Chipped Children and Other Signs You Are a Hover Parent

The other day, my daughter Nicole was scratching a mark on her arm. It was a raised bump which looked slightly larger than a mosquito bite. She took a break from itching to ask me, “Mommy, did you chip me?” Images of my kid as a chipped tea cup raced through my head.

I cautiously asked, “What do you mean by chipped?”

“You know,” she continued, “Like when dog owners put a locator chip in their pets so they can keep track of where they are.”

I was floored. My ten year old thought (and worried) that perhaps the mark on her arm was where we had somehow secretly inserted a tracking device (aka a chip) so that in addition to supervising her in the traditional way, we could digitally be up in her business at all times. My husband, David, whose humor can sometimes be drier than a Santa Ana during fire season, responded without hesitation, “Yes, we chipped you in the hospital the day you were born and have been tracking you ever since.”

Nicole looked worried. David laughed in a rather maniacal way and walked out of the room. Nicole turned to me and whimpered, “Mommy, really?” I assured her that even if the technology was available, and honestly I don’t know if it is for humans – if so, I know a lot of women who would use it on their husbands before their kids – we would never consider “chipping” her. I wondered how long she had worried about the possibility and what in my behavior as a parent had made her think that I would ever go to such extremes to be aware of her activities.

For years, I have thought of myself as the parent who supervises, but also trusts my child. Not a hover parent, constantly into their children’s business, orchestrating every moment of their waking hours, but a parent who was engaged and involved, but who also taught their kids how to function on their own so that they could be trusted to make good choices when I was not with them. But her chipping question made me wonder if my perception of myself as a non-hovering parent was correct. If she thought I would go to such lengths to know what she was doing, maybe I was being overprotective. Or perhaps it is just as she gets older – by her own definition, now a tweenager – she is pushing the boundaries of what she wants to do and what she can do. Or maybe it is a little of both. Regardless, I’ve been feeling for a while that I have to readjust, rethink what I’m comfortable with her doing now, when and with whom. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it until she asked me the chipping question. Now I know I have to loosen the strings of attachment and let her go further out into the world on her own – and that is never easy, even for the most casual of parents, let alone one with (dare I admit it) hovering tendencies.

So as I head into the new year with a tweenager on her way to middle school and a second grader who has firmly crossed another growth milestone and no longer needs or wants my assistance with things I’d come to love doing for her – picking out clothes in the morning, combing hair and styling it with bows and ribbons – I have to learn to let go more, do less. I get knots in my stomach at the idea of them walking around the block without me. They’ve never been to sleep away camp and or been left with their grandparents for more than a day or two and the idea of sending them alone on a plane has never been under consideration. But soon, Nicole will be taking a school trip from L.A. to D.C. in the spring and the kids will be unable to contact their parents by phone for a week. She will be on her own with fifty fifth graders and a few chaperones and as much as I want her to go and know she will be fine, my impulse is to keep her from going, from being so far from my supervision. The school says part of the reason the kids and parents aren’t allowed to call each other during the trip is that cutting them off cold turkey helps to keep the kids from being homesick. But I bet it also helps keep the parents, many who are letting their kids go away on their own for the first time, from going crazy (and consequently making the teacher/chaperones crazy).

It’s ironic in a way. When your kids are at home (making you nuts) you want them out of the house. When they are away, you worry and want them to come home. Then they learn to drive, go off to college, graduate and move away. All the things you hope and plan for them. And yet with each step, each stage, there is a part of you that is hesitant to let them do it. It’s want you want for them, but what you don’t want, too. Growing older, being more independent and going out on their own is what (in theory) as a parent you try to prepare them for. But the reality of letting them out from under your supervision is a lot harder than the theoretical letting go. Both my daughters complain that their friends get to do more than they do. Some of that is normal kid manipulation to get what they want and I bite my tongue to keep from snapping back with the standard parent chestnut, “If your friends were allowed to jump off a cliff would you do it, too?” But I realize that some of their complaints are justified and that perhaps I have been slower than others to let them do more. So for me, I know that 2011 has to be the year to let the helicopter I thought I didn’t own come crashing to the ground.

