Helicopter parents vs. scooter parents

Posted on 08. Nov, 2007 by kchristieh in education, my life, parenting

“Helicopter parent” is one of the worst things a parent can be called these days. According to Wikipedia,

A helicopter parent is a term for a person who pays extremely close attention to his or her child or children, particularly at educational institutions. They rush to prevent any harm or failure from befalling them or letting them learn from their own mistakes, sometimes even contrary to the children’s wishes. They are so named because, like a helicopter, they hover closely overhead, rarely out of reach whether their children need them or not.

There are even categories of helicopter parents, the most memorable being a Blackhawk parent, who takes no prisoners.

I don’t think I’m a helicopter parent. I even took a quiz and I passed just fine. But here’s the problem: sometimes I think I’m a “scooter” parent. Instead of a fast, powerful helicopter that rushes in at the first sign of trouble, I ride my slow little one-person scooter to battle. Oops! By the time I get there, I’m either poorly armed or the battle’s over and we’ve most likely lost. Sometimes I wish I had a helicopter waiting for me.

Instead, I’m too afraid to confront the unfairness that sometimes surfaces when there are overcrowded classes taught by teachers that don’t receive meaningful job evaluations since they were tenured 18 months after they started teaching. I took a few helicopter flights last year, and it wasn’t pretty. All but once, it was “Blackhawk Down” all over again.

So, I’ll keep skooting around on my little two-wheeler. Maybe some day there will be a way for students (the customer, after all) and parents (who have their best interests at heart) to provide safe feedback when education goes awry. And maybe, in a distant future, we’ll be able to clone the absolutely marvelous teachers and say “bye-bye!” to the ones who probably don’t want to be there anyway.

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