A Curling Parenting Style Has Its Costs
I wondered if I had coined the term “curling parenting.” Turns out I did not. Apparently it is a Danish idiom for “helicopter parenting.” I see the similarities in those two phrases as well as differences. Helicopter parenting is hovering and zooming in and landing quickly to get involved in your child’s life. In my thinking curling takes that to a whole new level.
If you were lucky enough to have time to watch some of the recent winter Olympics, you would have seen the graceful yet quirky sport of curling in which orbs are sent gently spinning along the ice toward a circle in which you want the orb to land. One person launches the orb and two others walk next to the orb furiously smoothing the ice in front of the orb to clear its path of any bumps and to help control its pace. Ultimately curlers are guiding their orb to a spot they have decided they want it to be.
Curling parenting is well-intentioned but problematic in two key ways. First, parents are choosing the path for their children and trying a variety of ways to steer their children toward a destination, rather than letting children decide a direction. Second, the feverish smoothing of the ice is a metaphor for literally trying to “get in front of” hardship or bumps in the road of life. Both of these dynamics contribute to a parent-child relationship in which the child is reliant on a parent for making decisions. They learn not to trust their own sense of direction. And they don’t trust themselves to be able to handle the hiccups and bumps in the road, because they don’t have the experience of learning to cope with them. Curling accidentally teaches our kids that the world is a scary place out there, in which we make feverish motions to smooth the path to “the right place.”
Many of us can see how curling parenting feels as though it is caring parenting. To care for our children we want to set a course for them toward success and help them stay on it. But too much parent involvement teaches kids how NOT to trust their instincts and abilities, and sets kids up for fear about the unknown and the unguided aspects of life.
To learn more about curling parenting, and ways to hang up those cool curling shoes, take a listen to this week’s podcast interview with Rashid Curtis.
Remember that we create healthy resilient children when we:
Help them choose a path that suits them
Support them in handling hardship rather than removing all hardship
That there is rarely a “right decision” for life’s choices, but rather different decisions with different implications
Teach them to trust that they can do hard things with a loving support system
Thanks for being here.
Dr. Laura Anderson
Dr. Laura S. Anderson specializes in educating and supporting families, as well as clinicians who support transracial adoptive families, across the globe to overcome barriers, derive strength from their differences, and thrive. She is a dynamic advocate for multiracial families and a strong advocate for supporting "third culture" children and families who may need support with the stressors associated with living out of their countries of origin.
Contact Dr. Anderson here.
