Italian version

A few weeks ago a friend told me about helicopter parents.
“What does it mean?” I asked her curiously.
The comparison with the helicopter has a twofold meaning. On the one hand, the tendency to constantly monitor and control the child’s life, like a spotterhelicopter; on the other hand, interventions designed to remove the child from situations of difficulty or distress, just as happens in a helicopter rescue in which the person is picked up and removed from danger. This can happen in any setting in which the parent wants to prevent the child from not only possible failure or defeat, but also situations that are difficult to handle.
This type of intervention is motivated by the sincere and natural intention to protect one’s child, but it should not become a habit and should be implemented only in .appropriate cases In fact, if applied in situations that normally a child or adolescent would have to face alone, it becomes an overly protective attitude that risks hindering the child’s healthy development. It does not help him or her to grow in his or her own ability to cope independently with problems and difficulties, and it can create the basis for poor decision-making autonomy.
Parenting wisely is a wonderfully complicated task. In this regard I leave the reader with the illuminating words of Kahlil Gibran in “The Prophet,” a wonderful 1923 text that has been translated into some fifty languages and has been read by millions of people around the world. It was first published in 1923 by the publisher Knopf.
In the chapter devoted to children, we read.

Your children are not your children…they are the sons and daughters of the very force of Life.
They are born through you, but not of you.
They dwell with you, yet they do not belong to you.
You can give them your love, but not your ideas.
…
You are the bow from which, like living arrows, your children are shot forward.
The Archer aims at the target on the path of infinity and holds you taut with all his vigor so that his arrows may go fast and far.
Let yourself be stretched with joy in the hands of the Archer, for he loves in equal measure and the arrows that fly and the bow that remains steadfast.

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