If not helicopter parent...

So what should you do, if you want to avoid being a helicopter parent?

I heard about the term flipper parent. I'm not sure if it's used by many, but I thought it sounded great. Instead of overprotecting children, you should send them out into life, letting them learn by making mistakes. When they come back, you should be a helping hand, and then send them back into life. Almost like a flipper game. There's a difference between being helpful and being overprotective.

There are many views on how a child should be raised. They differ from culture to culture, from family to family. But it's a general truth that those who have gotten everything served for them their entire lives are going to have a harder time adjusting to normal life when they grow up. If you want to do your kids a favor, let them decide and think for themselves.

TV shows

All these TV shows that are showing us helicopter parents and their children are giving us a warped picture of the world. There are probably not as many helicopter parents as we think there is, and the ones shown on TV are the most extreme cases.

But I also think these shows make parents think twice about how they're treating their children. When they see how these kids on TV are spoiled and most often arrogant, they probably don't want their own children to be like that. Like in most situations in life, we learn by observing each other.

Pressuring and succeeding?

Recently, about two months ago, I read a series of articles in the newspaper DN. Here's the first article. It's about how gymnasts were pressured way too hard at practice and in life. Their coach made them cry, telling them they weren't good enough and wouldn't accept it if somebody thought something was too scary to execute. If you wouldn't do it, you could quit. There were other things their coach did to make them "succeed" that you can read about in the article.

I can just not understand this. Apparently those who train gymnastics nowadays do it for 30 hours a week. I can just not understand that. I think at one point it doesn't matter how much effort you put into it, because you're going to be so exhausted that you won't be able to perform well. I find it unbelievable that a coach doesn't know that.

But my main concern is the parents. Where were they? The gymnasts were probably not saying anything because they didn't know any better. When you practice that much, it becomes as normal as eating and sleeping. That's when parents have to be there. I'm guessing they were either very competitive as well or didn't have a clue what was going on. The first is more likely. Who doesn't go to see their child at practice once? I don't have a good answer for this, and this post is mostly for asking questions. I've practiced figure skating for most of my life, and I have never heard of a coach that would do that to the athletes. I'm just very surprised of what I read in this article.

Society loves curling

I find that not only parents are making life as easy as possible for their children, but society is trying to regulate your life more and more. Not in the way that you're not allowed to do things, but in the way that going through life should be as painless as possible.

You can find a kitchen appliance for any problem you could possibly find. Almost the entire EU has the same currency, to make it easier to trade and travel. You can have your child on a leash so you don't lose it, and cover all the sharp edges in your house with foam so nobody accidentally gets hurt. The latest thing I heard was that the scales for how dangerous an avalanche is in the Alps and in Sweden have to be modified so the same number means the same thing on the scales. This because people who have gone to the Alps thought it wasn't as dangerous as they thought it was skiing off-piste. They couldn't look it up before they threw themselves out onto the mountain? Don't get me wrong, some of these things are great. But a lot of them are silly. We have to use our brains less and less. It's like the government is our helicopter parents. They're afraid that if something requires too much effort, it's their fault.

We have this thing called common sense, and we're forgetting what it's used for. If we could only think before we act, these things wouldn't be a problem. Come on people, use your brains!

Why it doesn't work

I was thinking I'd go back to what this blog is named after: helicopter parents (or curling parents).

Right now we're seeing many TV shows where the parents run their children's lives or take care of them way too much. Examples of these are "Ung & Bortskämd" and "Mammor & minimodeller". We see that either the kids can't speak for themselves or take care of themselves. Sometimes it's both. And it's not hard to understand why. If you never have to handle anything yourself, or think for yourself, how are you supposed to form your own life?

It can give the child the illusion that it can take care of itself. As long as the parents cook dinner, drive them everywhere, talk to their teachers when they get a bad grade and make sure that everything they eat is healthy. The best would be if they tell them what colleges and universities they should apply for as well.

I think if you want your child to be independent, you have to do exactly that. It can't just be independent in the way that they know what they want, they also have to go get it themselves. We all need some sort of motivation, but if we're too comfortable we don't want to change our situation. Parenting works the same way. Stop making excuses for your child, and let them think for themselves.

Tiger mothers (or Asian parenting)

Does it really matter how strict your upbringing has been? Are you more likely to succeed if your parents pushed you just a little bit too hard when you were a child? We all know of the stereotype that Asian parents are the strictest, and most of think it's generally true. We've seen on TV and in the new papers how Asian children are pressured to excel in school and athletics. But we can't really see that Asian children, or grown ups for that matter, are superior to any other human race.

When we watch the Olympics, we don't see any more Asian faces than European, African or American. Neither have we seen that Asians are way more intelligent than anyone else. I'm not saying they're any dumber either. It's just that pressuring the children so they can be the smartest, the fastest or the best musician isn't proving to be beneficial. What it affects the most is the child-parent relationship, which only hurts from this. Most children won't be world famous or win a Nobel Price, and what you're left with is a damaged family.

So where do I want to go with this? I think there's a fine line between pushing a child too hard and preparing it for reality. There's no universal truth for how to raise your kids, but when the disadvantages are larger than the benefits, maybe you're doing something wrong. 

Baby Models

This is a video clip from an American show called "Toddlers and tiaras". I think this is a great example of helicopter parents. And though the video is hilarious, it's also very serious.

We're seeing more and more TV shows about the same things. Parents, mostly moms, who badly want their children to become models. It doesn't matter if it's 10 years too soon. In the video it might seem that the kid wants to be a pageant queen, but if you think about it her mom has probably made her want it. When you're that young it's hard to question your parents, especially if they're giving you so much attention.

We've seen in all sorts of media that our society is becoming more and more superficial, as if it hasn't been before. That it's finding its way to younger and younger people is not to blame on the children, but on their parents.

What do you think? Is it okay to enter your child in a pageant? And do the children actually like it?