Industry News
Boarding schools allow children to 'grow up'
Posted on 27th December 2007
Over-protective and ambitious parents can avoid smothering their children's development by sending them away to school, an expert suggests.
Vicky Tuck, the principal of Cheltenham Ladies' College, told the Daily Telegraph that "helicopter parents" - always hovering over their children - were interfering with children's ability to learn.
The "least selfish thing" a parent can do for their child was to send their little one to boarding school, she told the newspaper.
She went on to suggest that modern parents were consumed by filling their children's lives with activities and stimulation and had the sense that "they will only develop if they are constantly active".
Helicopter parenting was first used by clinical psychologist and author of The Price of Privilege Madeleine Levine.
The newspaper also noted that children with mobile phones were at the root of helicopter parenting and were "the world's longest umbilical cord".
While parents of younger children may be anxious about their development, Graham Nicholson, president of the Association of Graduate Careers Services, suggested that "under-confident" teenagers were transformed into "exuberant" adults by experiences at university. 
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