Tag Archives: Helicopter Parents

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‘Fed Up with Frenzy’ Blog Tour Coming to a Screen Near You

Posted on July 30, 2012 | 9 comments

 

As many of you know, my book, Fed Up with Frenzy: Slow Parenting in a Fast-Moving World, will be out August 1.

I am very eager for you to learn about all the fun ideas and projects I’ve collected to help your family slow down and reconnect. To do that, I’ve assembled an all-star team of bloggers to join the Fed Up with Frenzy Blog Tour to share their thoughts about the book and some of the ideas and projects inside.

 

Here is a partial list of bloggers and dates on the Fed Up with Frenzy Blog Tour. Please visit their sites for reviews, activities, tips and book giveaways! (And also, because they’re all wonderful sites with great information about kids, crafts, gardening, nature, free play, education, slowing down, creativity and family fun!)

August 1                                      Power of Slow     Review

August 2                                     Grass Stain Guru     Guest post

August 4                                       Exploring Portland’s Natural Areas Review

August 7                                     Red, White & Grew     Guest post

August 9                                     Slow Family Living     Review/Activity

August 15                                     Fun Orange County Parks     Review

August 17                                      Let Children Play     Guest post

August 22                                     Jen Spends     Review

August 24                                     Becentsable     Review

August 27                                     Real Moms Love to Eat     Recipe

August 28                                     A Place Like This     Review

September 5                              Rhythm of the Home     Guest post

September 5                               Mummy’s Product Reviews     Review

September 6                               Jump into a Book     Review

September 6                               Modern Day Moms     Review

September 7                               7 on a Shoestring     Review

September 8                             Dad of Divas     Review

September 10                            Go Explore Nature     Interview

September 12                           Active Kids Club     Podcast!

September 13                            Love, Life, Family and Then Some     Review

September 14                            Go Explore Nature     Activity

September 14                           Adventures of the Alpha Mom     Review

September 15                            What Mama Wants     Review

September 18                            Traveling Mel     Review/Activity

September 19                            Allison Abramson     Review

September 20                           Imagination Soup      Review

September 21                          Chi-Town Cheapskate     Review

September 21                          Frugal Mama     Review

September 24                          Go Gingham     Review

September 24                         Adventures of the Alpha Wife     Review

September 25                          Play Equals Peace     Interview

September 26                          A Little Yumminess     Review/Recipe

September 27                          Bright Copper Kettles     Review/Craft

September 28                          Parent Palace     Review

October 1                                   Noble Mother     Review

October 2                                   Frugal Mama   Guest post

October 3                                   A Little Bite of Life     Review

October 4-18                           The WELL Inkwell     Online Discussion

October 8                                  Love, Live, Grow     Review

October 12                                 Skinny Mom     Review

October 15-24                         Erin Goodman     10-day Family Recharge

October 17                                 Erin Goodman     Review

October 20                               I’m a Teacher, Get me Outside Here   Review

November 14                          Mama Scout     Review

November 15                          Frog Mom Blog     Review and Activity

November 27                          Salt and Nectar     Web chat

December 4                     Bliss Beyond Naptime  Audio, Frenzy-Free Holiday
Plus Video, Simplicity Parenting with Rhythm

December 7                      Polliwog on Safari     Review

January 3                          Non-Toxic Kids     Review

July 27                                Hill Babies     Review

Dates To Be Announced (this site will update):

Life as Mom

Nature Moms

Ask a Nanny

The Movement Academy Project

Connecting Family and Seoul

Would you like to join the blog tour? Please give me a shout. I’d be thrilled to have you join.

Blog tour badge by my talented husband, and the book’s illustrator, Lippy.

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Posted in Community, Crafts, Deck Garden, Giveaway, Holidays, Home Ec., Lost Arts, Nature, Play, Reading, Recipes, Seasons, Slow News, Sustainability, The Great Outdoors, To Market

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Slow News: Aggressive Parents Force Easter Egg Hunt Cancellation

Posted on March 26, 2012 | 5 comments

It goes without saying that most of us parents want the best for our children. We wish to help them avoid adversity and suffering. But how do we separate real trauma from everyday life trials? When do we, even against instinct, stand back and let children have their own experiences, free from parental insertion?

Apparently, some parents at last year’s Easter Egg Hunt in Colorado Springs, CO, draw that line in a different place than others of us: Within seconds of the egg hunt, parents jumped a rope and swarmed the small park, determined to get their children an egg. Their behavior was such that organizers decided to cancel this year’s event.

