Can being a helicopter parent cause stress for the children being hovered over? According to researchers, the answer is yes. Helicopter parenting can cause anxiety and stress for both the parents and the children.
To help alleviate this stress, implement the following tips on how NOT to be a helicopter parent:
- Have the mindset of raising young people to be secure yet empowered to have wings.
- Realize that every time you do something that a young person can do, you are depriving that person of taking responsibility and developing positive self-esteem.
- Understand that if you want a young person to be mature, you must ask yourself if what you are doing is in the young person’s best interest or is something you want because it feels good for you.
- Do not necessarily give in to what your child wants. People talk in terms of needs when, in reality, they are wants.
- Resilience is necessary to live a successful life. Reflect on whether your decisions empower toward resilience or if they depress and lead to a mindset of victimhood mentality.
- As your child learned how to ride a bicycle, you encouraged the child to try. Use this same approach when the youngster is trying something new.
- Resist telling the young person what to do. Instead, share your experiences about similar situations.
- Understand that failure is an attitude, not an outcome. We can learn much more from failures than from successes. Embrace you child’s failures as a path to encourage your child.
- You can control your child, but that does not change your child. You cannot change anyone but yourself. If you want your child to do something differently, it starts with what you—yourself—will do differently.
- Always speak to you child in terms of what you want—not in terms of what you don’t want. The brain thinks in pictures, not words, so if you tell you youngster what not to do, the vision that is prompted is what comes after the word, “Don’t.”
- Learn the skill of asking reflective questions. This skill is the most effective approach to having your child change, and it will help you to become a more successful parent.
- Zip your lip. Allow your child to be acknowledged by your listening. Resist interrupting you child. People want to be acknowledged.
- Teach procedures for how to do things rather than relying on rules that automatically put you in a police enforcement mode. Become a facilitator of growth.
- See WithoutStress.com for the parenting model.
By following these 14 tips, you can stop being a helicopter parent and reduce the stress levels for both you and your children.
For more stress management advice, check out my new book, Live Without Stress: How to Enjoy the Journey. It’s available as a print book and as a Kindle download.
