Are you the adult child of overinvolved, overcontrolling, or overprotective parents and feel like you're struggling to grow up? Overparenting, also known as "helicopter parenting" happens when parents "hover" over their children's shoulders (sometimes literally), watching and orchestrating what they do. Despite good intentions, this kind of parenting has poor outcomes that come at a price. It often costs children their freedom, happiness, and financial future because it fails to develop the tools needed to succeed at adulting. Instead of feeling prepared for adulthood, people with helicopter parents often develop debilitating levels of anxiety around adult responsibilities such as managing money, making decisions, and moving out on one's own. It can even translate into reluctance or difficulty to advance professionally due to a vote of no confidence in oneself or by others.
If you're struggling to feel all grown up and get out from under your parents' wings…or if you think you may be a helicopter parent to your own kids, look at these nine ways overparenting undermines adulthood and implement the tips on how to break the cycle.
- Finances
People raised by helicopter parents struggle to become financially responsible. Even well into adulthood, their parents often continue to control their financial decisions or bail them out of money troubles. As a result, they remain financially dependent on their parents and typically have few, if any, basic personal finance skills, such as managing bank and credit accounts, budgeting, or paying bills. Studies show they are more likely to return home from college without a job or any future plans. To break the cycle of financial dependence, make financial literacy a priority. Develop a working knowledge of basic money management and investing skills to become fiscally responsible. - Independence
Most young adults feel excited to finally move out on their own. Those who have hovering parents usually feel overly anxious, even if financially ready for the transition. They're too used to their parents being in the driver's seat and therefore lack the autonomy, confidence, and self-reliance needed to spread their wings. They may fear that they will crash and burn or may simply fail to develop the discipline, motivation, and structure needed to succeed. Either scenario can keep them stuck in the nest for as long as their parents enable them. At one point, a quarter of my therapy clients struggled with this issue. Learning life skills is an essential part of overcoming it. - Resilience
Helicopter parents are quick to "save" their kids from failure, depriving them of opportunities to learn, grow, and bounce back from their mistakes. They become adults who are poor problem-solvers, struggle with change or crisis management, and develop an unhealthy (and sometimes paralyzing) anxiety about failing and making mistakes. This interferes with their willingness to go very far in their lives or careers or follow their dreams. To become more resilient, look for ways to adapt, grow, or be empowered when facing a challenge or change. This may include building supportive relationships with encouraging people. Learn how to learn from experiences—including mistakes and become a proactive problem-solver. - Emotions
Parents who hover may cater to their kids' every need and go out of their way to shield them from emotionally painful situations. On the surface, that sounds great. A consequence is children who don't evolve emotionally. They don't know how to deal well with their feelings or those of others. Developing emotional literacy and emotional intelligence are ways to overcome this. - Boundaries
Children of helicopter parents become adults with boundary issues. No surprise there considering their parents perpetually overstep. In other relationships, they continue to defer to others and struggle to say no—even more so with authority figures. With few or no boundaries in place, they often feel too disempowered to protect their own space or interests or advocate for themselves. Assertiveness training helps to develop some of the skills needed to set and maintain appropriate boundaries. - Identity and Role Confusion
Adult children of helicopter parents struggle to figure out who they are and where they fit in. One reason is because their parents may baby them their entire lives. So, they never really grow up mentally or emotionally. They may even speak and behave like little children around their parents or when confronted with adult demands.Another contributing factor is that helicopter parents can inappropriately involve and burden their children with their problems. This behavior tends to come from the parents' unconscious effort to compensate for relationships they've neglected or lost as a consequence of overinvolvement in their children's lives. In having to fulfill different roles for their parents, these children can then become adults who unconsciously try to be everything to everybody.Important steps here are to focus on and explore who to be for oneself. Personal and professional development can assist with discovering one's strengths, values, and interests. Where appropriate, collaboratively defining and fairly assigning clear roles and responsibilities in shared group endeavors can help address identity and role confusion. - Decision Making
To make and trust their own decisions is a challenge for people with hovering parents. Because their parents make decisions for them, they don't learn how to approach decision-making or weigh options. They find it hard to make even the smallest of decisions without the permission, direction, or approval of their parents. Learning a decision-making process, developing values, and then allowing those values to help guide decisions can help build trust in one's decision-making ability. - Confidence
Many helicopter parents can be overzealous about pushing their children to succeed yet never give them a chance to prove themselves. So instead of gaining self-confidence, the children become adults who don't believe in their ability to do much of anything. They develop anxiety and feelings of inadequacy. Confidence is developed through practice and experience. Taking classes or finding other ways to learn how to do something is a good start. Incrementally build and improve skills with consistent practice. - Social Life
Some helicopter parents strictly supervise their children's social lives, from picking their friends and relationship partners to directing their social calendar. The interference makes it difficult for the children to cultivate and maintain healthy relationships; they may easily feel lost or out of place. Their passions may also go largely undiscovered, unacknowledged, or unexplored. A useful strategy is to start building new personal or professional connections centered around an interest or curiosity. Joining book clubs, classes, professional organizations, and local or virtual groups such as those found on Meetup.com, LinkedIn, or Facebook, are some ways to meet new people and take more control of one's own social calendar.
Some of the same outcomes produced by overparenting are experienced by people with anxious or highly critical parents. They can show up in different ways in one's personal or professional life. If you identify with any of these issues or recognize them in your own children, explore coaching, therapy, or self-help resources to help you improve and break the cycle.