Free Range Is For Chickens, Not Children

There is an article by Suzi Parker in the Woman Up section of Politics Daily which is the type of piece that is no news news. And I’ve read this writer before and I like her, so this really isn’t a slam against her. I think she was seduced by the (dare I say evil?) free range parenting movement and its founder, Lenore Skenazy, author of "Free-Range Kids." Skenazy likes to shock reporters into giving her coverage by tossing out a few anecdotes about parents who put babies in knee pads while crawling and journalists (particularly childless ones) think it is some huge story indicative of the how an entire generation is being ruined by overprotective parents. It ain’t so! BTW, in my many years frequenting pre-schools, mommy and me classes and parks, I have seen hundreds of babies crawling and not once have I run across a knee pad attired infant.

There are several reasons I found my Victoria Secret undies in a knot over this one. First, the idea of over-protective parents has been discussed and examined and explored until it has been rehashed more than corned beef. There isn’t a parent in America who hasn’t been accused of being overprotective. I’ve also been accused of being over permissive by allowing my child to do the exact same thing that I was accused of being overprotective for allowing them to do! Second, letting your children play in the streets, climb trees and get muddy does not make you any better a parent than the knee pad carrying ones. Different types of parents, yes, but exceptional, no. And the idea promoted by the free range movement is that these "free to be you and me" parents are superior to those who won’t let their kids play alone in the front yard.

The problem is, the free range parenting movement is about extremes. It is not concerned, thoughtful parenting. It is reacting, not acting, and parenting should be about taking positive actions towards teaching your children to be all the things that the free range movement claims it wants children to grow to be - "treated as a smart, young, capable individual, not an invalid who needs constant attention and help." Parenting is not about reacting to what other parents are doing around you and protesting by allowing your kids to do whatever they want and justifying it by saying that the freedom you allow them will make them better than the other parents’ kids.

Free ranger Skenazy is the woman who created a career for herself by allowing her 9 year old son to take a NYC subway alone and jump started her freelance writing career by the brouhaha that resulted from the stunt. And in my opinion, it was a stunt. Yes, maybe her son had been begging her for weeks to allow him to do it. So what? My kid has been begging me to let her swim with sharks because as she learned in school, “They don’t really like human flesh.” You think I’m dropping her in the shark tank anytime soon? Just because your kid asks you to let them do something – take a subway, climb Everest, sail a boat around the world alone - doesn’t mean you’re being an overprotective parent by not letting them do it.

And saying no doesn’t mean you are squelching their dreams and aspirations as Parker’s article suggests. After telling my six year old shark loving girl that she wasn’t swimming with her toothy friends, we talked with her about what careers would allow her to work with sharks when she grew up, what she would have to study in order to do it and set up a time to visit more aquariums and see shark programs so that she can explore her interest further. And maybe one day when she’s bigger, i.e. 18 and out of my house, she will swim with sharks. But to let her do it as child, just because she wants to, is irresponsible, reckless and sounds to me slightly like the reaction of a parent who felt over restricted in their own childhood and now is bending over backwards not to be the same as their mean old parents. Grow up…if you don’t, your children never will.

Sure, I could have promised six year old shark loving girl that the next time we go to Hawaii she could get into one of those shark cages they lower into the water and then let the sharks come at her, but I know my child and it would scare the poop out her. She’d probably be so scared that any interest she once had in sharks would disappear in her frenzied panic to get pulled out of the water. Again, when she’s older, after she’s had more exposure to sharks and the ocean, after she’s had a chance to experience more things in life, she can make her own decision about swimming with sharks or anything else. Appropriate things at appropriate ages – someone should put that on a t-shirt and make all the free range parents wear it.

