What defines a helicopter parent?

[pbear19]

I would say a defining characteristic is a parent who does things for their child that their child could easily do themselves. Not because the child needs them to, sometimes not even because the child wants them to. But because the parent wants to. If the child is capable of handling a matter on their own, they should do so.

I remember many a time when I was a teenager that my life would have been simpler (and lazier?) if my parents had completed a task for me. They never let me off that easy, I always had to handle my own business.

Examples - parents researching colleges and narrowing down the choices/making the choice, researching greek life, calling an employer to arrange an interview, following up with an employer to find out why the child wasn't hired, etc. Some things are ok to do on your own, potentially, if you are really curious. But make the kid do the legwork themselves. If you want to research colleges to know what your kid is getting themselves into, then do it behind the scenes, so you can ask appropriate questions. Don't do all the research and then present the findings so the child doesn't have to it themselves.

(Disclaimer that I was raised to be very independent and always made my own decisions, so in some ways it's hard for me to empathize with the reasons another person wouldn't be capable of making their own decisions.)