Did You Know You're a Helicopter Parent? – Carrie Wiesenfeld & Jessica Anger

Carrie and Jessica tackle the sensitive topic of 'helicopter parenting.' They offer a space for open conversation and share a letter from 'Helicopter Mom,' a listener seeking advice after being labeled with the term at a soccer field. In a heart-to-heart, the hosts relate through personal stories, and Jessica questions the self-awareness of parents about their own parenting styles.

The episode throws light on different parenting styles, the effects of helicopter parenting, and how it can become a derogatory term due to the potential negative implications for children's independence. Stick around as Carrie and Jessica dissect this parenting style and introduce a more positive approach of being a 'lighthouse parent.' 

Takeaways

1. Provide guidance and stable support without overbearing interference.
2. Only offer reflections and insights when asked.
3. Embrace listening over telling.

Timestamps
00:00 Unaware of helicopter parenting, defended parenting approach.
03:57 Over-involvement in children's decisions can hinder confidence.
09:39 Parenting styles impact children's independence and coping.
13:37 Helicopter parenting can limit independence, cause stress.
15:26 Building confidence in children is essential.
19:56 Created reminder sign to avoid nagging.
22:11 Parenting evolves into lighthouse, listens to kids.
24:40 Parent coaches promote raising independent, capable kids.

🔗 Connect with Jessica Anger and Carrie Wiesenfeld:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/parent_coaches_unleashed
Email: info@parentcoachesunleashed.com
Soaring Hawk Life Coaching: https://www.soaringhawklifecoaching.com
Ocean Wave Parenting: https://www.oceanwavesparenting.com

