Eh, I wouldn’t be so certain, it’s quite possible that extreme helicopter parenting gets the best result along the dimensions the parents care about.
I’m skeptical of the “seek the Golden Mean” approach in general, I suspect it’s an easy justification for not seriously researching the pros and cons of the alternatives, and it tends to squash attributes onto a single axis.
I’m not particularly disagreeing with you in general, except maybe on levels of certainty. I don’t think everything that could be categorized as “helicopter parenting” is good, I just think the term “Golden Mean” fails to capture the important difference between “do 50% fo Amy Chua on all dimensions” and “Go 100% Amu Chua on some dimensions, and 0% on others”.
Also, I should have been clearer in distinguishing two concepts: protecting your kids too much; and pushing them too excel too much; though there is often an overlap. The same people do both and both are correlated with success for the child along almost every metric you care about (taking into account, again, that there may be a shared cause for the parental behavior and the child’s success.)
That distinction is very important. Overprotection is clearly stifling of future growth (eg this). But the best way to encourage future excellence is a much, much harder problem.
Yes, you’re certainly right that one should seek the Golden Mean.
Eh, I wouldn’t be so certain, it’s quite possible that extreme helicopter parenting gets the best result along the dimensions the parents care about.
I’m skeptical of the “seek the Golden Mean” approach in general, I suspect it’s an easy justification for not seriously researching the pros and cons of the alternatives, and it tends to squash attributes onto a single axis.
I’m not particularly disagreeing with you in general, except maybe on levels of certainty. I don’t think everything that could be categorized as “helicopter parenting” is good, I just think the term “Golden Mean” fails to capture the important difference between “do 50% fo Amy Chua on all dimensions” and “Go 100% Amu Chua on some dimensions, and 0% on others”.
Yes.
Also, I should have been clearer in distinguishing two concepts: protecting your kids too much; and pushing them too excel too much; though there is often an overlap. The same people do both and both are correlated with success for the child along almost every metric you care about (taking into account, again, that there may be a shared cause for the parental behavior and the child’s success.)
That distinction is very important. Overprotection is clearly stifling of future growth (eg this). But the best way to encourage future excellence is a much, much harder problem.