Self-proclaimed helicopter parents, is this you?

[xiggi]

<p>

I read a post a couple years ago where the poster told a story about a mother who stayed in town for 10 days after moving her daughter into her freshman dorm. This was a Chinese family sending their first child off to college. In fact, the mother stayed in the daughter’s dorm room for a couple days until her roommate arrived.

</p>

<p>It would have made Pinky MacArthur proud!</p>

<p>

Overparenting had been around long before Douglas MacArthur’s mom Pinky moved with him to West Point in 1899 and took an apartment near the campus, supposedly so she could watch him with a telescope to be sure he was studying. But in the 1990s something dramatic happened, and the needle went way past the red line. From peace and prosperity, there arose fear and anxiety; crime went down, yet parents stopped letting kids out of their sight; the percentage of kids walking or biking to school dropped from 41% in 1969 to 13% in 2001.

</p>

<p>Read more: [Helicopter</a> Parents: The Backlash Against Overparenting - TIME](<a href=“http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1940395,00.html#ixzz18nAsWfzP]Helicopter”>http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1940395,00.html#ixzz18nAsWfzP)</p>