What Is A Helicopter Parent?
A parent who takes an overprotective or excessive interest in the life of their child or children and will "hover" over them.
English |
Art |
Social Studies |
For My English portion of my project I wrote a short letter/statement from the perspective of someone living with Helicopter Parents.
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For my art portion I have made clip art of helicopter parenting from the perspective of a literal hovering helicopter parent.
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For my social studies portion I wrote an essay on the perspective of our generation of parents that grew up in the 1980s and how their parenting style influences modern parenting styles.
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English
I wanted to write what life is like personally with helicopter parents but also capture the feeling of my peers who also have helicopter parents. So I conducted a "Parenting survey" to see if I could figure out if there are more people with helicopter parents around me than I thought. Now I know I'm not alone and there are others who are going through the same issues as me. After getting my results I write the writing piece below.
A Message To You
Dear Parents,
Who are we? Besides that fact that we are your children, Who are we to you? Are we something you can’t let go? Are we your test subjects under surveillance? Are we the inmates of your prison? Our shackles are tight. Painful. Cold. No one else can see it though, just us. We’ve lied to you numerous times so we don’t feel the weight of the cold metal on our ankles. We’ve done many wrongs during our stay of our 18-year sentence. At night most of us have filed through the cold bars in our cells, avoided the guard tower spotlight, jumped the razor wire fence, and ran like hell. Only to return within 3 hours to avoid a search helicopter. Some of us have been caught and questioned, but we’re too afraid to tell you why our actions are justifiable. You’ve been questioned on your methods by others. “Why send a helicopter out to survey your inmates during rec time?” We can’t enjoy our moments to ourselves and the ones we want to spend time with without having to yell, not because there is Bell Model 47 hovering above. We’re not yelling in anger. But we’re yelling in frustration because the propellors are so loud and obnoxious it takes away from the fact we’re supposed to be enjoying ourselves. But you deny it upon questioning. Being the warden is a stressful job. You’ve been doing it for 10 plus years. But not all inmates have bad intentions consistently while serving their time some are just waiting to get out. We can’t go on work release either. Then you complain about how we need money. The only time we feel at is with our school-to-prison pipeline. We’re no longer in your spotlight and we can no longer hear your propellors from above. But we know that any moment you’re ready to contact our instructors to still gain information on our progression while at our learning facility. But what is freedom like hopefully we’ll find out unless if you want us to increase our sentence until you grow old and retire.
Who are we? Besides that fact that we are your children, Who are we to you? Are we something you can’t let go? Are we your test subjects under surveillance? Are we the inmates of your prison? Our shackles are tight. Painful. Cold. No one else can see it though, just us. We’ve lied to you numerous times so we don’t feel the weight of the cold metal on our ankles. We’ve done many wrongs during our stay of our 18-year sentence. At night most of us have filed through the cold bars in our cells, avoided the guard tower spotlight, jumped the razor wire fence, and ran like hell. Only to return within 3 hours to avoid a search helicopter. Some of us have been caught and questioned, but we’re too afraid to tell you why our actions are justifiable. You’ve been questioned on your methods by others. “Why send a helicopter out to survey your inmates during rec time?” We can’t enjoy our moments to ourselves and the ones we want to spend time with without having to yell, not because there is Bell Model 47 hovering above. We’re not yelling in anger. But we’re yelling in frustration because the propellors are so loud and obnoxious it takes away from the fact we’re supposed to be enjoying ourselves. But you deny it upon questioning. Being the warden is a stressful job. You’ve been doing it for 10 plus years. But not all inmates have bad intentions consistently while serving their time some are just waiting to get out. We can’t go on work release either. Then you complain about how we need money. The only time we feel at is with our school-to-prison pipeline. We’re no longer in your spotlight and we can no longer hear your propellors from above. But we know that any moment you’re ready to contact our instructors to still gain information on our progression while at our learning facility. But what is freedom like hopefully we’ll find out unless if you want us to increase our sentence until you grow old and retire.
Art
For my art portion I made digital art pieces of a more exaggerated image of what a Helicopter Parent is. I made the view from an arial point of view and mounting helicopter propellers to the parents head to make them literal Helicopter Parents. These are the art pieces I made below.
Social Studies
For my social studies portion I wrote an essay on how parenting styles in the 80s effected parents of the present and what could have caused helicopter parents to become such a common parenting style. You can read my essay below.
Growing Up in The 80's
My parents grew up in the 80s. Where there were only 4 channels, Micheal Jackson was a god amongst humans, wearing neon clothes were socially escapable, and the only way to really pass time was to go to the arcade and run around outside all day with your friends. My dad said there have been days where “I hadn’t seen my mom all day because I was outside for so long”. He was able to go places unannounced. My father told me a story about how when he was younger he took public transportation by himself to go to his aunt’s house. Not only that but sometimes his mom would leave him home by himself instead of taking him with her. I remember this summer when I was in New York my mom showed me the route she would walk every day to get to the train in the morning to get to school when she was a kid. It was 8 blocks away from her house and a 10-minute train ride. Our parents had a lot more freedom as children. Today, it feels like everyone's parents are always concerned about what they are doing and what decisions they should make in life. But I understand why being a helicopter parent isn’t wrong in their perspective.
When growing up at a young age and being given so much freedom to do whatever they wanted that they probably made unwise decisions in their lives. My father was a father at age 17 he, by all means, doesn’t regret the decision he made but he doesn’t think that he made the smartest choices. So to prevent your child from making the unwise decisions you made as a child the helicopter parent is born. You’re so concerned that your child might struggle as much as you did at their age so you try to “relieve” that stress from them. It’s not wrong to want to see your kid succeed but it’s still ruining a generation.
If we are constantly having tasks in our life done for us then we will never know how to do things on our own. it’s causing us to lack agency in our lives. Yet parents might not notice how unhealthy it is and that they’re getting in their child’s way. They deprive their kids of the chance to show up in their own lives, take responsibilities for things, and be accountable for outcomes. If this continues we’ll have a community problem because the child won’t know how to be an adult. Who is going to run things in our society if no one knows how to run their own life. I believe you should let your child fail. Everyone needs to learn from their mistakes in the early stages of their life. But if your parents are continuously sheltering their child of all their problems then they won’t be able to solve them as adults.
When growing up at a young age and being given so much freedom to do whatever they wanted that they probably made unwise decisions in their lives. My father was a father at age 17 he, by all means, doesn’t regret the decision he made but he doesn’t think that he made the smartest choices. So to prevent your child from making the unwise decisions you made as a child the helicopter parent is born. You’re so concerned that your child might struggle as much as you did at their age so you try to “relieve” that stress from them. It’s not wrong to want to see your kid succeed but it’s still ruining a generation.
If we are constantly having tasks in our life done for us then we will never know how to do things on our own. it’s causing us to lack agency in our lives. Yet parents might not notice how unhealthy it is and that they’re getting in their child’s way. They deprive their kids of the chance to show up in their own lives, take responsibilities for things, and be accountable for outcomes. If this continues we’ll have a community problem because the child won’t know how to be an adult. Who is going to run things in our society if no one knows how to run their own life. I believe you should let your child fail. Everyone needs to learn from their mistakes in the early stages of their life. But if your parents are continuously sheltering their child of all their problems then they won’t be able to solve them as adults.