Are You a "Helicopter" Parent?

In a recent conversation with a friend, I mentioned that my intention at this stage of my life is to be a loving, benevolent bystander where my adult children and older grandchildren are concerned. I would be there with them and for them as mutually desired or needed. The rest of the time I would leave them alone to pursue their own lives, as I would mine. She immediately came back with the comment, “I want to be more lovingly involved.” At the time, I realized that was understandable because she still has teenage children at home.

Later, what bothered me about her comment was my sense that she might have thought my decision was insensitive and uncaring. That couldn’t be further from the truth. My comment was based on long life experience, and knowing that all human beings have within them the awareness of what is right for them. And parents and grandparents have no right to interfere with that, even though it may take a while for the younger generation to sort out their lives.

I was also talking about the time when our children and their children have reached adulthood and are on their own. I fully realize that during the earlier years, there is a much greater level of involvement that is necessary, natural and desired.

When the natural maturation process pulls young adults to follow their own paths, however, this is healthy and desired. This is what parenting is all about, guiding them to this stage and then letting them fly from the nest.

Yet it can also be a scary time for many parents and grandparents, and I can relate to that. After being needed for so long, the fear or concern is that we will lose our connection with them, and we better do something fast.

What often happens is that there is an attempt, well meant but ill-advised, to become what Dr. Wayne Dyer calls “helicopter parents,” parents who hover over our children and grandchildren. In this way, we hope to either financially, emotionally—or both—secure the tie that binds. But the truth is, while it may feel good to us, it may cripple them.

I tried this approach for a very short time with some of my loved ones, but fortunately they were way ahead of me and would allow none of it. They had already followed the natural course and released me—which is a hard but necessary lesson to learn.

Now that I have been through this a few times, I can attest to the high level of love and wisdom it takes for parents and grandparents to love and release their beloveds to life. I can similarly attest to the courage and commitment it takes to quell the urge to rescue them or to try to be the super parent or grandparent for ego reasons. My hard-earned advice for those tempted by the helicopter syndrome is to immediately turn that thought, and energy, toward enhancing your own life so that you aren’t the needy one. This will benefit and honor everyone, and is a healthier approach to parenting.

I said before in an earlier column, the lessons our loved ones gain from their struggles is their right, and to deny this natural process may keep them from the maturity, independence, sense of achievement and resulting self esteem that a successful life demands.

Loving and releasing may seem to be a dichotomy, yet when you truly love, there are no tentacles, no hooks, only a freeing love.
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Copyright 2007 by Fern Stewart Welch

The author’s book THE HEART KNOWS THE WAY—How to Follow Your Heart to a Conscious Connection with the Divine Spirit Within is available at Amazon.com and other online booksellers, as well as through major bookstores such as Barnes & Noble and Borders.