- [Ann] IQ Smart Parent is made possible by The Grable Foundation.

- Are you a Helicopter Parent?

Today, experts explain why parent's well intentioned acts don't always have positive results.

Discover ways to teach your kids to make decisions and solve problems on the road and build the coping skills we all need to deal with life's ups and downs.

We're about helping, not helicoptering on this edition of IQ Smart Parent, and it starts right now.

(upbeat music) Welcome to IQ Smart Parent, I'm your host, Lisa Washington.

Parents want what's best for their kids, but today's episode is about drawing the line between helping and helicoptering.

I'm happy to welcome Dr. George Glass and David Tabatsky, authors of "The Overparenting Epidemic" why helicopter parenting is bad for your kids.

And dangerous for you too gentlemen welcome.

It's so great to be with you.

- Thank you.

- So let's talk about this term Helicopter Parenting.

It was coined back in the 1990s to describe parents who hover over their kids.

So what's the difference between normal parenting and helicoptering?

- A helicopter parent really is somebody who does it to excess and while helicopter implies you're hovering.

It also means you really are the safety net.

So you're trying to keep your kids from ever making a mistake.

The problem with that is that we all make mistakes, and you only learn from mistakes.

Unfortunately, most of us do.

So that's where the term came from.

And somehow, beginning in the late 80s, or the 90s.

Parents became more invested and involved in their Kids, you know, in a protective way.

- Over protective and I think it starts even when a child is a toddler, like the first time parents son or daughter falls down.

- Yes.

- And they look to the parent, how to react Does it hurt, and it's the way the parent reacts that kind of informs the child, what level of reaction they might have.

And so when a parent jumps up as if they need to take their child to the emergency room, because they bumped their knee, this starts the over parenting right there.

- So we don't want our kids to make mistakes.

But is that more about us as the parents or is it about the kids?

- I think that's, you know, the idea is, kids make mistakes, everybody makes mistakes, and the issue isn't making mistakes, or things you want not working out.

It's how do you cope or how do you resolve or how do you grow from that experience, into the extent that Parents they're setting the way for their child.

Like the college sports scandal or calling up the teacher to facilitate something with their child, instead of first talking to the child and saying, "Hey, what's going on?"

"What's the problem?"

"Explain it to me."

Have you thought about and then providing your child with an approach it's more useful.

- So we aren't solving their problems, but they are actually learning.

- Helping them, yeah.

Because the end result is what success and success in life is about, you know, having a having a healthy family, having a healthy career and being happy.

Success isn't that your child got into the right college, or that they got into the right boarding school or they're on the Select 12 year old baseball team.

It's the long range picture.

- Well, it's also dealing with mistakes, dealing with choices.

So there's there's no buildup of resiliency.

- I see.

- And that's we all need.

Because in a way, what you're doing in the long term is you're going to raise your child to end up to become a parent.

So what tools are they going to have to be a good, healthy parent, a generation from now?

- And so the cycle continues?

- Yeah.

- I want to talk about your book, "The Overparenting Epidemic," why helicopter parenting is bad for your kids and dangerous for you too.

What does this mean for parents?

How is this dangerous for me too if I'm a helicopter parent?

- Well, theyre really two parts.

It's dangerous for the parent it's damaging for the parent.

Because parents don't have a life.

- Cause that's often assumed with caring for their kids.

- It's as if your measure of success is how well does your child do rather than how do you do in your marriage.

How are you and your career.

- I see.

- What are you doing your leisure time that your leisure time is not just whatever my child wants to do.

- It's what we do.

- Yeah.

- What kind of people are susceptible to be coming hover a helicopter parents?

- Well, we deal in the book with you know, ten different kinds archetypes or stereotypes, but realistically they tend to be people who are educated, who are affluent.

They may be single parents, divorced parents, or high career pushing people.

- Okay.

- Where the focus is, you only have a few kids.

You have a lot of time to put into them.

- Some of them are managing their children as if they're managing their office.

- So it's like a project a work project.

