There's a parenting trend that's taken over the US, and it's changing children everywhere
By Drake Baer
What's happening here?
The Economist reports that in the US, wealthy parents have a tendency toward becoming "helicopters," constantly buzzing about their children, ferrying them from one extracurricular activity to another, and never letting them escape from sight.
It's become so normalized that when kids are spotted without an adult, it's seen as a crime, as in the case of a Maryland family that's been under police investigation for letting their kids walk home from parks alone. Child Protective Services charged the parents with "unsubstantiated child neglect" in March, The Washington Post reports.
Boston College psychologist and "Free to Learn" author Peter Gray tells Public Radio International that the helicoptering can smother a child's development.
"My historical research on this question suggests that there’s never really been a time or place in history, aside from times of slavery and intense child labor, when children have been less free than they are today in our society," Gray tells PRI. "This is a very, very serious issue."
Decades of research into what allows children to become successful and stable has revealed that autonomy is a defining factor. A young human needs to feel a degree of free agency in the way they navigate the world, otherwise they won't have the opportunity to become self-reliant or to develop the "grit" that's so closely associated with achievement.
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