HELICOPTER PARENTING...

The concept of the helicopter family, which emerged when a child said to his mother, "You are spinning around me like a helicopter," as in an author's book, entered the literature in this way and found its place among stereotyped words.

We can say that helicopter families are extremely intrusive on their children and they plan their own lives in a way. It would not be an exaggeration to say that these families are control-obsessed, in which they take on most of their children's responsibilities. With these approaches, they have an adverse effect on the physical, cognitive, social, and psychological development processes of the child, causing either a hindrance or an unhealthy development.

An important deficiency seen in the children of helicopter families is that the child has difficulty in expressing himself in society and has self-confidence problems. The fact that they have to live with the family's decision, not their own opinion, brings along many problems in individualization and socialization.

Another characteristic of helicopter families is that they expect a lot of success from their children in the field of education. The common characteristics of helicopter families are that they see minor disruptions in their children's education as the end of the world, worry excessively, exaggerate homework checks, even manage the entire education life of the child as if it is their own life, and that they do not give the child the right to choose a university by making their own choice of university according to their career choice. Examples of the behavior of such families are to contact the teacher immediately when the child gets a low grade, to identify his friends, and to decide on their own where the child should go or go. Helicopter families, whose dominance over the child can be extreme, do not give up this attitude in the following years, and even go further and choose a spouse instead of them.

Such approaches may cause the child to experience psycho-social problems in the long or short term.

What to do?

The duty of families is to see their children as individuals, not as their own. They should only guide their children by giving them the right to choose, allowing them to make decisions about their own lives. They should not forget that if they miss the dose of support they give to their children, the child will assume a structure that will not be able to take responsibility in the future. The most important duty of families, who should have an attitude and behavior that improves their self-confidence, is to approach their children in accordance with their age.