Helicoptor Parenting

I realize I've been touching a good bit on parenting at The Diner these days. I think it's my new occupational hazard--what with the staff realignment at our church and all. I'll have more opportunities to work "hands on" with parents--which might prove to be the most effective way to minister to teenagers. I'm actually kind of excited about the whole deal.

Anyway, my radar is fine-tuned to pretty much anything parent-related these days, and I grabbed this one in today's paper. Here's a bit to whet the appetite:

"The way we parent these days in middle- and upper-middle-class America has become ripe not just for parody, but for frequently ugly debate. We are portrayed as a generation of meddling, micromanaging and over-scheduling parents who are so hyper-involved in our children's lives that we have earned our own lexicon. We are helicopter parents, and some of us have even crossed the line to Black Hawk – swooping and attacking."

A little more...and I even said this very thing to a parent recently about letting the teen deal with their own grades:

"Even more potentially corrosive is Edline, a hovering tool extraordinaire. Mocked for being overly involved parents, we are then given a Web site to view every test, quiz and piece of graded homework. We can watch every recalibration of our child's grade-point average, then e-mail the teachers to complain. Gone are the days when a kid could lose a physics test, then make up for the bad grade on the next go-around with no harm done and no parent the wiser. Edline feels a bit like spying."

If you want to read the whole article by Susan Coll, you can get it here, on today's Dallas Morning News. It could give you a few good insights.