Parenting Update: Attachment Parenting Vs. Helicopter Parenting

Parents definitely have the tendency to be too attached to their children and that is understandable. However, they should definitely know when attachment has become too much. Thus, it is important to distinguish attachment parenting from helicopter parenting as the two are sometimes loosely used as translations of the other.

Even these two controversial parenting styles may be closely similar, there is a thin line that separates the two. Attachment parenting focuses on the emotional bond or attachment between the parent and the child while helicopter parenting is focusing too much on the children that it becomes quite irrational and unwarranted.

Web MD says that the roots of attachment parenting come from attachment theory from a psychologist named John Bowlby, who says that an infant seeks closeness from a parent by instinct and that infants who do not experience this would feel insecure as they grow up. However, there has been some criticism with attachment parenting such as how this does not form permanent behavior as the child would develop different traits based on other experiences such as those coming from peer pressure and from school where the child spends most of the time of the year.

According to Parents.com, helicopter parenting is a style where parents are too much focused on their children and is much more evident or common when it comes to children that are in their teenage years or worse, even older. Like a helicopter, parents hover over their children and this behavior could be explained by a number of reasons such as feelings of anxiety, fear of grave consequences or feeling pressured by other parents.

It is important, though, that parents should identify the right kind of parenting for their child. Parents should understand that their child is neither an extension of themselves nor a robot, but rather a thinking individual, and how they are raised would definitely matter especially on how they turn out to be in the near future.