Stone Soup by Jan Eliot for February 08, 2013

Nothing, only now they get a trophy for it…… so their poor yiddle self esteem isn’t diminished.

I beleive that all this helecoptering is hurting how we learn to interact with others. Sharing is a thing of the past. Putting another’s feelings/needs before our own is gone. It’s all about me me me.

I agree with the helicoptering parenting, but I hope things are changing in the right direction now that we’ve seen how harmful protecting our children too much can be. I have elementary school kids, and while I see some helicoptering, I also see more and more parents who deliberately step back and let their kids make mistakes. The only concern that I have is that too many don’t teach their kids responsibility and respect. Helicoptering has nothing to do with respect for others. I know many kids whose parents let them do whatever, yet they don’t teach them to think about anyone except for themselves.

So, Evie, what are your scars???

Evie speaks with the wisdom of someone who has “been there, done that.” She was probably just as nervous when she was a young mom. Now she’s a grandmother. She’s seen the world. Life is all about learning, and we learn from our mistakes.

Please excuse my ignorance. What the deuce is “helicopter parenting?”

This is a classic strip- It’s good to see it again- one of my favorites.Scars teach us how to adapt. Parents (and grandparents, and “created” family) give us the guidance we need to continue to grow the right way. Most of us wouldn’t survive well, though, if we were, in landscaping parlance, “brutally pruned”. True trauma is what parents hope they can protect their child against, but- it happens.

I heard that being a parent is a second chance to get childhood right and being a grandparent is a second chance to get parenting right.

One of the problems is that although grandparents have been there – done that, the younger ones don’t listen. They almost insist on making the mistakes themselves. It’s all part of the fun – I guess.

Thanks.+The part about “kids can do no wrong” reminds me of one case I’d seen: the kid was a total brat and a bully, and his mom only said he was “cute as a button.” You know that the kid is going to turn out wrong. But what can you or anybody do?

STOP ALREADY-YOU ARE AN ANNOYING TROLL

Love your children’s mother and always, always, always be there for your kids and everything will turn out fine.

Cause then parents get blamed for enabling thier child.

Wow! I was just going to comment that it takes becoming a grandparent to realize the truth of this. . . and then I stumble into the middle of all these comments. So, yupp, to add in my 2 cents. . . I won the “mean mother” of the 90s and 00s award, because I did not believe in trophies for showing up breathing. I made my kid work to earn his honors and awards, he had rules and got punished when he broke them. He’s now in grad school, while his friends who had “nice” parents are now scraping by to feed their babies and put gas in their old clunkers, wondering why the world’s not handing them the goodies.