grow up. Just like you.

ABC News 20/20 Helicopter Moms
$14.95
Do moms who micro-manage their children's lives do more harm than good? That's a question that ABC News posed to mothers, kids and experts alike. Robyn Lewis, a single mom whose entire life has revolved around the care of her sons, Ethan and Brendan, still manages their day-to-day activities - even though the two kids are now in college. Her kids say they are grateful for their mom's efforts, and she feels rewarded. But is she really helping them? Dr. Helen Johnson, a consultant on parental relations in higher education for some of America's top universities, says parents like Robyn are far too involved in their children's lives. "The problem is, they're doing exactly what's wrong for their son or daughter. She's also crippling them in the sense that they are not going to understand that they can manage their own lives," says Dr. Johnson, who explains that such moms are described as "helicopter moms." "A helicopter mom is a mom who hovers over every state in her child's development, from basically now in utero through the college years and beyond."This product is manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.

Helicopters, Drill Sergeants & Consultants: Parenting Styles and the Messages They Send
$5.95
Recommended by my pediatrician, this was a very fast read and really made it simple to look at the diferent parenting styles and help me determine just what I wanted to be for my son. And it's inexpensive. Order it.