Article: Kids of Helicopter Parents Are Sputtering Out (Slate)

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Kids of Helicopter Parents Are Sputtering Out (Slate)

Recent studies suggests that kids with overinvolved parents and rigidly structured childhoods suffer psychological blowback in college.
By Julie Lythcott-Haims

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Madeline Levine, psychologist and author of The Price of Privilege, says that there are three ways we might be overparenting and unwittingly causing psychological harm:

• When we do for our kids what they can already do for themselves;
• When we do for our kids what they can almost do for themselves; and
• When our parenting behavior is motivated by our own egos.

Levine said that when we parent this way we deprive our kids of the opportunity to be creative, to problem solve, to develop coping skills, to build resilience, to figure out what makes them happy, to figure out who they are. In short, it deprives them of the chance to be, well, human.