Transcript

0:02

Welcome to Parent Coaches Unleashed with Carrie and Jessica, where no topics are taboo or off limits. Join us as we let loose and discuss the real raw feelings about parenting. In each episode, we will bring you heartfelt discussions, real life stories, and special guests that will both entertain you and encourage community. So no one feels alone in their parenting journey. Thanks so much for listening. Now let's start the show. Welcome to today's episode. Jessica and I today are just so grateful and excited to be here to share with you the topic today as it's something we've discussed in length ourselves. So, Jessica, I'm gonna hand it off to you to read a letter a listener wrote into us. Hi, everybody. Thanks for being here. So, yes, this is the letter, a bridge version. Hey, girls. I have a topic for you. Someone called me a helicopter mom, and I was really offended. We were at the soccer fields, and it was halftime. I went over to the coach trying to explain to him why it was important for my son's confidence to have more playtime. How is that a helicopter parent? I was just trying to help. Can you please discuss why a helicopter parent is such a derogatory term? K. We'll just call her helicopter mom. Dear helicopter mom, I've been 1, so I probably have a lot to say on the subject. Wait. So you've been one as in, admittedly, you were 1. How did you come to realize that you were 1? Do people even know that they are or they're not? So much to talk about here. Yeah. I would say there's no way that anyone knows that they're a helicopter mom, or would they choose to be one if they knew that that's what they were doing? So let me share at least my example, my situation, because what I think of let's just talk about helicoptering. You think of hovering. Maybe you're, you know, always watching over your children, and that certainly was not what I did or was doing with my children that I believed. So that was not how you envisioned a helicopter mom to be? That is not how I saw myself nor what a helicopter parent would be. But my neighbor across the street, Greg, good friend, he had kids a little bit older than mine, and we would talk a lot on the side yard because we had dogs, and we'd let them run and play. And he would often say, you know, these Parkland helicopter parents, and he was referring to me, which I did not make the connection at the moment that he was saying it because when he would share his opinions about the helicopter parents, he was talking about me, and I was defending my position on what I was doing and how I thought that my behavior as a parent was just helping my kids along. I was trying to set them up for success. I was making things a little bit easier. When I stop and examine my behavior, I look at the fact that I wasn't allowing my kids to fail and to deal with their own failures. I was trying to remove some obstacles so that they didn't have to feel the feelings of failure. And I don't know that's how people envision helicoptering, but it is. It's, you know, removing the obstacles or getting too involved in decisions that our children should be making for themselves and then feeling the feelings of success or failure or joy or disappointment. But I was inserting myself so that maybe the outcome could be different and that they could only feel the upside of the situation. So removing the obstacle, you know, fixing, I was definitely a fixer, offering suggestions left and right on how they should handle situations. And, you know, like, let's look at our listener, helicopter mom, by going over to the coach and saying why she thought her child should be put in the game more, how playing more is gonna make the child feel more confident. That's not exactly what may or may not happen. Right? By our encroaching, I don't know if that's the right word, but that's not what gives our children confidence. Like, they have to feel it themselves by decisions that they make or don't make. What do you have to say about that? Well, there's a lot to unpack there. So first of all, let's just you bring up helicopter parent. Let's what does that actually mean? You talk about not knowing what that meant yourself. You, in your mind, thought and I it maybe this parent did too. As a helicopter, you have the mental image of hovering. Okay? And then you said you weren't really doing that. You weren't hovering. But think about it. What you just described, you absolutely were hovering. Yes. Maybe not physically watching, standing over your kids, but you were always there. You had a hand in every thing you were doing. Yes. So while your body might not have physically been hovering over them like a helicopter, your presence certainly was. Right. You were always there. You had a hand in Scheduling, decisions, appointments. Absolutely. Classes? Did you have a did you try and guide them in what classes they should choose? Or No. No. That's actually one area that I did not insert myself. Okay. So it can, though. That definitely is something that helicopter parenting encompasses, class selection, socialization, which friend group your child should belong to. And our listener gave a perfect example. Sports, recreational time, how involved are you in that? Are you deciding what sports they wanted to what sports they should participate in? Are you deciding their extracurriculars? Curriculars? Right. And with the sport teams, are you making sure that they're on the team with a friend, or you happen to know the coach, or are you, you know, with them when they're going for tryouts or placement or whatever it's called? Right? Like, that's kinda behind the scenes trying to navigate so your child ends up with what you perceive to be the best situation for the child, which you have no idea. We have no idea what the experience will be like for our child even though as a parent, we think we know better. So along with the term helicopter parenting, there's another term we can call it lawnmowering or snowplowing in honor of Carrie since she is now in a cold weather climate, but they're the same. Think again as just as a helicopter gives you the visual of someone always hovering and being part of something. A snowplow or lawnmower has the visual of removing all obstacles in your child's way. You're clearing the path for them. You're making life easier for them. Yep. So I would say that was me like, if I had to decide between lawnmower, snowplow versus helicopter, 100%, that's what I was doing. I was plowing the way, removing the obstacles because I thought I know knew better. And if I could show up and participate in a way that I thought was best as a mom, it would be why should