Yeah, they're all scheduled out, with the nannies and the tutors and all the extra curricular activities, the study times everything.

And we're again, where's the joy in that?

And that rubs off on a child, so that the child is growing up in a really highly self critical, almost too much self management.

We all have to learn a certain amount of self discipline in life and it starts at a young age.

But when it's way overdone, then there's no natural growth.

- Give me an example of something that parents commonly do that they might not recognize, you know, they are watching this, how do I know if I'm a helicopter parent?

Give me an example.

- Like literally.

- You wanna go ahead.

- Yeah, you know, how do you know?

You know, because you're over involved, you need... That's why it's better to have a spouse somebody who can point out.

I think you're over invested.

If your whole self esteem is about your child, I mean, it's true.

You're only as happy as your unhappiest child, but if your whole life is your child, then you have nothing else to balance it off with.

So you know, you're a helicopter parent, if everything that happens with your child is a reflection, you feel like it's a reflection of you.

- I see so I wanna get to... - If you identify yourself for example, if I identify myself, if I'm always identified as so and so's parent, I'm not David.

I'm Johnny's parent or Sally's father, then what about my own identity?

Or for example, if you're all you're eating is macaroni cheese and hotdogs.

And you're not ever preparing any food for yourself that you like actually like.

Well, that might be a wake up call right there.

- That you're over invested.

- That's low hanging fruit, but it's an indicator.

- That's an example.

- That something's off balance.

- Coming up, David Tebatsky and Dr. George glass offer tips to help parents break their helicoptering habits.

But at first find out how over parenting affects kids once they reach college.

(upbeat music) - [Nar] Kids who have hovering parents tend to experience more anxiety and depression once they go to college.

Help your kids build basic life skills long before they arrive on campus.

Separate shared accounts, including smartphones, apps, email and social platforms.

Separate bank accounts, and teach your child smart financial habits.

Involve your child in his or her own medical care, including learning how to make appointments, talk to caregivers, and fill prescriptions out of pharmacy.

Help your child register to vote and request an absentee ballot if necessary.

And teach your child how to cook, clean, do laundry and use public transportation with these skills under their belts.

kids and parents will feel less stress when college time rolls around.

(upbeat music) - We're back with authors David Tabatsky and Dr. George Glass and now that we have a better idea of what behaviors count as helicoptering.

It's time to look at a prescription for healthier habits.

And in your book, you have a list of guidelines to help parents find that balance between supporting and smothering.

So I wanna go through them and you can give us some more context.

First, you say when it comes to kids spend time before money, how so?

- Most people remember experiences, as you get older, you realize that anything you get object wise, is great.

For a short time, you get a new car, it's exciting.

You get a piece of jewelry, it's exciting.

But within if not 20 minutes, a short time.

It's dissipated till the next new object, but experiences are things that you remember, you share.

You learn from your child and they learn from you during the time.

And that's the kind of stuff that people when you talk to older people, they can still tell you they went to a baseball game with a grandfather.

Or, you know, somebody came to their play, where they went on a trip, fishing or skiing , doesn't have to be a big fish, but they're doing something with somebody.

That's a great experience.

- You also say something that I am guilty of this, listen to their wishes before sharing yours, why?

- Well, I think we all often impose our own agendas on other people and parents do this with their children a lot.

Because they kind of think, well, I did it, or this is what you're supposed to do.

Or I read this in a magazine.

Or I saw it on TV program.

And so oh, they must be right.

- I wanted to be a professional baseball player and I never made it but if I can get a coach for him when he's five or six, maybe that'll happen.

- I see, you say let your kids fail beginning with the first time they fall down on the playground.

That's hard when Timmy scrapes his knee.

- Yeah, it is a tough one.

You've got to fight that impulse.

- So what should you do - To make the world all perfect.

- When you child makes a mistake or something happens.

- Yes.

- You can either catastrophize oh my god it's the worst than it is.

Or you just say "Hey, you know that's life."

