The Helicopters

There were fifteen in my group, all freshly scrubbed in various states of 9th grade euphoria.  Some were very excited; some yawned loudly; many were vociferously anxious about having to leave their phones behind.  As the bus pulled up, a few parents squished in close for an extra hug or two and a careful word about watching out for snakes and bees and dust and... and... and...

A few of the kids were nervous, but the most nervous were kept home - sick, their parents would say, an ailment that they didn't see coming, but camp brings out the rotor blades in many parents.

Helicopter parents.

The term first occurred as a metaphor in Dr. Haim Ginott's 1969 book, "Between Parent and Teenager."  He describes a parent who hovers over their child like a helicopter and others have described this phenomenon of parents being perpetually physically present but emotionally absent.  Helicopter parents are hyper-vigilant about their child's physical surroundings but relatively clueless about their emotional well being.

On camp, the 9th graders were, for the most part, ready for a different kind of adventure.  It has been described as a survival camp, or something like that, but for the most part, because of helicoptering, most of the survival has been filtered from it and camp is just a four day separation from the helicoptering parents.  Georgia researcher and professor, Richard Mullendore, says that the rise of the mobile phone has created the explosion of helicopter parenting - the world's longest umbilical cord.  We probably see it every day; parents calling their children during the school day, at their friends' houses, during all hours of separation. 

Just to keep them safe. 

Ironically, keeping the kids from physically challenging opportunities actually seems to have the opposite effect.  Those kids that aren't given the chance to push themselves, or even move through the pain of twisting an ankle, scrapes and cuts, bruises and welts from the outdoors, seem to be more prone to making physical mistakes later in life.  Parents, often well intentioned, try to shelter their kids from the physical pain and in essence, stunt their maturation and the apron strings that should long ago have been untied, have created a generation of kids who don't know how to deal with pain and danger.

Frightened of the media's portrayal of abduction, or accidental death, parents don't let their kids walk, or ride their bikes, to school but instead drive them each morning unaware that the odds of their children being hurt in an abduction are infinitesimal as being injured in a car accident.  But the online difficulty is where I'm seeing the most tragic pain occurring.

The greatest problem is: often the same parents who have extreme boundaries about what their kids can do in the outdoors have no limitations on where their kids can go online.  Given no boundaries or even techniques of navigating the digital wilderness, kids wander aimlessly in the forests of pornography, anonymous social media and drown in the deserts of images and videos.  How often do I attempt to constructively allow the kids in classes navigate their assessments using the technology at hand to research only to find them on a thread of youtube. 

Blame is not placed squarely on helicoptering, but somehow we, as a community, especially a Spiritual community, must find ways to build the fences within which young people can explore both the physical and digital world.  We must give the youth of today guidelines for working through pain and unrealized expectations and in the midst, if our children do feel pain (which they will) we must resist the urge to morph into Apache helicopter parents - not just parents that hover, but now attack.

I am as guilty as anyone else, but I'm trying hard to shut down the rotors and give my children the best opportunity to succeed in all worlds.  

I actively pray and encourage other parents to do the same.