FAMILY & PARENTING

Advice from a Recovering Helicopter Mom

The case for giving your kids more free rein

I was a certified helicopter mom.

I am not sure how this happened. I was raised by Boomers after all. And you don’t get much more laisse-faire than Boomers.

Growing up, I regularly rode in the trunk of our station wagon. I drank water from garden hoses and roamed the neighborhood for hours alone on my bicycle. I never received a participation ribbon for coming last in a race. And I even travelled solo for 2 hours one way on 3 different trains to get to school each day when I was 10 years old.

You’d think this would set me up to be a free-range parent.

Not even close.

Because once I had kids — POOF, I forgot all about my laisse-faire roots. I became a hover-machine. And for those of you who are wondering if you have taken things too far — know this. If you find yourself peeling your kid’s grapes, then yes, you too have probably crossed the line of no return.

Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t cut those grapes, after all — they are the fourth leading cause of choking in kids.

But peeling? Trust me you have gone too far.

I was that mom. The grape peeler. I used to peel those grapes like superwoman, patting myself on the back for swooping in and saving the day.

I thought I was saving my kids from pesticides. I thought I was being a good conscientious mom. But guess what? I found out later that those pesticides are in the fruit not just the skin.

So, was my grape peeling necessary?

I’m not even going to answer that.

Did it make me feel better?

Yes. As a matter of fact, it did. Because, like superwoman — I was determined that nothing bad would ever go down on my watch. And I was hell-bent on doing everything in my power to make sure my kids were set up for success.

But was I really helping my kids?

Now, this is the most important question I had to ask myself. In fact, every single helicopter mom out there, should take some time to think about this.

Because we often think we are helping our kids by hovering. We justify our helicopter existence because we tell ourselves that the world has become a much more dangerous place.

But let’s think about that. Has the world really become more dangerous today?

Contrary to Popular Belief, the World is Actually a Safer Place

Let’s dig into the data.

For starters, let’s look at child mortality rates. Here data from the World Health Organization suggests that the mortality rates for children globally been on a steady decline for more than 25 years. What’s more this number has never been lower.

But what about crimes against children? Or missing persons reports? Because without a doubt this was one of my biggest worries as a parent.

It also turns out that the likelihood of violence against children and the risk of dying from a crime, an accident or other cause today is actually lower today than it was almost 50 years ago.

For a kid between the ages of 5 and 14 today, the chances of a premature death by any means are roughly 1 in 10,000 or 0.01 percent.

There Has Never Been a Safer Time to Be a Kid in America, Washington Post 2015

What’s more, the likelihood of kidnapping and abduction is also incredibly small. As one British author Warwick Cairns put it, you would likely have to leave your child outside unattended for over 750,000 years for this to become a statistical reality.

Jumping on the Bandwagon

Clearly the world is not such an unsafe place after all. In fact, just the opposite.

This surprised me. It ran counter to all of my beliefs and fears.

But for helicopter parents, having this data may not be a deterrent. Because what also seems to matter is that everyone else has also jumped on the helicopter parent bandwagon.

And heaven help us if we don’t make sure our kids have all the advantages that every other kid in life has out there.

We’ve even trained ourselves to reprimand moms who are more laisse-faire. We look on in concern if we see a child taking the train alone. And we tut-tut the failures of the child in class, and look to the parents for somehow not doing their rightful job.

At times, we even meddle.

A few years back a woman in Chicago was arrested for letting her 8-year old walk the dog alone around the neighborhood. Her concerned neighbors had reported the incident to the police. According to the neighbor, the child was less than 5 years old and had been outside and unattended for 90 minutes. The truth of the matter was that the girl was out alone for 5 minutes with her pooch.

Now is giving children some autonomy to walk, play outside and to run free really so bad? Is letting our children fail from time to time really the end of the world?

These are the questions, I had to ask myself. And I encourage you to do the same.

The Downside of Hovering

We now know that helicopter parenting is not making our kids safer. But it turns out that hovering is not making our kids more successful in life either.

In fact, research from the journal Cognitive Therapy and Research found that helicopter parenting can trigger anxiety in kids, especially those already struggling with some social issues. What’s more, a new study from the University of Florida found that kids with helicopter parents experience more burnout in school and a harder time transitioning to the real world after graduation.

Conversely, free-range parenting seems to pave the way for kids to flourish and become more independent, confident and grounded.

Yes, they may fail. And they could fall off their bikes. But if you take a step back, you may find that this style of parenting puts them in a better position to cope with the many curve balls that life throws their way.

I came to this discovery late in the process. But I’m glad I did. My kids have both thrived as a result.

Landing that Helicopter

Becoming a helicopter parent seems to be a normal rite of passage these days. I was in full flight when my kids were first born. But my chopper has thankfully landed. And my grape peeling days have gone by the wayside.

Landing your helicopter is not always easy. It bucks convention. But you should feel perfectly comfortable doing so. And you should also support others who try. After all, the world is a much safer place today. Plus, there are plenty of developmental and social benefits to be had from going free-range.

So, give it a go. Try to find that landing pad. As a reformed helicopter mom, I can assure you, it feels really good to be on the ground.

© Courtney Burry 2021

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