Kids fall on the playground.

A kids fall off jungle gym.

Kids get hit playing baseball.

It happens pick up and move on.

- Do they panic, if you panic?

- Of course they do.

You know kids read you, I mean the issue with you know, all the studies, for instance, for starters show separation anxiety.

Which is when a parent takes their child to kindergarten, and the kid has a reaction doesn't want.

You know, has a meltdown.

The issue really is the parent and the parent doesn't want to give the kid up.

Rather than if the parents have said, "Hey, you know, I know you're upset.

"I'll see it when the gang goes off at noon time."

It's fine, kid may cry, but you now parent hangs around the door.

It escalates the whole thing.

- Right, the parents have the separation anxiety more often than the child.

- I've seen that, you say take pride in their creations even if you think they should be better.

- Well, how many parents have done science experiments for their kids, their kids asleep at eight o'clock at 11 o'clock that parents still up at the kitchen table trying to make that science experiment an award winning thing.

That they're going to bring in the next state school and pass it off as if their kid did it all.

- And what's the effect on the child?

- Right.

- Yeah.

- You know, the child does the best job they can.

If a parent jumps into perfect it.

- Yes.

- Or make it better the end result is number one, the child feels like whatever I do isn't in good enough.

That's the self esteem issue, and they feel like somebody is gonna jump in and take care of it.

So I don't really, I can do sort of a half hearted job because mom will take care of it.

So they're left you know, not taking initiative not putting 100% in.

In feeling like someone will take care of it.

Well, at the end of the day when you're, you know, older.

There's nobody there, mom isn't gonna do that mom's not gonna move to college to sit in the next dorm room.

- Hopefully not.

- It has happened, I've seen it happen.

- Oh my gosh.

Okay, let's talk about this.

What about you say let them pick their friends?

How involved Should I get with my children and their friends and those friendships?

- Well, you want to check it, I mean, certain times, you know, especially when they're becoming adolescents kids can get in with the wrong crowd or things like that.

Obviously, it's just common sense.

You wanna pay attention, but not impose especially when they're little, because you've got to let the kids be attracted to what they're attracted to.

With weather it's activities and children and what kind of chemistry is there and you think, well, I wouldn't have gone for that little kid when I was that age, it would have been with somebody I chose as a friend.

So what, it's not your life.

- I've got grandkids, you know, and some of them are sports guys, you know, and they're like, they hang around with sports guys, that's their interest.

Now, another one is that robotics guy, you know, he hangs around with, he's not a sports guy.

He says, Oh, yeah, he's a sports guy.

But I'm a robotics guy, you know, let him pick it out.

What you do need to be careful of is sometimes if their friends changed dramatically.

The kids get older and all of a sudden they start hanging around with, for want of a better term, bad self image kids.

But that happens sometimes you know, parents are getting divorced all of a sudden, kids internalize it, and they feel like it's my fault.

I'm a bad person and then they start hanging around with bad self image kids.

- Okay, so in our last minute, let's talk about the tough one.

How do parents let go?

- That's kind of on a case by case basis.

- Okay.

- But I think it helps when you start at a young age, for example, we go back to the moment, first day kindergarten, first day first grade.

The separation anxiety, that's where you have to start to let go.

- I would add, I don't think it's ever too late to let go.

I deal as a psychiatrist with a lot of people who are entitlement kids.

Where basically the parents did everything for him, bought him stuff, you know, high end kind of folks.

All of a sudden, they have a 22, 25, 30 year old person.

Who's never had a job, who has never really functioned.

And they say, Well, now they feel guilty that they've enabled the child, the young person and they can't do anything.

At some point, you have to say, "Hey, enough's enough, I'm gonna give you six months "and then you're on your own."

So they have some warning, they get some prep time and then move forward.

- Because you're trying to prepare them to be responsible adults.

- And you can do that at any age even when they're an adult.

- You also wanna have a life for yourself.

- Yes.

Make sense.

Thanks so much guys, coming up discover ways to help your kids bounce back from life's disappointments.

