Helicopter parenting is trending in India. Here's why

The discourse on parenting practices has seen several changes with more recent research emphasising its cultural prominence. In the 1990s, the "Mozart effect" espoused by Dr. Alfred Tomatis, came into the spotlight after a research paper published in the reputed journal, "Nature", showed evidence of the usefulness of listening to classical music in infancy (such as Mozart) for improving intellectual competence. This idea was vetoed when more robust research showed that gains were either limited, short term, or outright absent.

The Walt Disney company was forced to offer reimbursements to those who had hoped to raise genius babies by purchasing Disneys' "Baby Einstein" videos that used visual images interspersed with sound and music and had previously made such claims as helping increase children's linguistic prowess.

The dominant ideology seen in ubër urban parenting practices in India is what is popularly known as "helicopter parenting", "hover-parenting" (hovermoms and hoverboards) or "intensive parenting." While one might argue that the traditional urban Indian family cherishes and protects their children, especially sons, with what famous psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar calls "relentless physical ministrations," researchers Cline & Fay define intensive parenting as the practice wherein well-intentioned parents continue to extensively intervene and make decisions for their almost adult children.


The question posed by the typical Indian parent is this: "If we do not pressurise our child to study, how will they get that (coveted) degree seat in an engineering or medical college?"

For younger children and adolescents, such parents do not encourage autonomy and tend to monitor, assist or dominate their schoolwork, homework, projects, house chores and social communication with friends and family. They may exert physical and psychological control by trading love, warmth, or material possessions in exchange for obedience. The deleterious short and long-term effects of such parenting practices can include clinical depression, anxiety and stress, and, in extreme cases, self-harm.

Although researchers have not yet pin-pointed the exact mechanisms at work, psychotherapy has helped parents to gain some insight and to become more supportive and encouraging of their child's independence and problem-solving abilities. Adolescents and young adults raised by parents who support age-appropriate autonomous behaviours are better adjusted as adults. Research suggests that such children grow to be more responsible, confident and have more stable jobs and marriages.

The question posed by the typical Indian parent in therapy is this: "If we do not pressurise our child to study, how will they get that (coveted) degree seat in an engineering or medical college?" Here, we are confronted with the larger problem of India's education system.

In therapy, we point out to parents the irony of 20-30% graduates being unemployed or underpaid, including those from premier Indian medical, management and engineering institutes including the IIMs and the IITs.

We also ask that they consider the mental and physical health correlates of their children, who endure a life scripted not by themselves, but by their elders. On weighing the costs and benefits of the choices that they are yet to make, parents more often than not, choose to change.