Another Helicopter Parent Thread

[bacchus]

I need a little help figuring this out. It seems to me that everybody assumes a parent who posts on this board, a parent who talks to the SM, a parent who makes sure the MB info gets turned in to council, or a parent who drives his kid to his scout meetings is a Helicopter Parent.

 

I'm at a loss, so somebody please explain it to me. I have my own son in scout troop. I am the venturing adviser so intentionally keep away from troop activities to avoid the appearance of helicoptering. The assumption is still there that if I even mention him, I'm helicoptering. I do more for other youth to keep their MBs and advancements recorded, than for my own son.

 

When he needs to work on something with his SM, I coach him in advance and let him do it so he gets the adult association, like I have done with other scouts who I can see need to talk to the SM about something. But then the SM comes to me and assumes I somehow "put him up to it" regardless of what "it" is.

 

Is scouting intended to sabotage our relationships with our own children?

[Frank17]

As both a current scout parent and a SM, I can tell you the main difference I see in regular vs. helicopter parents is how they expect to see their son treated. Regular parents are willing to allow junior to follow through the program along with the rest of the troop, and do not expect special treatment for him. If there is a problem, they will notify the Troop and let the Troop leaders work it out with their son. Helicopter parents demand special treatment for their son, regardless of what the troop rules are or what happens to other scouts. They act like every rank & MB has a deadline, and their son must be the first one to finish. They do not care about the good of the Troop or BSA rules; only what they can get done for their son.

 

[SSScout]

Example one: Scout promotional activity, out in public. A half dozen Scouts,two parents, and me (my Scoutson is not present). Parent one and I sit back and, after making sure Scouts are well instructed on how things operate, let them do it. Parent two adjusts Scoutson' hat chin cord. I mention hat cord placement is a "style thing". P2Sson smiles and grimaces toward P2. P2 reminds SSon how to hold on. P2 goes and lends hand before Scouts ask for help. P1 makes comment that P2Sson is a very capable boy, P2 should be proud. P2 smiles and giggles, and sits down nervously.

 

Example two: Camping trip. Rain threatens. A dozen scouts, SM, 2 other parents and me. My Scoutson is present. Scouts are busy setting up dining fly, a task most of them are familiar with, but a couple of the younger ones are new to. SM notes that SOMEONE did not put the gear away neatly the last time. P2 goes up and starts untangling ropes and pegs. P2Sson says "Don't mom, we can do that". P1 and I and SM smile at each other.

 

Example three: The previous weekend, the ASM had led a Totin' Chip class for some new Scouts. At next Tmeeting, P2 comes up and says,"Sson told me you taught him how to make this" and he holds out a well crafted tent peg. On an affirmative answer, P2 responds, "I can never get him to do anything at home. How is it you can get him to do this?"

Conversation ensues.

[evmori]

To me, the term "helicopter parent" refers to those parent who are always there ask FOR their son or doing FOR their son.

[bacchus]

Great comments. SSS, great examples.

 

Now why is it that people assume that a parent is a helicopter parent first, until proven otherwise? I've seen it on this board a few times. For example in jet526's thread, I didn't notice that the boys' father was involved more than anything peripheral, but others posted that he was a helicopter parent?

[Nachamawat]

Frank, I see your point but I don't think it addresses Bacchus' concerns. I am also an ASM in my son's troop. I do not feel that I give him any special attention, yet I worry that others do. In fact, my son would be the first to tell anyone that he feels I may be too hands off related to him. Sometimes he would like me to intervene when a problem arises but if safety is not a concern I will remain apart from the conflict and let them work it out.

 

Our troop took 7 Scouts to a national weather center to assist in the completion of the weather MB. However, only the two Scouts that I have contact have completed the badge over the 6 months since the trip, one of which was my son. I worry that looks like I am too involved, as well.

[gcnphkr]

If your still pack your scout's backpack, you might be a helicopter parent.

 

If your scout has never camped without you, you might be a helicopter parent.

 

If you insist that you scout carry his cell phone with him at all activities, you might be a helicopter parent.

 

If your scout has ever called asking you to come get him from camp and you did, you might be a helicopter parent.

