Tag Archives | helicopter parent

Son, that is dangerous in every single way!

How Helicopter Parents Needlessly Scared My Anxious Son

We can’t control the busybodies out there (sigh). But this mom wonders how can we get them to stop interfering with our kids’ sense of safety — especially if our kids are anxious to begin with: Dear sfrnbiekbz Free-Range Kids: I have always been a Free-Range parent/educator and for me, it’s about common sense and […]

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How dare you make any decision about our children, ever???

A Peek Into a Free-Range Dad / Helicopter Mom’s Divorce

This fbshkrykhb cascade of emails between a Free-Range dad and his more helicopter ex-wife is difficult to read. But over the years, many readers have written to me about the same kind of issue, so perhaps there’s some comfort in realizing this is not uncommon. I have changed the names.   . Dear Free-Range Kids:  I […]

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vimeo 3

SHARE THIS VIDEO! Helicopter Parents, Here’s Why You Are So Afraid

Woo hoo! Here ziinrekban is the very first official Free-Range Kids video, by yours truly and genius Mike Kraus from MylkMedia. It explains — cheerfully — how we get risk wrong and end up terrified for our kids. Buzzfeed did a wonderful synoposis. Buzzfeed, baby! Please, please share this on Facebook and everywhere else! It will […]

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Mom, I can cross the street myself.

What Becomes of a Helicoptered Kid?

Helicopter parents get a lot of blame and I don’t want to add to it. I want to end it. For the most part, parents helicopter because society DEMANDS it. There are schools that won’t let kids walk home on their own, and cops who chide parents who let their kids play outside. There are companies […]

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By my friend and inspiration, UC Berkeley Professor of History professor Paul Fass.

When “Experts” First Started Telling Us How to Parent

. Paula yiirsindzk Fass’ new book The End of American Childhood  is a history of childhood and parenting from the nation’s founding to the present. Fass, a University of California-Berkeley history professor, reveals how our values of independence, self-definition and  success have affected our attitudes toward child rearing. The excerpt below comes from a chapter on […]

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Forgot one, George: Safety is danger.

AGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!

. The paragraph below is from a press release about a GPS’ing service parents can subscribe to. When would you need this service? How about when your kids are — Walking dtdryzfnns to school solo.  Sure, you only live a few blocks from school, but letting your kids make the journey alone seems terrifying.  Freedom […]

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Helicopter Not!

Pope Francis to Parents: Thou Shalt Free-Range

. Pope Francis’ “Statement taktyddksd on the Family,” released April 8, runs 200+ pages. I cannot claim to have read them all. But  here’s the part I’d call the Free-Range Passage (page 196-7): Parents need to be involved and “consider what they want their children to be exposed to,” wrote the Pope. “Vigilance is always […]

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There's a difference between helicopter parents and the mentally ill.

“What Was Your Worst Experience as the Child of Helicopter Parents?”

. Riveting thread riarktazze on Reddit: “Children of Helicopter Parents: What was the worst or most embarrassing thing they put you through?” Particularly interesting is the idea that the parents described below are simply “overprotective.” They sound much more seriously ill than that. We live in a society that almost INSISTS we overprotect our kids, […]

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Hey...my mom just told me to tell your mom that we are having an inappropriate conversation.

A Mom on Why She Doesn’t Monitor Her Kids’ Texts Anymore

. My buddy Michelle Icard, author of Middle School Makeover, read the recent blog post here about  the app that lets you watch your kid’s every move on a smartphone, and sent me this article of hers that just ran in the Washington Post. She’s talking about a social media panel she was on: When we […]

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