Helicopter Parenting

By loading kids with high expectations and micromanaging their lives at every turn, helicopter parents aren’t actually helping. At least, that’s how Julie Lythcott-Haims sees it. With passion and wry humour she makes the case for parents to stop defining their children’s success via grades and test scores.

A helicopter parent might want to protect their child from failure, however allowing children to fail is instructional in the process of learning. Diana Laufenberg explores this concept from a teacher’s point of view, but it is equally transferable to parents. How encouraging children to find answers for themselves builds inquisitive minds, experiential learning and the ability to embrace failure and learn from it.