The journalist Eva Millet tells in her book Hiperpaternidad (Editorial Platform) that her grandmother recommended behaving in front of children “as if they were furniture”. That is, ignore them until the tantrum is over or they’ve stopped caring. Now Millet thinks they are moving from the “chair or table model” to putting them on an altar. “Hyperfatherhood is the type of parenting that consists of being constantly attuned to the boy or girl, attending to or anticipating their every need, structuring their days, including free time, and solving any problem that arises,” leads he off In thousands of households, they are the absolute center of the family, the focus of attention and care, as if the world revolves around them like the sun.
The concept of a helicopter dad comes from those parents who, in all contexts, fly over their children’s existence. As the journalist recounts, the term first appeared in the 1969 book Between Parent and Teenager, written by psychologist and educator Haim G. Ginott. “My mother flies over me like a helicopter,” complains a teenager in her office. It is not very difficult to recognize them: they are the very committed and extremely suffering fathers and mothers whose task is to avoid any accident or small scratch. What used to be normal and taken for granted, like climbing trees, is now a series of: “Better not”, “Come down there”, “That’s dangerous, the devil is getting involved”.
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Millet considers sandwich parents to be real Spaniards: “They chase after their sons or daughters in the park with snacks in hand or, if they are less active, limit themselves to being their patient shadow.” In Hyperpaternity, the opinion of the psychologist Maribel Martínez is collected: “This kind of upbringing, based on always carrying children between cotton wool and solving their problems as a rule, makes them useless both emotionally and for pragmatic things.” Maybe the message they get is, “You just can’t do it.” And, as Millet assures, what they are told between the lines is: “You are incapable.” “Having someone who forbids you to make mistakes prevents you from learning from the mistakes you make, and that’s the key to development,” writes Martínez.
It seems that life is made easier for them, they are educated and accompanied, they are pampered in good health, but they are denied the acquisition of autonomy. The teacher and educational psychologist Estefanía del Pozo Asensio, known on social media as Mi Pizarra Educativa (she has 32,500 followers on Instagram), believes that excessive pressure or nurturing can only have negative consequences: “We need to educate boys and girls so that They are autonomous, they are able to solve their problems, they have their times and spaces, they think and develop their imagination and creativity.”
For Del Pozo, a child is autonomous when they are able to carry out tasks appropriate to their age: “This allows them to better assess their abilities, teaches them to make mistakes and not just strive for excellence with the pressure and fear this includes”. Hypervigilant parents also disrupt children’s self-efficacy, that is, their ability to trust their abilities to achieve goals. “When they feel able to solve different situations, to find multiple solutions to a problem, it has a direct impact on their self-esteem,” affirms the teacher.
Overprotectiveness is also directly related to fear and anxiety. It prevents learning to search for life, how to deal with frustration and how to deal with setbacks. For psychologist Marta Segrelles, growing up with excessive anxiety can leave you not knowing how to tell an alarm from a real danger. “As adolescents and adults, they can feel enormously overwhelmed by everyday situations such as making a decision, changing plans or an unforeseen event in the social context,” he says.
Fear is a protective emotion that arises in relationship situations through heredity or personal experience. “What we often observe has to do with heredity, because this fear-based parenting style can affect children in new situations in the form of more anxious, demanding or avoidant behavior,” says the injury psychologist.
Children need security in their relationships, not control. “Being raised to be overprotective means that in adulthood they can wear a kind of glasses that look at the world and see threats everywhere,” says Segrelles. Hyper fatherhood makes it difficult for them to trust their abilities to handle situations as well as doubting their own resources to sustain emotions or situations. “As they grow up, they usually feel like a burden and don’t want to take care of it, they’re comfortable obeying others and serving others,” he concludes. Frustrations are part of life, so it’s the family job to help them settle in, not avoiding paperwork and providing them with shells or establishing them at the center of isolated crystal balls.
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