A Recovering Helicopter

A new book has come out talking about "helicopter parents" who are constantly monitoring and "hovering" around their children. I would like to think that Derek and I not this type of parent, but lately I have caught myself saying things that are helicopterish (yes - that's a word - I just made it up). For example, our eldest girl child (aka Princess Cinderella) is supposed to be giving Derek at least $100 a week to put in her savings account to buy herself a car. For the past two weeks she hasn't given him any money to put in the account. However, she has purchased some new clothes and has spent a ton of money on junk food. Well the other parental unit and I have decided to stop reminding her about the money. If she wants to bum rides to work for the rest of her life then that is her problem. She thinks that she is so big, bad, and grown up. Well grown ups don't get reminders about what to do with their money (unless of course they don't pay the bills and then Guido shows up with a baseball bat).

We also have three children on the honor roll. We NEVER have to ask them where their report cards are because they bring them to us - what a concept! The other two (yes the older two) either throw theirs away or hide them so that we won't see how bad their grades are. Well the oldest boy child has now turned 16 and if he doesn't have a certain grade point average then he will not be allowed to join the military. Is that going to be our fault? Um .... nope ! I think that we are still going to stick with the grounding them for bad grades, but we are going to stop "reminding" them about major assignments and make-up work. It's not that we don't care, it's just that they don't seem to care much either and we are tired of worrying about it. If college and/or the military are that important to them then they better get their stuff straight and start being more responsible. No more helicoptering over the grades either !

Of course when you have been in helicopter mode for years, it is hard to stop the hovering, but we are going to try our darndest. We might discover that we have a whole lot of extra time on our hands when we stop worrying so much about every little thing that the "semi-adults" are doing. More time to drink boxed wine !