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To find out more about helicopter parenting and how it affects the wellbeing of a child, Bored Panda spoke with Helen Marlo, a licensed clinical psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst who provides psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and consultation. Marlo is also a Professor of Clinical Psychology and the Department Chair at Notre Dame de Namur University. She frequently sees the deleterious effects of this kind of parenting in her clinical work, so she feels passionately about this topic.
Marlo explained that helicopter parenting is destructive because it is a self-involved style of parenting that lacks empathy. “It is dominated by relating through action which takes away from the parent genuinely engaging with the child. This parenting style prevents the child from experiencing which is, often, the best teacher in life.”
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Moreover, helicopter parenting can be especially destructive “because it involves activities that may masquerade as forms of ‘good parenting,’ and involve actions that lead to greater outward success for one’s child,” Marlo argues. She added that this can make it a hard style for parents to modify.
According to the clinical psychologist, helicopter parenting involves actions which are, seemingly, on behalf of the child and their alleged needs. However, in reality, they “more often are motivated by the parent’s own anxieties, expectations, hopes, wishes, and needs.”
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* "I didn't do that because nobody directed me to"
* Doesn't take a single step without getting specific approval from someone
* No problem-solving ability whatsoever. Just waits around to be told exactly what to do
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It’s important to understand that helicopter parenting is not just a mere parenting style, but that it can be intrusive and controlling of the child, their experience, and their self-expression. This self-involved style of parenting prevents the parent from seeing their child and from being conscious and attuned to their child’s needs.
Marlo told us that “it can interfere with the natural development and unfolding of one’s personality, coined by psychoanalyst, Donald Winnicott, as the process of, ‘going-on-being.’ When ‘going-on-being’ is impinged upon, it can lead to the development of a ‘false self.’”
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Marlo explained that, for example, “helicopter parenting can quash dimensions of the child’s personality and innate capacities, and foreclose emerging, influential experience, by preventing or intruding upon the child’s spontaneous behaviors as well as by sending strong messages about who the child should be, which often goes against their being and leads to the development of a false self.”
She added that helicopter parenting is a form of parenting that involves acting and doing in contrast to relating and understanding. “It consists of actions that can supplant and take away from communicating and being with the child.”
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Moreover, “a helicopter parent can mistakenly convince themselves that doing for their child or being anxiously preoccupied about their child is a form of engagement and love.”
We also asked the clinical psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst what the children of helicopter parents are like. Marlo explained that they often “show a limited capacity for tolerating stress and they can become easily overwhelmed by stressors since helicopter parenting generally prevents them from having to face and cope with the usual stresses of life.”
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Having a helicopter parent often leads a person to develop a sense of specialness and a feeling of entitlement, Marlo argues. “That is, they develop an expectation that they should be treated differently from others, and that others could and should do things for them, often, because they are so unique or special.” Moreover, they may develop a feeling of superiority, “often in compensation for feeling so inadequate, insecure, or useless because everything is being done for them,” she added.
The clinical psychologist also noted that while having a helicopter parent who takes care of everything can feel good in the moment, it can backfire. “The person often winds up feeling incompetent, useless, or without purpose and that leads to increased depression and anxiety.”
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I'm scared of my parents, specifically my dad. I'm the youngest in my family and grew up conditioned to always be a delicate little flower who had to be protected at all costs. As I grew older and by them being particularly strict about what I could or couldn't do, my adult brain registered the 'couldnt do's as threats to my safety.
- I have 2 separate personas around people. When I'm with friends, I swear a lot, I joke around, I deliberately try to p**s them off for a laugh. I'm not afriad to admit I enjoy playing video games or watch cartoons. Near my parents? I'm as quiet as a mouse. Even when I do speak near them I don't swear or try anything to bother them.
- I can't bring myself to update my social media where my parents can see it because I'm frightened they'll come in and tell me I have s bad opinion or I should delete my posts. If something minor is even put up, it gets taken down.
- As a result of being scared of my dad, I developed a severe anxiety disorder revolving around riding in his car as a passenger. If I'm carsick, he'll be mad. And that happens frequently. I'm getting better at not having a panic attack in his car. Gradually.
- They are so deluded in seeing me as a delicate little flower that they fail to encourage or acknowledge my real interest in playing video games. Like it's embarrassing to them. I do my best not to bother them by playing my games very discreetly.
- It's impolite to be loud. I listen to the TV at the lowest volume, I've trained myself to burp by like. Breathing it out through my nose so it's silent. People around me can belch loudly if they wanted. I don't know how to anymore. If I accidentally make any sort of unsavoury sound I have to apologize profusely.
- I'm afraid of the outside world at dark. Even at twilight. I was forbidden from riding a train home at 5pm to protect me from scary people. But now? I'm always frightened. It makes it difficult to go out in public at night without constantly being on edge. It's made people who are just having fun drinking with friends look like monsters who intend to kill me instead.
- ^^^ I'm too anxious to drink because I don't want to disappoint my parents AND all drunk people are dangerous and intend to hurt you.
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Helicopter parenting often shapes subsequent relationships, including how the person relates to others and who they connect with in relationships. “In relationships, they may, for example, be drawn to someone who replicates a pattern of being intrusive and controlling, leading the person to become less competent, confident and more dependent.”
“Similarly, they may be drawn to others who treat them as special, which is not conducive to maintaining healthy, long-term relationships, particularly by failing to learn to manage inevitable human disappointments, limitations, imperfections, and boundaries,” Marlo concluded.
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