So-called “helicopter parents” hover over their children’s lives, doing practically anything to ensure that their kids never fail. As a result, many children never experience normal disappointment and may ultimately lack necessary resources and coping skills.

Others, like the parent quoted in the article, seem to display an outsized and misplaced sense of competition and even entitlement:

I promised my kid an Easter egg hunt and I’d want to give him an even edge.

Of course, there is room for appropriate and age-appropriate assistance. For instance, one might let the kids hunt for eggs or gather pinata candy by themselves. If someone (usually a smaller child), is left empty-handed, I see nothing wrong with encouraging another child to share, or even gathering an item and helping. And that goes for anyone’s small child, not just my own.

That doesn’t quite sound like what occurred at the Last Easter Egg Hunt in Colorado Springs, when parents were so aggressive as to not even await the game’s outcome and so determined as to not let their children try to accomplish something (and have fun) for themselves.

Where do you draw the line?

See my Slow News page for other stories about Helicopter Parenting, Slow Parenting and Play.

 

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Posted in Butter and Egg, Holidays, Slow News

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Time Magazine Cover Story: Can These Parents be Saved?

Posted on November 19, 2009 | Leave a comment

Just out today, it’s already making the rounds as Time magazine’s most e-mailed story, its new cover piece: Can These Parents be Saved?

” … We just wanted what was best for our kids”, Nancy Gibbs’ piece begins, before detailing the ways in which extreme, fear-based safety practices, and efficiency models best left at the corporation door began infecting childhood. She writes:

We were so obsessed with our kids’ success that parenting turned into a form of product development.

The backlash against overparenting has come, she says, in part driven by changes in the economy:

…  a third of parents have cut their kids’ extracurricular activities. They downsized, downshifted and simplified because they had to — and often found, much to their surprise, that they liked it.

The article is a fascinating snapshot of the conundrums many parents face. We want to protect our children and give them opportunities, yet for some this has come with the dawning realization that many children are overcoddled, over-directed, and robbed of down time, free play, exploration, and the confidence and mastery that can come with making ones own discoveries and mistakes. In short, it’s the realization that, for all the attention, we are not doing our kids any favors.

Gibbs quotes Slow Movement pioneers Carl Honore and the Slow Family Living workshop folks, whom I have blogged about at length, as well as Lenore Skenazy, whose book, Free-Range Kids, is a tome of common-sense parenting in an often hysterical age.

Last weekend, I attended a lecture by Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg, author of A Parent’s Guide to Building Resilience in Children and Teens, which I highly recommend, as it walks parents through the set of tools children need to grow and prosper. Ginsburg cautioned against the perfectionistic streak in many parents who unwittingly add stress to their children’s lives by trying to professionalize their activities, and by being involved in harmful, rather than fruitful, guiding ways — including attempting to eliminate stress, rather than teach children ways to cope with inevitable stress.

I was struck, too, when Ginsburg said that creativity was a component many young adults now lacked. This was exhibiting itself in an inflexibility in the workplace and in relationships, no matter the field. How to foster creativity in the young? Play with them, encourage them to play on their own or direct the play (if you’re involved). In short, have fun and get out of the way.

For more Slow Family Online pieces about children, slow (joyful) parenting and play, see:

Gopnick: Babies Learn by Playing

Why Can’t She Walk to School?

An End to Overparenting?

Huffington Post Book Club Pick: In Praise of Slowness

About Slow Family Online

Photos: Miika Silfverberg, Susan Sachs Lipman

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Slow News Day: An End to Overparenting?

Posted on June 4, 2009 | 2 comments

We’ve seen elementary schools that appeared to have more moms in the halls than children, and we’ve heard tales of parents attempting to sit in on their offspring’s interviews for law school.

Of course, parenting swings “like a pendulum do,” and we may have arrived once again at — or at least be on the road to — a slightly relaxed, somewhat self-deprecating mode that I call “Good Enough” parenting. If this is remotely true, it seems healthy to me.

Lisa Belkin, writing in the New York Times Magazine last weekend, cited the first wave of the change as one during which the sins of the parent are confessed, and the second wave as the action-oriented (or inaction, as the case may be) Slow Movement. In her piece, “Let the Kid Be”, she quotes Carl Honore, among others, and wonders if the same anxieties that have been at the root of other parenting trends are at work here.

That could be — Parenting is surely not without anxieties. But it seems that a true embrace of the Slow would at least add a little perspective, which in the process could increase joy, decrease fear, and promote healthy, versus hovering, involvement in our kids’ lives. Then, perhaps, some of the helicopters would, at long last, find themselves back on the ground.

tetherball

Photo by Susan Sachs Lipman

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