What is wrong with modern parenting?

In this competitive era, Parenting is NOT just a phase of everyone’s life but it is a highly dedicated phase for modern parents. Modern parents, especially, middle class and upper middle class, are obsessed with their children’s life in all aspects. Starting from their schools to which career they should choose to at last they are getting involved with negotiating the salary for their kids with their employers. This is absurdly different from what the parenting was done until baby boomers and Generation X.

Until the Generation X era, parenting was limited to caring for their children and very rarely ended at career choices. But, this scenario has changed with Generation X’s parenting style. Most of the Millennials and Centinals belonging to middle class and upper middle class group have their life choices in the hands of their parents. This change in mentality is primarily due to change in the way of thinking of this economic group. For example, car is not a necessity for this group but in fact it is a status symbol. They have the similar ideology with their children too. It’s not that parents just care about their status but they feel over protective of their children in this uncertain, volatile, complex and ambiguous world. If a child isn’t performing well in their studies, parents are taking it as something to be ashamed of in public and the consequences are: parents caring too much about their children, solving their problems, making them to think that they are special, not holding them responsible for anything, not allowing them to make choices,etc so that their child live in a stress free environment or how can any parent not help their child if they are in trouble. This sought of obsessive parenting is termed as Helicopter parenting coined by Dr. Haim Ginott in his book of Parents & Teenagers, after few teens saying how their parents hover around them like helicopter all the time.

Parents who come under this category are:

• Parents who are not loved as children tend to have made a rule for themselves to shower their children with love and support
• Parents who observe their parents peer group,helicopter parents, have a tendency to do the same
• Parents who are anxious about the present economy or job market try to stir the career of their children to less ambiguous path. Though this doesn’t make it look that bad, children are actually loosing their career interests in pressure form parents.
• Parents who feel they are accountable for how their child turns out to be

The intention of parents is pure but the real world is not expecting them but someone with accountability, decision making ability, leadership skills. These children who are taught that they are special, don’t find themselves suitable for many of the key positions and making them unsuccessful in their careers.

Making your child’s room when they are 7 year old is not helicopter parenting but making it even when they are 17 is. Coming out of that style of parenting is hard but it is necessary for the child’s future. Allow them to do their own homework and help them only after they have tried. Make them accountable for their own mistakes and don’t take it upon your shoulders and go to Principal’s room for it. In a nutshell, it’s going to make your child struggle, allowing them to get disappointed and helping them to work through it