Free-Range Versus Helicopter Parenting

Dave grew up in an environment without a lot of parental supervision: he biked to school and lessons on his own, hung out at friends’ houses without adults around. I grew up with parents who were involved in every aspect of school and social life: they drove and stayed with me through every lesson and recital; I wasn’t allowed to go on sleepovers. He recognizes that his parents could have been more involved and that he was lucky to live in a community with intelligent, loyal friends. I recognize that we lost out on the benefits of community and a directive style of parenting doesn’t work equally well on all personality types. But the point is, we tend to come at this issue of “free-roaming” versus “helicopter” parenting from different sides.

On the one hand, you have helicopter parenting. This has been around as a recent trend so I probably don’t have to describe it much: it’s the parent who feels they must control and directly supervise every aspect of their children’s lives. Their infants must eat pureed organic foods and listen to Mozart. Their toddlers must potty train on schedule and read early. Their kids must start a rigorous schedule of sports and music lessons. Everything they consume, wear, and do is carefully curated, ultimately to achieve success, however defined.

Critics of helicopter parenting point to research that suggests kids parented this way turn out to be less flexible and more anxious and self-conscious, as well as more likely to be medicated for anxiety and depression. They have more difficulty devising their own plans and carrying them out, skills involved in executive functioning.

On the flip side, you have free-roam parenting, a concept that has been brought out more in recent articles. The TIME article I discussed earlier found that many families with high-achieving siblings let them free-roam as children. A recent NPR article discusses how our society’s averseness to leaving children unattended is more moral judgment than actual risk assessment. A recent NYT magazine article highlights an “anti-helicopter” parent’s desire to establish a “playborhood” where kids have self-directed, physically riskier, communal play.

Free-range parents feel that kids need to have unsupervised, even risky experiences to form happy memories, to learn how to titrate fear, to develop self-efficacy, to problem-solve on their own, to build confidence. They feel kids need to self-explore to develop independence and responsibility. Kids are allowed to go places on their own, to be taken care of by other adults or play with other kids without adults around, to have free-play without agenda or programs.

The opposition to free-range parenting seems obvious, probably because parenting has been trending away from the more hands-off styles of the 60’s and 70’s for a while now: it’s almost a moral assertion that a parent must constantly watch their kids, that anything else is unsafe. My personal objection to free-range parenting is that it can slide into neglect—I see our neighbor’s kids doing nothing but drinking sodas and jumping on trampolines all day with nary an adult in sight, though maybe that’s a bad value assertion?

The first thing I would say about all this is that there is some class distinction involved. Typically, helicopter parents are wealthy and high-educated: frankly, it takes a lot of money and/or time and energy to hover over your kids. Families with less resources, or families with more children, may naturally tend to free-range more.

The second thing I would acknowledge is that there’s a natural bit of discomfort when someone’s parenting style differs noticeably from your own. I’ve been around parents who are much more controlling of their kids’ exposures and activities than I am, and it makes me feel pressured, and less able to relax. I feel I have to monitor my kids more because I don’t want them to do anything to offend them; I feel more judged, and that my kids are being judged more. I’ve been around parents who are more free-roaming than us, and it makes me feel a bit dumped on: I have to be the one to make sure someone’s kid isn’t stabbing someone else in the eye, because their parent seems totally unconcerned.

The third thing I would say is that, like any trend or style of parenting, I think the point is less to judge others than to examine yourself: to ask, what is the goal or point of my parenting? How can I incorporate the strengths of various trends, or what I see in others’ styles, to that end? In what way am I falling into cultural mindsets that are not helpful?

Finally: which is better? Well, I’ll have to leave that, maybe, for later, as this post is getting too long… feel free to chime in if you have any thoughts.