62 Helicopter Parenting Stories That Make “Overprotective” Sound Like An Understatement

Friend of mine turns 19 in a month. He can't hangout past about 7 o'clock, his parents won't let him get a phone (even though they aren't in any financial troubles that we know of), and worst of all, won't let him get a job until he's 21. The kid is afraid to talk to people from how much they shelter him. Its actually pretty sad.

Edit: Forgot to mention his parents won't let him get his license either. He has his temps, but they refuse to take him driving anywhere. He took the test once and failed because he got 30+ points off because they won't teach him how to drive.

A kindergartener couldn't wipe himself and was yelling from the bathroom that he "boobooed" and expected staff to come in and do it for him because his mother does it at home.

I had a mother call me because her son made a 96 on a project and she wanted to know why he didn’t earn a 100. I told her he did a great job and that’s why he made a good grade. She wasn’t satisfied and then called out a different student and told me how that kids mom had done the project and made a better grade. So I asked her what grade she wants me to give her son. After she heard that she said “I don’t want you to GIVE him a grade”. So I respond with “then why did you call?”. She absolutely did not expect that retort and said the 96 would be just fine and hung up.

My brother held his daughter back because the elementary school had a flight of stairs and he couldn't get them to promise that an adult would hold her hand every time she had to use them.

He also kept her home from school on a day there was going to be an eclipse because he wasn't confident in the school's ability to stop her from looking at it.

My wife.

She still thinks if she is not directly involved in helping her thirty year old daughters find things on Amazon, buy their cars, find insurance, communicate with *each other* (she will take a call from one of them to call the other and then relay what she gets from that one back to the first instead of having her just talk to each other) that the world will stop spinning.

My friend in the park with her child! I let mine whose the same age run around but I follow close by. She and her husband let their daughter go on this tiny slide and one went to the top and one to the bottom. The child was bigger than the slide, I couldn’t stop laughing. The poor child can’t do anything alone.

Kid wanted a second juice pack (the small boxes that are like 2 sips)- mom wouldn’t let him until he went to pee first. He was 10 years old.

A girl in my old secondary school (aged 15) had a bracelet that would beep loudly whenever she wasn’t in a location she was expected to be in, once - due to a glitch - in a maths lesson, the bracelet went insane beeping and flashing.
Long story short, she left the room, she rung her parents, and they called off the cavalry.

My brother told a girl he couldn't date her because "My mommy said so"


He was 18 years old.


So many horror stories.

They came to her job interview.

I was watching a mom and her daughter my (f32) age at our coffee station. The mom was telling her which sugar to use (daughter was confused about what white sugar is) and directing her to put honey in her tea.

I was 19 years old and flying home from college over christmas break. A boy I graduated high school with was coming home on the same day and his mother went to great lengths to ensure that he and I were on the same flight and seated right next to each other (without my knowledge) because she didn't want her son flying alone...

I have another one.


I was part of this youth group who wanted me to join the 4H club. Mind you the majority of the 4H was homeschoolers and kids from Youth group.

I signed up and paid the fee with my own money. My mom found out and told me I couldn't join because she "didn't want me around other kids".

I teach fourth grade, it is around that time that you start to see the worst start coming out. The kids are starting to get into more competitive sports, higher academics, you see who's going to go which way. I had this one parent and he was just the worst. His son was a very talented artist but confided to me that his parents constantly distracted him from his art at home to focus on what he thought his son should be focusing on, a career as a pilot.

I called his parent's in for a meeting to show how what options could become available to him if he was able to pursue his passion a bit more. Maybe get the Father to let up a little.

So the meeting starts and the son and the mother come in, and behind them comes the father spinning with his arms stretched out as far as they go, making helicopter noises with his mouth. He does this the entire meeting. Strangest thing ever.

I'm not an educator, but I have a fair answer. In my school, there's this girl in most of my classes who says she's not allowed to watch horror movies, she never swears and she even complains when other people swear, she is not very well informed on recent events, (she didn't know who Kim-Jong Un was) she is very scared of the bell ringing, she gets stressed out at the slightest inconvenience, she does not have a social life, and she lets people egg her on when she's agitated. These are all signs of a parent sheltering someone/helicopter parenting. Keep in mind, This is all in High school.

Little League baseball, I want to say 1st and 2nd graders. Kid gets up to bat and the mother is standing about six feet away. The kid gets a hit and the mom begins to "race" with him from home to first, encouraging him to run the whole way.

I had to ask someone in the crowd if the kid was developmentally challenged or something. Nope, just a mom being *way* too over-eager to see her kid "succeed".

I've had the parents of graduate students call me on the phone to argue with me, on their child's behalf, how I had graded their work.

Hmmm so many to choose from....admin would probably say this was the worst, but I still think it’s the best!

Had a 7th Grade student (Catholic School) who was being bullied constantly by a kid named Henry. Victim’s mom wasn’t satisfied with the way the principal was handling it, so one day she sneaks over to my classroom, opens the door and yells, “Henry! You touch my kid one more time and I’ll cut your dang balls off!” Mom was in big trouble but the bullying stopped.

Had a 4th Grade student one time who was very mediocre—B student, blah personality....her mom’s best friend was the mother of a classmate who was a star student in every way, and Mediocre Mom was constantly comparing the two. I’d send home graded work, and it would come back saying that I had made mistakes in my grading and the girl deserved a higher grade. I finally started photocopying the papers before I sent them home...I knew it was mom changing the answers, not the kid. End-of-the-year Award time arrives which is invitation-only. I did NOT send Miss Mediocre and her family an invitation, and was shocked when they showed up at the event. After the award ceremony, Mediocre Mom approaches the Principal and says that they had received an invitation, and why didn’t her child receive an award? Principal calls me over and asks what happened...I insisted that I did not send them an invitation, but the Principal didn’t want the child to feel badly now, so asked me to think of an award which would work for the child, and she quickly went and made a certificate for the child. Mom then bad-mouthed me for forgetting that I’d sent the kid an invitation and not having the award ready. What a jerk!

My dad was such a helicopter parent that he became a meme at my high school. He was a good guy, but always checking my "Powerschool" (an online grading resource thing) and printing it out/highlighting things he didn't like, then passive-aggressively leaving the paper with his notes on my bed. Always reminded me of stuff I had coming up for the week even when I mentioned it beforehand. It got to the point that whenever someone got a bad grade/did something stupid, people would look at him/her and say *MellowDefenestration* in a drawn out Boston accent.

In NYC, students have to apply to high school the way most kids apply to college. I was asked to fill out a recommendation letter for a student, but it required a writing sample (essay only) from the kid and I didn't have one yet because it was early in the year. The deadline was a month away, so I would get a writing sample during that time. The mom didn't accept this answer no matter how many times I told her. For 2 well she harassed me daily through email, phone calls and text. She ended up calling the principal who put me and the kid in his office so he could write an arbitrary essay, and I could write the letter. I missed teaching 2 classes! (They were covered by a sub) Principal philosophically sided with me, but he just wanted her to go away lol.