Helicopter Parents: Forgetting where the line is between them and us

A lawyer friend is a high-powered, type-A attorney who's a very effective attack dog for his clients. The problem is, he sometimes applies that take-no-prisoners approach to his children's lives. Case in point: When his grown daughter had a big report due to the president of her company, he told her she should stop accepting invitations to various outings--she should be isolating herself in her office to get the big job done properly. It's exactly the way he would handle the pressure of an important brief or memo to a client.

Interfering in our children's lives: It's what we do--we can't help it. Sometimes it's egregious; sometimes it's just annoying or a little anecdote our grown children tell their friends about their mom or dad.

Why do we do it? Is it simply helicopter-parenting taken to the next level of our children's maturity? Are we simply being protective of our children? Do we want to ease the way with the benefit of lessons we learned the hard way? Whatever it is, we're on dangerous ground here. We lead our own lives--and just our own. Sometimes we get so invested in our children and their burgeoning careers that we may cross a line and forget who's in charge here. Whose life is it anyway?

On a blog that Theresa Froehlich writes, she notes the real danger of overdoing the pressure on the control button. "Every time I react with the compulsion to rescue my child, I am sending her the message that I don’t think she is capable."