
Lawnmower Parents Are the New Helicopter Parents - wallflower
https://www.weareteachers.com/lawnmower-parents/
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dragonwriter
> Lawnmower parents go to whatever lengths necessary to prevent their child
> from having to face adversity, struggle, or failure.

This is pretty much exactly what the term “helicopter parent” refers to, so
this just seems to be inventing a new word for a phenomenon which has been
well-known and widely complained about—with its own special term—since the
1980s.

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dudul
I thought the same thing, but in another article about "lawnmower parents",
"helicopter parent" is defined as parents who rush to help their child when
he/she encounters an obstacle. I guess the idea of "lawnmower parents" is that
they do the work upfront so the kid never even knew there was an obstacle.

In any case, I tend to agree with you, looks like the same thing.

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_nalply
Helicopter parents hover over their children and clear away obstacles whenever
they appear.

Lawnmower parents however clear away obstacles beforehand.

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dragonwriter
Sure, that's what all the generalizations say. All the actual _examples_ I've
seen cited in articles about Lawnmower parenting are identical to examples
I've seen cited in articles about helicopter parenting, and many of them are
reactive, not proactive (in fact, the lead one in the article here is reactive
to the child’s complaint.)

So, to the extent that there is a difference in how the labels are described,
it doesn't seem to have any substance at all when it comes to the actual
concrete phenomena they are used to describe; if it's not a conscious creation
of a new label because complaints about the old one were so well worn as to no
longer draw attention (which I suspect it is), it's just a different
perception of the underlying thought process behind the same behavior.

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jstandard
Not much content here, just an anecdote. "Don't over-parent"

In particular, there wasn't any evidence supporting the implications by the
title that Lawnmower Parents are a new, rising phenomenon.

