Discussing
Aubrey Ireland, helicopter parents and Christian surrender

A recent entry at the SEND Post Blog looks at the question of helicopter parents from a missions perspective: how can adult children go into all the world and preach the gospel if their parents are helicopter parents?

http://thesendpost.org/helicopter-parents/

To be honest, the college aspect of this bothers me much more than the helicopter parent part. If she's seventeen, eighteen, that's legally an adult. She's old enough to be drafted, to vote, and to enter into a legally-binding contract. That doesn't mean she doesn't need her parents' support, but she needs it in a way that helps her become an adult. The kind of helicoptering you describe sounds like it's counterproductive.

Thinking about parenting (and I'm not one, so take this for what it's worth) I can't help thinking of how God related to Adam + Eve in the Garden. He didn't remove all pitfalls, in fact he purposely created the tree they weren't supposed to eat from. He let them make mistakes, but then he was there to help them manage the fall-out. That seems like a more godly kind of parenting than trying to protect the child from everything s/he might do wrong.