Thaindian News

June 4, 2010 (Pen Men at Work): A first-of-its-kind investigation has emphasized that ‘helicopter parents’ are likely to generate kids, who are fearful, reliant and extremely closed. These personality characteristics are considered to be detrimental. What does the term ‘helicopter parents’ signify? It refers to nosey parents, who unceasingly interfere and revolve around their children’s lives.

These parents might deem that they are only expressing their concern for their children and are trying to protect their kids. However, this excessive parenting might leave a lifelong influence on the kids. The worrisome part is that the influence might not be constructive. Such excessive parenting might make the kids gullible and full of shyness. The kids will be unable to analyze their future on their own and will be incapable of thinking for themselves.

The investigation had inspected college freshmen. Neil Montgomery, a psychologist at Keene State College in N.H. and one of the researchers of the investigation, has stated that the term ‘helicopter parenting’ was created by representatives associated with college admissions. This was when they began to observe transformations in the attitudes of the parents of probable students. The parents would frequently dial the number of the workplace of admissions and get involved in a procedure that had hitherto been between the student and the college.

Montgomery and his professional colleagues examined 300 freshmen after having expressly crafted a questionnaire to evaluate the impact of helicopter parenting. They concentrated on college freshmen since the college is a crucial point in the liaison between the helicopter parents and their children. The children, who are in college, have grown up to such a point that they can no longer be monitored by their parents like the parents used to in the past when their children were younger.

In the investigation, approximately 10 percent of the participants had helicopter parents. The rate was larger in girls than in boys, with 13 percent of the females being ‘helicoptered’ in relation to merely 5 percent of males. The investigation revealed that the mothers were largely meddlesome.

Montgomery declared that the investigation has demonstrated that those children, who were not scrutinized by their parents unendingly and who were assigned more independence from parental scrutiny, had personality traits opposite to those who had helicopter parents.

Montgomery has also articulated that the children of helicopter parents are likely to find survival in this cutthroat world quite difficult. However, he clarified that the findings of his investigation merely illustrate a relationship, and not a straight cause-effect connection. This denotes that all the children with helicopter parents don’t automatically turn out the way it has been mentioned in the investigation. Montgomery has declared that the investigation advises the parents to have a more holistic understanding about the rearing of their children. Excessive parenting can be quite unhelpful.