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"Helicopter parents": real or imagined?

by Jay Allen (Subscribe to Jay Allen's posts)
Aug 4th 2005 1:36PM

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Filed under: Development/Milestones: Babies, Media

Blackhawk Helicopter

What are "helicopter parents"? The term was first coined by Neil Howe and William Strauss in their book "Millennials Go to College" to refer to moms and dads (though, I suspect,  largely moms) who hover around a school, waiting to pounce at the first slight against their child. It's not surprising to find that the people most parroting the term are teachers and school administrators, the people most frequently caught in these parents' rotating blades. We covered this subject back when Time Magazine ran their piece on what teachers hate about parents; not surprisingly, Time's anecdotes were so good that the new article uses them as its prime examples of Moms Gone Wild. And to be sure, there's something wrong with a parent who's following up on their college-age children's academic progress like they were still in fifth grade. Yet a part of me wonders: are educators perhaps just a little cheese that parents refuse to leave education up to the "experts"?

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