Not to long ago, I was asked to be a guest writer for The Awakened Parent blog and the topic was about hovering parents. Below is the full article I wrote –
Helicopter Parenting. It is when we as parents ‘hover’ over our children, no matter what age, constantly checking on how they are doing; a habit we as parents develop from when they were born. And mothers are more guilty, I think that the dads.
As parents we fuss about our children from birth until forever at least for some. It is this nurturing instinct that we parents find difficult to shed. But is it good or bad? It depends, in my opinion.
From birth we worry about their feeding, sleeping and playing routine. Then we moved on to toddler years where we ensure their safety. “Be careful out there!”, we yell even though our tree year old is only climbing a little log. At home when our child is out of sight, we naturally panic. “Has he fallen into the pool?” yet we know that the solution really is to install a pool net to keep them from falling in. It is this constant worrying and anxiety that develop us into hovering parents.
Pre-school years made it worse, at least for me. Do these lines sound familiar?
“That’s not clear enough, rewrite those letters again”. “Say these words – for, that, this, fourth – I want to make sure you don’t confuse the sounds”. “Oh, that is not how you should throw the ball in cricket, ask your dad to show you properly”. Or during swimming lessons when I cannot help it but utter “dig remember how dad showed you the other day?”
Hovering is a product of anxiousness. We are anxious to get our kids doing things properly, often, forgetting that some skills are age related, and unless he or she are not hitting the appropriate markers there is no need to worry, really.
At my son’s school their eyesight, hearing, fine and gross motor skills are checked at the beginning of each school year, and if a child appears to be struggling then the parents are urged to seek private help. This approach, however, merely empowers us hovering parents to worry if our children are doing well if not okay.
Hovering parents are often blinded of the stress they are putting on not only to themselves but to the child itself. If we constantly fuss about our children we could be lessening their ability to be more confident about their abilities. Or making our children always wanting validation from us. Some children become so dependent on us they lose the ability to tell what is right from wrong? By hovering, we are doing our children a disservice. It would I think be better if we from time to time step back and examine our approach towards guiding our children.
My son is musical and has this aural gift of recreating a piece just by listening to it. We discovered this when he enrolled for recorder lessons last year. Because recorder lessons only take place once a week, I would rely on the notes from the teacher and my son’s book to ensure that he practices and progresses accordingly.
After the initial stage of getting to know the pitches and rudiments of note reading, and in our case having to listen to pitchless blowing, my son soon developed this gift of playing the recorder beautifully. The only problem is he refuses to read his notes and would rather play oido. This “stubbornness” upsets me.
The hoverer I am, I sit with him quizzing him about his pieces and listen him play, until he gets it right. I am no Amy Chua (Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mom) and I do not intend to turn my son to be some virtuoso. I just want to make sure that he is doing things properly. And it is so exhausting and stressful, I would imagine for both of us.
Last week, my son came home with a new recorder book with a note that the goal is to learn one piece a week. Aside from the daily homework, we would squeeze in 30 minutes almost everyday to practice his pieces. I had been down with flu so I took it easy with him for a full week. On Monday, we I told him we need to learn his new piece. It was tricky requiring many 8th notes. As usual I reminded him to clap to the beat. When he first attempted to play the piece, I interrupted him and asked, “Are you sure you are playing the E#?”
I slowly got frustrated because he was not listening to what I was saying I walked away and lesson ended. On Tuesday, after homework, I reminded him about the piece as he was seeing his recorder teacher the following day. I was busy clearing books away, and he started playing on his own. Whoa! To his and my surprise, my son was able to navigate through the difficult notes on his own!
I was knocked hard on the head – me and my hovering!
It is a difficult habit to shed – hovering. As parents we all want our kids to do well My husband, and mostly I, spent abundant time with my son, teaching, honing, coaching him from reading, spelling, speech, maths, swimming, music and yes, even Karate; all because we wanted to make sure his skills are there.
That evening I thought of the many days I spent with my son ensuring his skills are spot on. I said to myself, I think it is time allow him to learn and discover things on his own. If mistakes were made, to allow him to face them, correct them and learn from them. It is only by doing so that we (husband and I) will be able to train him to face the future. By letting go, I must remind myself “do I trust the way I have taught and brought up my son?”
The fear of not wanting our children to go astray is real. It is how we raise them now that will help them be able to cope later in life. Will I still hover? Yes, but I have to let go little by little.
Do you hover over your kids? Share us your thoughts –
I wrote this article for The Awakened Parent blog-site. To read more of awakened parent stories, visit http://theawakenedparent.org/. ♥
The Grape Vine 