 

If you have ever slept in the same tent as your scout on a Boy Scout campout, you might be a helicopter parent.

 

If you have ever cleaned your scout's mess kit or patrol grub box, you might be a helicopter parent.

 

If you have ever tried to convince a merit badge counselor that your scout's riding his bike one afternoon should count towards his Camping Merit Badge, you might be a helicopter parent.

 

If you can tie all six required knots but your First Class Scout can't, you might be a helicopter parent.

 

If you have more hours in on your scout's Eagle Project then he does, you might be a helicopter parent.

 

This is kinda fun.

[ScoutBox]

I have to remind parents all the time to sit back and let the boys do their work. But I still get a parent who wants to get involved. I mostly have problems with adults wanted to help out everyone.. I have to go and get them and drag them back to the adult area..

[shortridge]

"It seems to me that everybody assumes a parent who posts on this board, a parent who talks to the SM, a parent who makes sure the MB info gets turned in to council, or a parent who drives his kid to his scout meetings is a Helicopter Parent."

 

Clearly, none of those things a Helicopter Parent makes.

 

My definition of an HP is the same as my definition of a fundamentally incompetent unit-serving Scouter -- someone who does something that a Scout could do himself.

 

But that's easier said than done, sometimes. A Second Class Scout, might need a little reminding or prompting. But anyone First Class or above shouldn't.

 

That said, some things in Scouting are best handled on an adult-to-adult basis - communicating with Council or District, for example. Those structures aren't set up to deal with Scout-to-adult communication. But troops and patrols are. If there's a parent tying knots for his or her son, or a Scoutmaster unilaterally deciding where a troop is going to go on the next campout - those are both program areas that dramatically need improvement.

[Kudu]

jet526 writes:

 

If you have ever tried to convince a merit badge counselor that your scout's riding his bike one afternoon should count towards his Camping Merit Badge, you might be a helicopter parent.

 

That should be changed to "...you might be a parent in a Helicopter Scouting association."

 

Please make a note of it!

 

Helicopter Scouting is all relative:

 

Requirements 9b-3&4 were designed as an alternative to the previous requirement of a baby three mile (round trip!) backpacking trip.

 

Remember Scouting is all about "ethical choices" or "Leadership and Character," not camping.

 

Every ethical couch potato has the right to be an Eagle Scout without ever walking into the woods with a pack on his back!

 

Requirement 9b-3 allows a Scout who hates camping to ride his bike around a Scout camp parking lot for four hours.

 

Requirement 9b-4 allows a Scout who hates camping to float downstream on an inner tube eating cupcakes.

 

Technically speaking, forcing an ethical cupcake to pitch his tent outdoors is "adding to the requirements"!

 

Simple Wood Badge Logic: Define Scouting by making up bogus "missions" like "ethical choices" or "leadership and character," then find "outside of the box" ways of meeting those fake aims.

 

What is the "goal" of camping? Fresh air and exercise!

 

Therefore siting on an inner tube and riding a bike around is camping.

 

But I'm sure you knew that!

 

I hope that helps!

 

Kudu(This message has been edited by kudu)

[moosetracker]

Your right bacchus, people do read into posts & pull out Helicopter parent when sometimes I don't see it.

 

Also sometimes they are asking the right approach on how to handle a situation Making sure this is a situation to be involved in or not.. Meaning they themselves fear getting too involved and just need a sounding board on when to step in and when not to.. Whipping out the HP alert, and broadcasting it to everyone, is not always the most beneficial way to handle the posters question. Especially newbie posters.. It might be better to explain why they should & should not get involved, and leave off on the labeling. At least until you have a sense of if they really came for advice or if they came to get confirmation they should hover and get defensive get defensive & arguementative if you tell them they should back off.

 

Also sometimes I don't understand some peoples take on things, for example there was an issue with a Scout who made all the hurdles to Eagle but SM would not give it to him and would not sit down to explain why, nor would committee but backed the SM. Advice was for parent to give advice but not get involved and the scout was to fight alone, all the way thru to the appeal at National.

