Sunday, January 28, 2007

Fear of becoming a "helicopter " parent...

Helicopter parents are so named because, like a helicopter, they hover closely overhead, rarely out of reach whether their children need them or not.

Now, I wouldn't categorize myself as an extremist in this, but I do tend to hover over Molly when she is learning to do things on her own.

Take sitting up for instance... I am just so paranoid about her wacking her little noggin on our laminate floor. So I pad her with quilts, and pillows. Now, she is exploring her padded area, and showing signs of crawling. She is breaching those boundaries, and because her arms are not quite strong enough to support her at a crawl stance she chooses to push her head into the floor, and put her butt in the air. Now this is fine when she is in her crib, or on the quilt because it is padded. Greg says we have to let her learn on her own that if she hits her head, it will hurt. I know he is right, but I hate not having carpeting.

She has hit her head a few times already, and she knows it hurts, but she hasn't made that connection yet in what causes this. It doesn't help that I accidentally let her slip, and fall while getting her out of her jolly jumper while it was still hanging. She hit the floor head first. I was so upset, I cried. She screamed of course, but was fine a couple of minutes later.

I don't want to become a helicopter parent, but does it make me a bad parent for knowingly letting my child hurt herself? My guess is it doesn't make me a bad parent, but it sure makes me feel bad.

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