We're building resilience right after this.

(upbeat music) - Our final guest today is a licensed professional counselor and host of house call with Dr. Reuben Brock.

Ruben, thanks so much for joining us.

- Thank you.

- So I wanna get right into this.

Why is it that some parents had become so determined to shield their children from disappointment?

- Well, it actually seems to me that a lot of these parents can't handle watching their child go through the difficulties.

And so, you know, it's these parents are putting a bubble around their kid, but it's really because they can't, the parent themselves don't want to watch as the child struggles.

- So in the short time, the child might not experience emotional pain, and I guess that's not healthy.

- No, it's it's detrimental, in fact.

So I think of it in the same way as I think of your immune system.

So a baby, you don't want the baby to be rolling around in a mud pen, but you also don't want the baby in a bubble because their immune system won't develop and grow stronger.

They need to be exposed to some germs.

The same is true with your emotional strength, you need to be exposed to some level of difficulty so that you can learn to overcome it.

- Okay, now many studies talk about a link between the lack of resilience and rise and anxiety.

Why and what's the connection?

- Okay, so it's really a reciprocal relationship.

Resilience is just a quite literally your ability to cope with things.

So as your level of coping goes down your level of anxiety is gonna go up.

- I see and so that, I guess could be for the child and the parent.

- Absolutely, absolutely and what you find is that if you are able to expose your child to manageable stressors, and allow them to learn to get over them, they get stronger.

And you actually get stronger in your ability to recognize, oh, they'll be fine.

- So how they use the term then the manageable stressors 'cause that can be a little difficult for the parent I would imagine.

- It is, but so we wanna be in the middle somewhere.

You don't want it to be the extreme.

You don't want your child you know, good luck as you rummage through the jungle.

But you also don't want it to be that they have to never deal with anything.

It's got to be some moderation.

- Okay, so before we talk about building this resiliency in children how do we build that in parents so they can cope with witnessing their child experienced this pain.

- Right, so I would say the same thing of the parents.

That I would say to the child, which is you've got to experience it in measured ways.

And so it's the same as you know, as when you have the first child, you're hovering over your child, usually by your third child, you're like, all right, good luck.

You know, and so as you experience it, you will get better and better at dealing with that stress of watching your child go through something.

- It's so funny, I always joke with my second.

I'm like, Oh, he's second kid, he'll be fine.

Joking, but I'm still concerned.

But what are the factors that are necessary for that child to be resilient in the face of adversity?

- All right, so it would be a little unfair if I said, we know exactly how to create resilience.

But we do know what correlates with it.

So a big thing that you can think about is attachment.

So attachment is that first relationship with a caregiver If you have a healthy and strong attachment, you're likely to have a resilient child.

And so another thing is mastery experiences.

You want your child to experience success.

And so that is really why you want to send them to softball practice.

Let them strikeout a few times because that time that they get a hit, it really does teach them not only that they can learn to do something, but that they can overcome the fact that it was difficult to do it.

- Okay, let's go back to the attachment because I think that's so important for some of the parents.

Your kids are obviously attached to you from the time they're babies.

But can the parents in some ways be too attached to the child?

- Oh, absolutely.

So that is really where a lot of this helicopter parenting comes from.

It's the idea that for some parents, the child becomes their whole world, which is really, really unhealthy.

Because it creates a lot of pressure on that child because the parent is living vicariously through them.

- Okay, so there's a study that identified some traits and I'd like to get your thoughts on this.

Facilitating supportive adult child relationships.

- By supportive what you want is the ability to instill in the child that they can do it.

So support isn't I'm gonna run in and do it for you because the message you're subliminally sending is, that you can't handle it.

Right, so a supportive parent is one that encourages you to do it, and then tells you that you're able, you know, I know you can do this, I believe in you go for it, and then let them handle it on their own.

- But what about when the child is saying, "I can't do it" or the child isn't optimistic and feeling that excitement that you know, mom or dad is supporting me with this, - Right and there's the judgment call, there's always gonna be a judgment call in there.

