“Independence” for Social & Emotional Well Being
In the spirit of this month’s theme of independence symbolized by our country’s two hundred and thirty third birth of independence as a nation, it is time to evaluate how we as parents can use independence in our roles as caretakers for our children. From the point of view of social and emotional well being, we need to evaluate what approaches as parents we use to create these skills in our children’s lives. Ultimately, as parents we all want our children to be successful and lead fulfilling lives.
Recently, there has been a term “Helicopter Parent” that has been bandied around in the media. A Helicopter Parent is a media description that refers to parents that “hover” over their children by protecting them and intervening in their lives at all costs. They are coined this term because, like helicopters, they hover closely overhead, always being overly connected, regardless whether their children need them or not. These parents go overboard in over-parenting their children, making sure they never get hurt, never lose or fail, and intervene in as much of their children’s lives as they can. This means not allowing their children to fail or succeed on their own by replacing independence in favor of dependency to solve one’s problems.
Beyond Helicopter Parents, there is another kind of parent called a “Parent Investor.” A Parent Investor is one that invests in their child’s life every day. Everyday a Parent Investor invests time, love, guidance, commitment, and energy into their children’s lives. A meaningful Parent Investor chooses to impact their child’s life by empowering them with skills that will enable them to have long term social success in life. So what’s the difference between a Parent Investor and a Helicopter Parent?
One of the skills Parent Investors learn is to promote resiliency and optimistic thinking which is essential in dealing with any life challenges. Helping them learn self-reliance is a key factor in this.
Helicopter parents over look self-reliance by robbing their children of learning what it is to stand up and roll with the punches of life.
Another thing Parent Investors do is loving their kids enough to endure seeing their children through all their failures that may include lots of disappointments. Part of failing is learning how to get back up and try again which is one of life’s lessons.
Lastly, by over protecting and shielding children to a fault, Helicopter Parents deny their children the chance to learn how to survive a challenge and the ability to counter the fear of failure.
Parent Investors are involved in their children’s lives as to those who wear the hat of Helicopter Parents. It’s all about balance– weighing the right level of independence and support of when to step in and when to let the child learn to fail or succeed on their own. The real question is which kind of parent do you choose to be?
Dr. Andie Weiner, MD
