Helicopter Parenting: Parents’ Excessive Intervention Can Turn Their Child Into Binge Drinkers

An intrusive or a helicopter parent may only have good intentions for his/her growing child, but this parenting style doesn't come without setbacks. Helicopter parenting involves constantly interfering in a child's life, particularly in education.

Many parents wish and plan for an academically successful child. They enroll them in prestigious and exceptional schools and pay close attention to their academic life in the hopes that the kid would end up in profitable professions like STEM careers. Most of the time these parents are successful in their endeavor, but it entails subjecting a child to a life where he/she must have a school performance filled to the brim with extremes.

What are those extremes? According to The Atlantic, it includes extreme studying, extreme athletics, and extreme extracurricular hobbies to be at par with their school's and parents' standards. This overachieving behavior would come in handy for students if they choose to apply to a top college, which would then encourage them to lead a university life full of extremes and yes, binge drinking should be expected from this as well.

How does binge drinking affect a person's college life? Binge drinking "slots in neatly" with other extreme behaviors of teenagers and young people, The Atlantic noted. Working adults tend to reach for a bottle of beer or a glass of wine after a long day at the office, but teens in college can't do this because they still have plenty of schoolwork to do in the evening.

But what happens when the weekend comes? That's when teenagers go out and drink with their friends and peers to the point of puking and/or blacking out.

Gone is the notion that young people should be allowed to drink so they can "learn their limits." Binge drinking in college nowadays aims for limitless.

Blacking out isn't considered by young people as a mistake; sometimes that's what they are aiming for. A research published by the American Journal of Health Education in 2011 found that 77 percent of college freshmen "drink to get drunk," or as is often the case, being in a blackout.

Schools struggle with underage drinking, with some even considering tougher punishments for students caught drinking while in school property or events. Among the stricter punishments are banning the students from graduation ceremonies and school events, as well as suspension from school organizations, Parent Herald reported.

A 2013 study from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, or NSDUH, found that around 5.4 million people from aged 12 to 20 are binge drinkers. Around 1.4 million people from the same age group partake in heavy drinking, according to the National Institutes of Health.