Parker’s article and the free range movement makes it seem as if the majority of parents are overprotective, knee pad toters and that those who allow their kids to strive for extraordinary goals at a young age like riding the subway alone, climbing Everest and sailing around the world, are the enlightened exception who should be emulated. In fact, both are extremes. Most parents fall somewhere in the middle…and they should. It seems rather silly to raise your children according to any movement, be it the free range or the more conservative helicopter style (where parents are hovering over their children, hand holding and protecting every move). Children should be allowed to run and play and explore. They should be encouraged to get dirty, experiment and strive for their dreams but with guidance, rules, boundaries and opportunities to make decisions and mistakes within an environment that won’t kill them before the second grade. But I think allowing kids to do too much, too soon or without restriction or supervision will result in kids who don’t have a sense of when something is appropriate and safe and when it is wise and wonderful to take the risk and forge ahead. Children need good decision making skills and being able to understand situations, take appropriate action or inaction and taking risks are all part of that. Allowing them to do anything they want, and not allowing them to do anything at all deprive them of learning those skills. To me, that’s the saddest part about this effort to divide parenting into movements – the real issues about what children need get lost in all the rhetoric.

You can read Parker’s article at: http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/06/22/abby-sunderland-and-other-free-range-kids-an-endangered-species/

I've Kept Them Alive So Far

Natalie got wedged between her bed and the sleeper sofa in her room this morning. At 7 years old, She probably could have wiggled herself free as I've seen her maneuver her way out of more entangled circumstances. But rather than do that, she allowed herself to remain "stuck" and at 6:15 in the morning started yelling at top volume to have someone come and remove her from between the furniture. I was in the bathtub and couldn't hear her. My older daughter, Nicole, was in the shower and couldn't hear her. David was in bed snoring and even the sound of shrieking elephants during mating season couldn't raise him. So she remained stuck. When I came out of the bathroom fifteen minutes later, David mumbled something about Natalie needing my help and then rolled back over to grab a few last minutes of sleep before his alarm went off. I went in Natalie's room and saw her stuck between the furniture, very calm, politely asking me to pull her out.

It reminded me of the time when Nicole was just starting the baby bucking phase, where they arch their backs and propel themselves forward. She'd never done it before and chose to do it for the first time while I had her in a car seat on top of the washing machine where I had placed her so that the rhythms of the washer would lull her to sleep. Didn't work. In fact, didn't work so badly that she was screaming and yelling at top volume and kicking frantically. So much for that damn baby book and its advice. I went to check her diaper to see if that was why she was crying. I unbuckled her from the car seat and at that moment she executed her new baby move - bucking. She arched up and had flipped out of the seat before I even knew what had happened. I was in shock really, amazed that she could even do that on her own and that she'd moved beyond the baby as immobile blob stage. With my baby airborne, there was only one place for her to land - the five inch gap between the washing machine and the dryer - and she was rapidly going there, head first. I reached out and grabbed for her, snagging a leg just before she entered the gap. She was crying, I was crying, but my tears were a mixture of thank God she's okay and DCF (department of children and families)would never have believed it was an accident if she'd ended up wedged between my appliances. As David always jokes when I worry about incompetent (embarrassing, scary) parenting moments, "They have extra long visiting hours in the jail on Mother's Day..."

When I was in elementary school, slightly more than waist high to my parents, at the perfect height for getting elbowed by them, I remember barely making it through the second grade without getting a concussion. I recall one particularly painful moment when grocery shopping and my mother accidentally dropped a six pack box of Sunmaid raisins on my head from the top shelf. The corner hit my forehead and I screamed so loudly that people three aisles over came to see what she had done to me. I was mad at her then. I feel for her now that I'm a parent myself. I'm not sure which is worse - how bad you feel about accidentally hurting your own kid, or how embarrassed you are when other parents see what you've done. Both suck, really.

The point of all this is, some woman was on a t.v. talk show yesterday ranting about helicopter parents who are too cautious when caring for their kids and smother them. She advocated taking your 8 year old to the park and dropping them off to play. She said that the real danger for kids was in parents who are overprotective. Overprotective? I can barely keep them alive in my own home let alone dropping them off at the park for someone else to inflict injury on them.

By the way, Natalie is fine. She even giggled when I got her out from between the furniture and said, "Now I know what it feels like to be meat in a sandwich."