Parents: When to back off, when to step in
by Elizabeth Landau, CNN
February 09, 2009
* "Helicopter parents" may result from generational changes in
work, values
* When safety becomes an issue, it's OK for parents to step in
* Generally, parents should not intervene with bad roommates,
grades in college
* Experts say parents can pay the rent once, but don't make it a
habit
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Do you speed over to your child's school,
or even college, whenever something goes wrong?
Parents should try to teach their children how to handle situations
themselves, experts say.
Many parents today insert themselves into even the most minute
activities in their children's lives, a phenomenon that's known as
"helicopter parenting."
But two child experts told CNN that parents should aim to empower
their children to do things on their own.
"Parenting should be increasingly in the background as the child
gets older," said Vivian Friedman, child-adolescent psychologist at
the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "If you do for your child
for too long, they never learn to do for themselves."
Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics at
the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and author of the
book "A Parent's Guide to Building Resilience in Children and
Teens," said it's important to show children you believe they are
capable of handling situations themselves, but always put safety
first.
The "helicopter parent" trend may have arisen because the focus of
marriage has shifted from the spouse to the child, Friedman said.
An increase in divorce and a greater prevalence of two working
spouses also contribute to parents' habits of spoiling their
children.
"When [the kids] have little failures, they feel like our own
failures," Ginsburg said. "What we need to understand is that our
job as parents is not to finish our kids or produce perfect kids.
It's to start our kids."
Here's what Friedman and Ginsburg recommended for various
situations that may arise in your child's life:
1. The elementary school is putting on "Peter Pan" tomorrow. While
you prepare a presentation for an important business meeting, your
daughter calls and tells you she forgot her Tinkerbell costume for
the dress rehearsal. "I'm the only one who's not dressed up," she
tells you.
Friedman and Ginsburg agreed that it's OK to take care of it the
first time she forgets the costume, but not if it becomes a
habit.
"The first time: Find a housekeeper or neighbor to bring it over,"
Friedman said. "But if she does this routinely, she needs to suffer
consequences to learn from the experience."
"One time, two-time mistake -- it's wonderful to pick up the
pieces," Ginsburg said. "If, in fact, you always end up picking up
pieces, you can't expect a kid to learn the valuable lesson that
they can do it themselves. Learn from failure -- failure's a great
thing when you learn how to recover yourself."
2. You're at the playground reading a newspaper and suddenly your
daughter runs up to you crying. "They won't let me make sand
castles with them," she whines.
Friedman said this one depends on age. For a 3- or 4-year-old, it's
appropriate for the parent to go over to the group as a neutral
adult and help the children learn that they need to include
everybody.
But for a 7-year-old, it's borderline. "You could say, 'What seems
to be the problem? Do you think there's a way we could all play
together?' rather than 'You can't exclude my child,' " she
said.
Ginsburg, on the other hand, said you can suggest to your child
what to say, or recommend that she find someone else to play with,
but you shouldn't communicate that your child isn't capable of
handling the situation.
"Learning how to play nice with other people in the sandbox is a
great metaphor for life," he said.
3. Kids in the seventh-grade class just won't leave your son alone,
not even online. Besides shoving him against the lockers once in
awhile, they've also set up a MySpace page making fun of his
appearance and name.
Experts agree that you should step in here and notify the school.
Friedman would also notify the parents of the children involved --
"Most rational, reasonable parents would not support their child
doing that," she said.
Ginsburg emphasized that safety always comes first. "You don't
allow your daughter to put her hand in the oven to learn it's hot,"
he said. "You don't allow a kid to be bullied when there should be
systems in place to prevent bullying."
4. Your son started college a month ago, and every time you call
him he has a new story about his messy, party-loving roommate who
distracts him from studying and interrupts his sleep. "I wouldn't
mind as much if it were my own vomit on the floor," your son tells
you. He says he'll just stick it out for the rest of the year.
Friedman and Ginsburg said they would not approach the college
housing department and ask to have the young man moved, except in
extreme or difficult circumstances -- such as if the child is in a
special needs program and can't help himself, Friedman said.
"There's nothing wrong with asking open-ended questions to help
your son figure it out," Ginsburg said. "It's OK to say 'Who can
you talk to at the university to change your living situation?'
What's not OK is to call the dean and say 'Move my son.'
"
5. Always a technical genius, your daughter majors in electrical
engineering and will surely become a pioneer of great innovations.
But this semester, the last of her junior year, she failed her
18th-century literature class, which she took to fulfill the
subject-area distribution requirements. This is going to look
pretty bad on graduate school applications.
While the daughter can speak to the professor on her own, Friedman
and Ginsburg said they would not intervene in this situation.
Special circumstances would be if the grade was truly unfair and
there was real foul play involved, or if the professor was drunk --
but otherwise, Friedman said, "It's her F, it's not your F. I would
do absolutely nothing."
6. Your daughter has been in the real world for a year, but she
says she's not ready to keep herself afloat financially. For the
third time this summer she asks for help paying the rent -- "phone
bill would be extra nice," she adds. You also notice that she's got
a new pair of Manolo Blahnik pumps, and an iPhone is sticking out
of her purse.
Friedman said she would not allow this to come up a third time --
she would have made the daughter set up an automatic debit system
early on so her child's rent comes out of the account when her
paycheck is deposited. "By the third month, I would let her sink,
but I'm not a helicopter parent," she said.
Ginsburg emphasized again the safety component: He would never want
his daughter to become homeless. He would pay the first month's
rent with clear expectations: She needs to learn how to make a
budget, she can't spend money on other things until things like
rent and food are taken care of, and she needs to know that this is
a loan. "Seven months in a row: she needs to find a roommate," he
said.
Finally, note that there are no villains here, Ginsburg said.
"The parents who we think do too much are still doing their very
best," he said. "Real success involves resilience: the capacity to
learn to bounce back on your own."