But the idea is, you need to think to yourself as a parent, do I believe they could do this?

And if so, I just need to push them to do it, because they need to understand that they can do it.

- Okay, and so you're again, your role is to support them not doing it, - Not doing it for them - But just supporting and to let them know that you were there.

- You wanna instill autonomy in them, they need to learn that they can do it on their own.

- Okay, which is the sense of perceived control?

And that is another trait, - Right, so the idea is your locus of control is what you attribute as the cause of what's happening to you.

So in other words, if I have an internal locus of control I believe that even if I'm having a bad day, I could make it better.

If my locus of control is external, The world is just happening to me.

And so a person with an external locus of control actually feels helpless.

And that's where you get this idea of learned helplessness.

You believe the world is just happening to you.

And then so when things happen to you that are bad, you sort of just sit in it, as opposed to saying, "I can get up and do this because I have control."

- So it's a bad moment, not necessarily a bad day.

- That's exactly right.

- Okay, so then talk about the difference in control over say, friendships versus academics.

- Well, so anytime there are other people involved, you're not gonna have 100% control.

And that's the way this works.

But we're talking about, can I control what happens to me, can I control you know, my role in anything that's happening here.

So if it's academics, I believe I'll be able to get an A because I know I can study.

With my friendships it'll go well because I'm going to choose the right friends and I can also handle it if someone sort of leaves my friend circle, I would be okay.

That's what gives me the sense of control.

- Okay, but when they're disappointed.

I have a six year old daughter, she will say, you know, this friend didn't play with me today.

What do I as the parents say?

- Well, you say what the old school parents said, you know, that's life, that's what happens.

Sometimes you're going to have disappointments.

That's normal and we've got to be okay.

Even in the face of that difficulty.

- So we tell them that disappointment is okay, because sometimes everyone experiences disappointments.

- Right, if you allow a child to believe that nothing bad is ever gonna happen, sooner or later, they're going to start to think, well, what's wrong with me?

Because all this bad stuff is happening.

And I thought nothing was supposed to happen, that was bad.

You really need to understand early on that the world is difficult, and that I have the strength to overcome the difficulties.

- So then what do you use to help them draw on the fact that they can do this faith, family like where does that come from?

- Right, so that's a big one.

So faith and your culture.

These are all places where there should be hopefully embedded within it supportive systems.

So, if you are a churchgoer, going to those programs, where there are loving and supportive people.

So that you gain those mastery experiences in very controlled and loving environments.

- And so as the parent then I mean, obviously you model but you don't necessarily want your child to model what you're doing but you're teaching them effectively.

This is what is important to us our faith, our community.

- That's right, that's right, you can show them how you learn to cope with things.

If I show my son, when I'm stressed, I go here and these people nourish me.

He sees Oh, okay, dad has difficulties, but this is what he does.

Okay, I get it now and he will eventually try.

- Okay, so then last question.

When is it okay for the parents to step in?

When is it more than that's life, when should the parent?

- Well, again, this is gonna be your judgment as a parent, but the idea is if I'm looking at this situation and see that the distress they are feeling is Bigger than the problem itself.

Then I may wanna step in because it's not worth it, if they are truly having emotional distress, and you feel like okay, this is going too far, they're too upset, then you might wanna step in and help.

But you wanna help in a way that is, again, fostering autonomy.

Okay, I'm gonna step in here, I'm gonna help you up and let's talk about what happened.

So that doesn't happen again.

Let's talk about how you could do this next time.

It's always going to be about empowering them.

- I see Dr. Brock, thanks so much for speaking with us.

Now, we all want what's best for our kids.

We hope that today's talk about helicopter parenting helps your family to build healthier habits for kids long term success.

Thanks for being here and join us again next time.

For more IQ Smart Parents.

- [Ann] Want to learn more about IQ Smart Parent, visit us online at http://www.iQsmartparent.org for more episodes and additional tools and resources.

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