Over the past decade, helicopter parents have pressured their children to achieve excellence by obsessively monitoring school grades and screening friends. Helicopter parenting adds stress and anxiety to children in an increasingly competitive world. A 4.0 GPA and good SAT scores can no longer guarantee a spot in highly selective colleges and universities, and because of this, parents have become concerned for their children’s future. Researchers have uncovered that helicopter parenting is directly linked to cause stress, trigger anxiety, and stunt emotional and cognitive development.
Instead of helicopter parenting, a new style of parenting, called bulldozer parenting, has replaced it . With this new kind of parenting parents have begun to clear away all obstacles and paths for their “brilliant” children. Consequently, the parents bully teachers into giving their children an undeserved second chance. In contrast to helicopter parenting, bulldozer parenting alleviates stress from the student and places the stress on the teacher.
Parenting archetypes such as the bulldozer parents makes teaching more difficult. Because it draws the focus away from learning from when a student mistakes and puts the blame on others, especially teachers, for their errors. Teachers are now faced with the decision to either endure the wrath of angry parents or exempt the students from the consequences of not studying and working hard.
By allowing parents to bully teachers and remove obstacles from students’ paths, it deprives children of the opportunity to encounter constructive experiences. For example, when a student performs poorly on an assignment, the pupil would normally learn and adjust for next time. However, when bulldozer parents take away any obstacles where the child needs to fully apply them self, it removes the need for the students to make adjustments and they get lazy and don’t live up to their potential.
Bulldozer parenting has taken over so much that administrators in other schools have pressured teachers to change their pupils’ grades in order to satisfy the demands of parents. This pressure to change the grade is detrimental for the students learning abilities and makes the teaching process harder. If the student is simply given the grade without working they are lost the opportunity to learn how to work hard in order to get what they want and the teachers struggle to do their job ethically and well.
Not only do students not learn from their mistakes, but they do not experience failure. Therefore, later in life students are then unable to cope with failure and lack self-confidence. A bulldozer style of parenting does not intend to damage their children, but to protect them from short-term harm results in a psychologically fragile child, who is fearful of failure. These feelings are then intensified by the students’ inability to use coping strategies. Fortunately the Steinbrenner administrators value the teacher’s opinions on whether to allow students to retest.
“It is up to the teachers’ discretion to allow students to retake a test,” said Mark Watson, Assistant Principal of curriculum.
As a result of this new style of parenting, children become incapable of solving their problems efficiently, adapting their approaches effectively, and navigating their future successfully. The negative factors of bulldozer parenting far out ways the one benefit: a better grade. Children lack the ability to work hard and are psychologically fragile, the parent becomes villanized, and the teacher becomes overextended.
Nevertheless, parents must remain involved in their children’s academic lives, but it’s important that parents allow them grow intellectually and emotionally by allowing their child to make their own mistakes.
