“Helicopter parents” who try to prevent their children from experiencing disappointment and failure are damaging them and need to “toughen up”, the head of a leading London girls’ school warned.
Heather Hanbury, head of the £23,000-a-year Lady Eleanor Holles school in Hampton, said parents who micro-manage their children’s lives do so because they do not want to deal with the worry of seeing them unhappy.
But, by removing all obstacles from their children’s path they risk hindering their development and maturity.
In a blog post titled “F words — fear, futility and failure”, Mrs Hanbury said schools must work hard to change the attitude that children have to get things right all the time.
