Helicopter Parenting: Film Analysis

Parents are obliged to care for, protect and nurture their offspring. However, some parents take this to the level of extreme and unduly worry about their children’s security (Lent, 2016). This contributes to their obsession of supervising and hovering around their children consistently hence earning the label “Helicopter Parents” (Williams, 2016). Helicopter parenting describes the childrearing style of parents who are extremely over protective and barely give their young a chance to breathe. This particular type of child rearing can negatively impact children. ‘Helicopter parenting’ (Fontaine, 2015) characterises parents who are extremely vigilant and persistently supervise their offspring with the intention of shielding them from any conceivable harm. The fictional film Finding Nemo demonstrates this type of behaviour effectively through over-anxious Marlin, Nemo’s father, who is haunted by the loss of his wife and her eggs in a traumatizing incident. Henceforth he is alert and perpetually follows Nemo everywhere, fearing about Nemo’s safety. Within the film, Nemo’s first day at school concerns Marlin, who discourages Nemo to attend and suggests that “[he] can wait 5 or 6 years.” Similarly, Grace Marguerite Williams (2016) indicates parental behaviours of …show more content…
Whilst appropriate restrictions and barriers on children are a necessity, however children should not be restrained from the opportunity to experience life with its challenges and learn to overcome them. This task has definitely altered my perspective on parenting as my knowledge on raising children has expanded. In the future, when I have children of my own, I am aware of how over protection occurs and its negative impacts. Thus I will ensure my children develop a sense of self-reliance through allowing them the flexibility to make their own