
The Bad News About Helicopter Parenting: It Works - pseudolus
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/opinion/helicopter-parents-economy.html
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BLKNSLVR
Most important two paragraphs in the article:

 _But for the most part, the new parenting efforts seemed effective. Dr.
Doepke and Dr. Zilibotti can’t prove causality (to do that, you’d have to
randomly assign parenting styles to different families). But when they
analyzed the 2012 PISA, an academic test of 15-year-olds around the world,
along with reports from the teenagers and their parents about how they
interact, they found that an “intensive parenting style” correlated with
higher scores on the test. This was true even among teenagers whose parents
had similar levels of education._

 _The most effective parents, according to the authors, are “authoritative.”
They use reasoning to persuade kids to do things that are good for them.
Instead of strict obedience, they emphasize adaptability, problem-solving and
independence — skills that will help their offspring in future workplaces that
we can’t even imagine yet._

Can't prove causality, and relying on teenagers to define the style of
parenting they're subjected to, I'd guess that almost 100% would respond with
"intense".

So their definition of 'Helicopter Parenting' is actually 'Authoritative and
Rational, Reasoned Explanatory Parenting' (which I'd refer to as 'good'
parenting) and the author is also referring to it as "new parenting". This
definition differs significantly from my experience of being parented, and of
those I'd consider to be 'Helicopter' parents who are those that stand over
their child not letting them fall over or take any risks or hold sharp things
from the ages of zero to thirteen, although these same 'Helicopter' parents
frequently give their spawn soft drinks, sugary lollies, and abundant screen-
time so that their little prince or princess SHUTS THE FUCK UP when Tattoo
Nightmares is on.

'Helicopter' parenting is 'Short-Term Anxiety' parenting and 'Parental Love is
not allowing exposure to anything that may be ultra-short-term painful'
parenting.

'Helicopter' parenting is not: _use reasoning to persuade kids to do things
that are good for them. Instead of strict obedience, they emphasize
adaptability, problem-solving and independence_

That's generations-old 'good' parenting.

~~~
Mirioron
I have to agree with you.

> _Helicopter parenting_

> _Instead of strict obedience, they emphasize adaptability, problem-solving
> and independence_

These two don't align. The main detriment of helicopter parenting is that it
does not promote independence. Furthermore, I'm from a country that does
fairly well in PISA tests and I find that kids here tend to have far more
freedom than in most western countries. Kids play on their own across town
without any supervision even before the age of 7. Kids also come and go to
school on their own at age 7. Sometimes the school is a few kilometers away in
a city and that's considered normal. This isn't an anecdote against the study,
but rather against the author's wording.

> _Using data from a national study that followed thousands of American
> teenagers for years, the authors found that the offspring of “authoritative”
> parents were more likely to graduate from college and graduate school,
> especially compared with those with authoritarian parents._

This doesn't necessarily mean that they had better outcomes. I can guess at
why kids with authoritative parents might be more likely to go to college and
get a graduate degree, but I'm not sure it actually results in better
outcomes. A degree in something useless is not worth the time and money it
costs. A degree you don't finish is worth even less, because college seems to
be largely about signaling.

~~~
indus_river
The New York Times is a mouth piece of orchestrated propaganda, and the
prevailing wind they’re trying to sell people on is:

Most people are really quite stupid, knowing this, we have to intuit that a
large number of stupid people are hearing a message that “helcopter parenting”
is frowned on, and this might serve as a cue to tragically stupid parents to
cut back on general guidance, possibly to the point of neglect.

Given that our audience is comprised of many stupid people, we need to send a
clear signal to circumvent the optics of overparenting. The only message
stupid people will understand is a diametrically opposed message. To whit:
there is no such thing as overparenting, more is better. Smothering your
children is okay.

If anything, a propaganda voice like this might serve as a clarion call to
shelter children to the point that they grow up stunted, naive and a little
immature or socially inept, but honestly it will lead to fewer criminals and
lower prison populations, thus the generalized bulletin may be conscionably
delivered to the lowest common denominator, however wrong it might prove, upon
deep examination.

~~~
BLKNSLVR
God that's depressing. Which probably means it's on the money.

It makes any discourse on the subtleties of any topic treated in such a way
meaningless because the reason behind it is the sub-text as opposed to what is
actually presented.

Putting icing around a rock and throwing it through a window then saying "I've
delivered your cake" when the whole point is the rock and the broken window.

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fulafel
Alternative title, justified by stats presented in the article: helicopter
parenting might work (correlation only proven) if your only target is to
produce offspring who are higher than average performance academic testers at
the age of 15

Net benefit unclear. Caveat: study population was "American teenagers",
probably meaning the US.

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AstralStorm
Probably like with many things, there is a U-curve involved.

The main thing about planned activities is that if they're chosen well,
they're beneficial, if chosen poorly they're a waste of time. There needs to
be more detail.

Also some parents misinterpreted the idea and do things instead of their kids
not for them - e.g. fake homework instead of working through it with the kid
to let them learn.

Trying to push into better schools and universities is another thing that
correlates with success, academic or otherwise. But probably it is also
problematic if you overdo it.

It would be interesting to stratify by 10% and look for interesting and
meaningful differences in detail.

For instance, there might be just right degree of child freedom involved. Ask
parents about number of hours of unstructured play and what it is in rough
categories. Check if parents do "play dates" or not.

(Such categories may be media use, video or board games, unstructured sports,
free roaming, visits with friends, hobbies. Ask how much activity time is
social and with how many others.)

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cimmanom
Works to accomplish what, though? Is what it accomplishes (test scores) more
important than the things it compromises (self sufficiency) in the long term?

