Lawnmower Parents Are the New Helicopter Parents — Only They Might Be Even Worse

It's easy to empathize with the desire to not see your child struggle. Likely for the same reason helicopter parents exist, this new version is also well-intended.

"Maybe they experienced a lot of shame around failure as a child," the teacher wrote. "Or maybe they felt abandoned by their parents in their moments of struggle, or dealt with more obstacles than most."

It's inevitable that a parent won't be able to mow down every single moment of adversity for their children, and when those instances do appear, kids will likely panic or shut down.

"We are creating a generation that has no idea what to do when they actually encounter conflict," the teacher wrote.

One more devastating risk is that without knowing and using proper methods for dealing with stress or failure, these kids will end up developing more destructive coping mechanisms. They may blame others, they may over-internalize, or they may face addiction.

"If we eliminate all struggle in children's younger years, they will not arrive at adulthood magically equipped to deal with failure," she wrote.

The teacher then gave an example about what happens when a child, who never learned these skills, fails a test in college for the first time.

The student won't be able to say, "Oh, I really need to study harder," nor will that student think to reach out to the professor for advice or join a study group. Instead, they will likely respond in one of the following ways:

• Blame the professor
• Call home and beg their parents to intervene
• Have a mental breakdown or make themselves miserable
• Write nasty reviews online about the professor and their class
• Begin planning for the inevitable destruction of their college career
• Assume they failed because they're stupid
• Collapse in on themselves, give up completely, and stop trying

For those parents who have children who suffer from anxiety or depression, it might seem more prudent to help remove as many challenges as possible, particularly if they've seen the way their child has responded negatively in the past.

"While I fully acknowledge every child and situation is different — for example, [special needs] students absolutely need certain struggles eliminated to be on a level playing field with their peers — I'm not sure that the solution for every sensitive child is to remove as much struggle as possible," the teacher, who has clinical anxiety, wrote. "I can't imagine how much worse my anxiety would be if my parents had taught me that my anxiety was something to be feared and avoided."

The solution is clear, the teacher wrote: "If we want our children to be successful, healthy adults, we must teach them how to process through their own challenges, respond to adversity, and advocate for themselves."