When Parents Hover and Kids Don’t Grow Up

Debaters

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  Let Them Stumble, and Learn to Get Back Up

  Karen Karbo, novelist and memoirist
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  Worry More About Under-Involved Parents

  Richard A. Settersten Jr., author, "Not Quite Adults"
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  Guilty Parents, Ungrateful Kids, Easy Solution

  Ann Hulbert, author, "Raising America"
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  The Upsides of ‘Adultescence’

  Stephanie Coontz, author, "Marriage, a History"
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  ‘Success’ Means Balanced Relationships

  Jeremy Adam Smith, author, "The Daddy Shift"
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  Spoiling My Child Just Right

  LaShanda Henry, Mahogany Momma Magazine
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  We’re Teaching Our Kids to Be Dependent

  Denise Schipani, author, "Mean Moms Rule"
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  Teaching About Money by Stepping Back

  Alisa T. Weinstein, founder, Earn My Keep
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  Healthy Ideas, Now Twisted

  Philip A. Cowan and Carolyn Pape Cowan, University of California, Berkeley

Introduction

André da Loba

Is helicopter parenting starting to crash and burn? The expectations for modern parents just keep adding up: read to your baby, keep your 7-year-old busy with summer activities, help your teenager prep for the SATs. Does this growing involvement reflect an improving knowledge of child development — and open up a lifetime of opportunities for the children? Or are super-involved parents, with the calendars full of cello and language lessons, just creating a crop of spoiled “adultescents”?

Read the Discussion »