my kids have to experience negativity, disappointments, failures, bumps. Right? Like, let me Right. Let me make the path a little bit easier. Yes. And and in turn, taking away a little bit of their independence without even knowing that that's something you were doing. Because as we said at the beginning, how do you even know if you're doing this? Right. You don't know. Who knows? Right? Like, what are examples of parenting is our own parents, how we were parented, or maybe looking around and watching other parents. But sometimes it's not so obvious because as we as we've learned and why you and I both are here today, right, is people don't always tell you what's really going on. Right? They don't always wanna show you the good, the bad, and the and the ugly. They don't want you to see their messes. Right. And let's be honest. It's a lot easier to look at someone and say, oh, my neighbor over there, she's a helicopter parent. It's a lot easier to look at someone else and accuse them of something rather than look inside and say, am I doing that? It's very hard to be self reflective and admit that you're doing something that could be deemed as I don't wanna say harmful, but I guess No. Well, it so let's talk about, like, what what are these styles of parenting? Like, how does it impact our children? Because being parents, right, I I'd speak for myself as a mom. All I want is for my children to grow up into productive young adults that are independent and Right. So But if I did not allow some of the independent decision making or the freedom of choice and a lot of the failures to happen, right, I tried to make an easier path, then what happens? Right? What what happens when they launch into adulthood? Right? Are they going to be able to handle disappointments and failures and things? Are they prepared? Do they have the coping skills, or did I rob them of some, you know, lessons and and learning? I might be over exaggerating here because that's not how I operate it all the time, but I will put myself in the category of the listeners or this helicopter mom that rode in because my intention, right, and no one's intention is to kind of remove skills from your children or not allow them the opportunity to to learn, but that's what I did. Let's just talk about that for a second. If you hear yourself in anything that we're saying, let's talk about what helicopter parenting can let's talk about some of the issues and controversies surrounding what helicopter parenting can inhibit in our children. No. Is that the right word? Prohibit. Prohibit. Prohibit? Yeah. Inhibit. Prohibit. Prohibit. So, yeah, let's look at and, again, there's no no intention on a parent to take away a life skill from a child. Right? Like, no one wants I mean, I I'm general overgeneralizing, but I can just say for myself, I don't want my children to grow up as adults and still need me. Right? Like, no. I want them to be able to make the decisions on their own, and I wanna be part of their life as they're sharing with me their decisions, good and or bad, not still coming to me to make those decisions for them. Right. So, yes, if you helicopter or lawnmower, what you might see in the future is a child who goes off to let's an adult, a young adult, 18 year old that goes off to college that is texting you all day long. This happened in class. I don't know where to go for this. What do I do about this assignment? I need extra help for tutoring. My roommate situation. Right? Like, there's one thing about communicating with your child, but when the go to is that when a situation happens, the first place is to ask the parent for advice or what to do. Maybe a little alarm bell needs to go off. That's not to say that you're sending your child off to college and they don't need you anymore. I mean Alright. So what what should we do when the child texts us, reaches out, and is asking, you know, a question, like, something that, like, you know, I'm having this situation. I don't know what to do. Help me make a choice. Right? What should we respond back to them? Like, what would give them the confidence and the independence? Like, what can our response be? Right? Maybe I would say, what are your resources? What's available to you? That's what you need to know. Let's just talk for a second about the detrimental effect that helicopter parenting can possibly have. And, again, every child is different. Every situation is different. It does not mean that this is what's going to happen in your child. But if you choose to continue along with a helicopter parenting style, some of the things you can run into are stifling independence, both on your part and your child's part, high levels of stress. You can have a child with an impaired social skills if they're, if they're not being taught how to go out and make friends and choose their own friendships, academic pressures of what classes to take, how well they're doing in school, what happens if they get a b instead of an a, lack of resilience. You're infringing on their boundaries. You can possibly Well, they might not even know how to set their own boundaries or set their own boundaries with friends. Right? That could be something that was missed along the way because there were none between between parent and child. Right. Anxiety. Just these are all just just a few of what's possible if you follow along in the Or just knowing how to deal with disappointments. Right. Right? We have to allow ourselves and our children to sit in the uncomfortable feelings when we've removed the discomfort by trying to take it away. Right? They don't know that that's okay. And we can look more into this at another time, but I just we talk about raising confident children. I mean, I feel like that term is just thrown around all the time. We I wanna raise a I'm trying to raise a confident child. And as you and I spoke about earlier, you mentioned that you don't teach confidence. It's something that you build. And I I read this a while ago, and I can't remember where I saw it. But being a confident person or a confident child is not dependent on how many people like you. It's being confident means that you are okay if if someone doesn't like you. So that's our goal. Ultimately, we want to raise independent, confident young adults who are okay, as you said, with failing. They're okay with disappointment. They're resilient. They know how to get back up and dust themselves off and move on. Okay. So, how do we do that? What is the style or some examples of parent behaviors that allow that to develop in your child? The more positive parenting term that I have been hearing is a lighthouse parent. And