Helicopter Parents

The term helicopter parents became popular in both media and institutions of higher education in the early 2000s, even though it was coined in 1990 by Foster W. Cline and Jim Fay in their book, Parenting With Love and Logic: Teaching Children Responsibility. Indeed, Cline and Fay were the first to suggest that “some parents think that love means rotating their lives around their children. They are helicopter parents. They hover over and rescue their children whenever trouble arises.” As a result, the term helicopter parents is a metaphor for parents who “hover” over their children, constantly micromanaging their children's lives, making decisions for their children, and/or trying to prevent any failures or mistakes by their children.

Although the term is applied ...