30 Terrifying Examples Of Helicopter Parenting People Shared In This Viral Thread

Mother of three Vicki Broadbent, who is an award-winning TV broadcaster and the woman behind the family lifestyle blog Honest Mum, says the way you raise your children will evolve and change as they grow in age.

"On average, children begin to reason around the age of 5-7, and they tend to become more complex thinkers during adolescence," she tells Bored Panda. "Treat each child individually based on their personality. But understand they are not adults, so they won't think as you do."

To strike a balance between providing your children with guidance and allowing them space to experience life on their own, you have to "manage your own expectations of your child and what is age-appropriate when it comes to giving them greater independence. My eldest son, for example, would walk to and from school earlier than my second son, as each one differed in maturity. Giving your children greater independence as they grow is an important right of passage, as long as it doesn't put them in danger," the mother shares.

"Judging what is right for one child is more of an art form than a science," Vicki Broadbent adds. "Start slowly."

"When it came to my younger son, he started taking shorter walks with his older brother at first, until he proved I could trust him to walk for longer with his friends and even solo."

"I follow the Montessori Method when it comes to raising my children, which supports them to make their own choices, learn and develop at their own pace. This fosters independence, self-worth and confidence. Starting from an early age, it involves the child in the adult's life, encouraging them to help with chores and make decisions but in a safe way," she explains.

According to research published by the American Psychological Association, children with helicopter parents may be less able to deal with the challenging demands of growing up.

Children who cannot regulate their emotions and behavior effectively are more likely to act out in the classroom, to have a harder time making friends and to struggle in school, says Nicole B. Perry, PhD, from the University of Minnesota, and lead author of the study.

Perry and her team followed the same 422 kids over the course of eight years and assessed them at ages 2, 5 and 10. The children in the study were predominantly white and African American and from economically diverse backgrounds. Data were collected from observations of parent-child interactions, teacher-reported responses and self-reports from the 10-year-olds.

Children need parents who are sensitive to their needs, who recognize when they are capable of managing a situation and who will guide them when situations become too challenging.

Managing your emotions and behavior are fundamental skills that we simply need to learn, and according to Perry, overcontrolling parenting limits those opportunities. Sadly, as we can see from the submissions, not everyone gets it (or is self-aware enough to realize that they don't).

Vicki Broadbent believes that if you want to keep yourself in check and not become too controlling, empathy is key. "Remember how you felt yourself as a child, tween, or teen and the struggles you might have faced with your own parents or carers and how you might differ in your approach as a parent," she suggests.

"Open discussion is also vital. I would explain to my son why I didn't feel he was ready to walk to school, so he understood my thought process. That gave him the chance to ask me to trust him, and together we created a plan of 'small steps' where we built towards the goal of him walking to and from school with his friends."

Broadbent says that children aged 8-10 tend to start wanting more independence, so you have to know that it's normal and formative for them to start pulling away from you (to an extent) as they learn who they are and begin to prioritize friends over parents.

"Films like Inside Out (one and two) are informative and reassuring when it comes to the changes children and teens experience physically and psychologically and how that will impact your relationship with them," she says. "Being open and empathetic as a parent is imperative. It is your job to guide, teach and keep those kids safe, but being open about your thinking process involves your child and helps them in turn to become empathetic too."