Summarize:
This article, “Does ‘Hovering’
Matter? Helicopter Parenting and its Effects on Well-Being” covers three
different types of parenting as defined by Diana Baumrind. These parenting types include authoritative,
authoritarian, and permissive.
Authoritative parents have firm rules, but also reason with their
children. They are there for them when they
need help or guidance, but allowing them to make their own decisions and
mistakes. There are strict standards delineated
but the child’s individuality is respected.
These children score the highest on their cognitive tests. Authoritarian parents are very strict and don’t
reason with their children. They set
firm rules that are reinforced with punishments and household chores. These children score lower on their cognitive
tests than children of authoritative and permissive parents. Permissive parents are very supportive and
positive towards their kids. They are a
resource to their children. These
children are less goal oriented and more prone to use drugs. Authors of the article Terri LeMoyne and Tom
Buchanan go on to say that Baumrind created 5 more parenting styles, but they
are not emphasized. Helicopter parenting
is defined as the excessive survellience and micromanaging by parents. The question then being, does helicopter
parenting have a positive or negative effect on a child’s future well-being. They then go on to explain the difficulty of
measuring ‘well-being’ empirically. Well-being
can be described through happiness, quality of life and life satisfaction. Since all of these things are subject to opinion
it makes it difficult to come up with any evidence regarding the pros/cons of
helicopter parenting.
Think:
When I first
came across the subject my questions was: How has the increase in sheltering
children from violence/sex/vulgarities etc. affected their success and ability
to be independent? However after reading
this eye opening article, my question has changed. More specifically, my question now is: How has
the increase of parental surveillance and micromanaging (also known as ‘helicopter
parenting’) affected their child’s well-being?
It also caused me to narrow my question down more specifically to the
effect on college students. It seems
that the hardest part for these helicopter parents is letting their kids be
independent at college, and with the increase of technology communication has
become 24/7 between college students and their parents. Not only that, but colleges have actually
funded programs to try and persuade these parents to let their children be
independent once they move out to school.
While this does sway me to believe that over parenting has negative
effects on a child’s well-being, it remains inconclusive. The article explains the many flaws in
measuring well-being that lead to the inconclusive nature of the question.
Question & Plan:
This
source has led me to new questions like: What are the negative (or positive)
effects that helicopter parenting causes?
Is there a possible way to measure who is or isn’t over parenting their
kids? Is there a possible way to measure
the well-being of their children? If
not, is a child’s success affected by helicopter parenting? I haven’t gotten many answers, but based on
this article I am led to believe that this helicopter parenting has a negative
effect on the well-being of college students.
However there are many questions to be answered. My research will consist of trying to answer
these questions. Also I will try to find
a way to provide evidence for any conclusions I find. I will also try to find an article that
supports or advocates being over protective of children growing up.
Works Cited:
LeMoyne,
Terri, and Tom Buchanan. “Does ‘Hovering’ Matter? Helicopter Parenting and its
Effect On Well-Being.” Sociological
Spectrum 31.4 (2011): 399-418. PsycINFO. Web. 1 Oct. 2015.
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