The Myth of the Helicopter Parent

So-called “helicopter parents” are roundly criticized by everyone from teachers to media experts for smothering them with too much loving. If you want to “land your kids in therapy,” according to psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb writing in Atlantic Magazine, then by all means give them everything under the sun.  If you want them to become productive members of society with reasonably normal lives, then keep the hugs and kisses to a minimum and even deny them things once in a while.  “Well-meaning parents can ruin their children,” so the claim goes.

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