 

Then comes a Life scout who gets an email from SM saying he only partially earned his POR. Everyone said the parent should get involved, and it was too big an issue for the scout to take care of, or even be at the meeting with parent & SM..

[evmori]

Right on the money jet526!

[CalicoPenn]

Why the assumptions? Human nature - or perhaps more accurately, Human Social Nature. As a society, we have a tendency to take observations and ideas and run with them - often to one extreme before we turn around and run back with it to the other extreme (and then we turn around and run with it to - the first extreme). Just when we seem to get that pendulum stabilized and sitting where it should be, someone comes along and starts it in motion again (and often its the media that is the catalyst)and even the media is affected by these pendulum swings - in the history of the news media, we saw an era called "Yellow Journalism" - it was sensationalist and celebrity obsessed - then it calmed down and got more serious - giving us an era of Cronkite and Galloway. Where are we today? Sensationalist and celebrity obsessed again (I blame 24 hour cable news for this).

 

When we first learned about Helicopter Parenting, it was in context as a legitimate concern of colleges and universities. It referred to parents that would call professors, or the dean, if their little snowflake got a B on a paper. It referred to parents who would contact student housing because their little snowflake wasn't instant friends with their roommates, or didn't like that they were 8 rooms away from the shower and not 2. It referred to parents who swooped in to sole all their adult childs problems, even if the chld didn't think there was a problem.

 

Then the media started running with the story. Now we were presented with stories that told us how to tell if we were a helicopter parent, and how to avoid becoming a helicopter parent, and what to do if we encountered a helicopter parent. Then we started to redefine helicopter parents (and here's where that pendulum started really swinging) with stories about helicopter parents of high school students, and middle school students, and soone elementary schhol students, and kindergarten students, and pre-school children. As a result, we (as a society) have redefined helicopter parenting to include parental behavior that is appropriate when dealing with a first grader but not when dealing with a college student.

 

More importantly, we have started to look on the normal transitions that parents go through as helicopter parenting. I look at SSScouts frst two examples. I don't see helicopter parenting. I see parents going through the same transition of every parent with children of Scout age - trying to learn that line between having to help with everything, and letting go. In example 1, the son grimacing at mom is the start of his communicating to mom that "it's time to stop Mom - I can handle it, you're embarrassing me". The time to worry is if mom refuses to get the message (sure doesn't sound like it though if she's sitting down, giggling and is nervous - if she was helicoptering, she wouldn't be nervous - she wouldn't back off) In example 2, it sounds as if the son is a bit older (I'm guessing son 1 is 10-12, son 2 is 12-14) and has broken his shyness in telling the parents that he has it under control.

 

That doesn't mean we won't see our share of truly helicoptering parents - and you'll know it when you see a real one - but Bacchus's point should be heeded - we can start moving the pendulum back if we stop to think if the parental stuff is truly helicoptering, or just a parent involved with their son's lives and feeling their own way to their child's indepence.

[Stosh]

Helicopter Parent = any adult that hovers over a youth that is desperately trying to grow up and thus stifles that development and growth. That growth and development will eventually occur, but it will take making the age of adulthood and a strong spine to counter it's affects.

 

I have seen people in their 20's and 30's still suffering from the effects of such parents. It used to be that there were people at age 40 that still live at home. But they came back home to take care of their elderly parents, not because they couldn't take care of themselves.

 

Stosh

[gcnphkr]

Kudu, these are for you:

 

If you will not let your scout go on campout where the nearest adult is 300 feet away, you might be a helicopter parent.

 

If the thought of your scout going on a hike with no adult supervision causes you to faint, you might be a helicopter parent.

 

If you think there should be two adults present at a patrol meeting, you might be a helicopter parent.

 

If think your scout should listen to someone read out of a merit badge book at troop meetings, you might be a helicopter parent.

 

If you think it is your scout's turn to be a patrol leader, you might be a helicopter parent.

 

If you think your scout should be the SPL because he went to NYLT, you might be a helicopter parent.

 

If you think setting up a box for a canned food drive at church demonstrates leadership, you might be a helicopter parent.

 

Way too easy.