5 Signs Parents Have Unhealthy Boundaries With Their Teen

The night before my 12-year-old daughter’s first overnight camping trip, I desperately wanted to unzip her suitcase to count how many socks she had packed. My kid showed me the packing list with every item checked off; I just needed to trust her. And if she forgot something (like her raincoat), I knew she’d be resilient enough to handle it.

“Gradual release” is a phrase educators and psychologists use to describe the countless tiny steps parents take in letting go and fostering young adults’ independence, said Meredith Sjoberg, a psychologist and the head of counseling programs at Lakeside School in Seattle.

But what happens when parents don’t ease off and let their young adults develop autonomy while still at home? Haim Ginott, a teacher, psychologist and psychotherapist, originated the phrase “helicopter parenting” — a parenting style that refers to overprotective and overly involved parents — in 1969, and psychologists and researchers have studied various forms of overparenting since then. This year, “Youth,” an international journal, published a research study examining the long-term developmental impact of overparenting on 135 college students at a four-year U.S. university.

“Helicopter parenting during adolescence and emerging adulthood may deprive children of important opportunities to engage in behaviors that would facilitate their successful transition into adulthood,” the authors wrote .

The study also found that overparented children demonstrated perfectionistic traits along with low motivation, mental health challenges and struggles with self-efficacy that followed them into the workplace.

What are some of the red flags that we’re overparenting our teens? I drew on my 14 years of experience as a high