if we're talking about the imagery that a helicopter and a snowplow or lawnmower creates, think about a lighthouse. It is a beacon of safety and security for the boats in the harbor. So it's always there. It is a constant, and it works and acts as a guide. Not, alright, boats. This is the way. You know, go left, turn right, do this, do that, you know, honk your horn now. No. It's just it's always there. It is a guiding light, period. And that if you can perhaps take a look at your parenting styles and figure out how do I let my parent how do I let my child know that no matter what, I'm always there for them while still allowing them to explore their independence and their freedom and make choices for themselves. Alright. So this involves, I'm assuming, more listening than telling. Absolutely. K. What other things can we give as an examples of what parents can do to operate more like a lighthouse because, right, when we have children, we're not deciding, oh, I'm gonna be this type of parent style. We just start out caring for our children. And doing what feels right. And right. And life happens, and situations happen, and parents just do what they think is the right thing in the situation, which, you know, may or may not work out. Right? No. There's no perfect parenting. There's no perfect children. No such thing. Right? So how else can we try to model this lighthouse parent? Well, first of all, what you said right there, model. Instead of telling and saying, just do. Your kids are always watching you. What type of adult do you want them to be? Well, what type of adult are you? You are a mirror onto your child. Your child will pick up your behaviors. If you want to have a child that's polite, instead of saying, keep did you say, please? Did you say thank you? Show them. Hold the door for somebody. Thank you. Please. You're a model for them. If you want them to be a good listener, I know a lot of parents For me, my I would that was something I would always hop harp on harp on with my kids. Are you listening, or you should have your listening ears on? Well, was I a good listener? You know, it works both ways. You know? I need to listen to what my kids are telling me without interruption. And the reminders. Right? Did you do you have your lunch? Did you remember your ID badge? You know, the reminders coming. No. Let them figure it out. So okay. That's an excellent point because I know that so many of our listeners are right now saying, my kid would never remember that stuff if I didn't tell them. Okay. So what happens? What happens Well, Carrie, you tell us what happened. Okay. What did you do? I'll tell you exactly. I had this situation where, right, I was the reminder. I was the fixer. So in the situation where one of my children could not remember to leave the house with everything they needed, I ended up, instead of nagging because when you nag, they stop listening to you I made a a little sign that I put on the inside door of the garage, so they when they walked out the laundry room out to leave the house. So whatever doorway your children leave the house to go to school was a list, you know, lunch Right. A checklist. ID, keys, whatever it is. And when I first put it there, my son said to me, mom, like, everyone's gonna see the sign. Like, my friends come over. There's a sign there. And I, you know, started to laugh because I was like, so you don't think that your friends know that you forget things all the time? Like and he stopped for a minute, and he because he wanted to be embarrassed with the sign, and he was like, you know what? You're right. You're totally right. Everyone knows. You know? My friends know. So and when you think about it, what is the big deal if we're trying to teach a skill? Like, there's nothing wrong about making a list. That's all it was. Right. It was a list there to help in independence. Right? I was so happy jumping for so that was maybe middle school, high school when I started that, but I was so excited that when I went to his college dorm for one of the first visits, he had a whiteboard that he was using himself with all of his reminders or daily tasks. So excited to that because that was, like, the That was the full circle moment. Showing you. The full circle moment, but showing, right, the independence. I didn't suggest or say, when you go to college, maybe you need to have a whiteboard or a list of your things. Like He realized that it helped him. Yes. So I like the success story. Yeah. So I can evolve. I have evolved more into the lighthouse parenting, but one of my favorite lines that I use often, it goes along with the listening. You know? When the kids call and they're, you know, whatever the frustration is, I will stop and say, do you want me to just listen? Most of the time, I hear, yep. I just want you to listen. And then when it's time when maybe they've asked the question, what do you think? What do you think I should do? My next favorite line is, I'm sure you'll figure it out. Love that. Now for me, the lawnmower, that's really, really hard. Right? Like, I I I've already had, like, a list going in my head of 3 different ways that they could solve the problem, but that is taking away their power. That is taking away their ability to be confident and confident in their own decision making. So And problem solve. Exactly. So I like that. I do something similar. My question is, what are you needing from me right now? Do you need me to just be a listener? Do you need me to offer you a suggestion, or do you just want to vent and me say nothing? So we can evolve. We can all evolve together. Yes. So So let's just kind of follow-up with the helicopter, mom. Yes. We hope that through our discussion today that you can see why people might associate a helicopter mom with being a derogatory term. So coming back full circle here, helicopter mom, we hope that we have given you some food for thought about why the term helicopter mom or lawnmower mom or parent can be deemed as derogatory. We are not here to judge. We are just here to inform and present you with another option, perhaps the lighthouse parent, something for you to think about in your parenting styles. Alright, everybody. Thank you so much for listening. Stay tuned for next week's episode. Have a great day. Bye, guys. Thank you for listening to this episode of parent coaches unleashed with Carrie and Jessica. Together, we can raise the next generation of independent, capable, and compassionate young adults. We encourage you to send us an email with questions and feedback to info at parent coaches unleashed.com. Please remember you are not alone on this parenting journey.