Despite my personal belief that it's better to let the kids have a chance to work it out, I've done my fair share of stepping in. Because I'm just too afraid of getting The Look.

We live in a time when we can Google everything, share ideas and expose our children to amazing opportunities, but anyone that implies that they have it figured out is either drunk or lying (or both), so don't be too hard on yourself.

Paul Wallich's ingenuity is no joke, but feel free to insert your own helicopter-parent joke here: The Vermont dad built a camera-mounted drone helico...

"I Won't Supervise Your Kids" ™ is different from soccer and ballet because the kids have to figure out what to do with themselves.

The plan was to drop my son off at college this weekend and come home to write about my newly emptied nest. But then Isaac turned toward New Orleans, and my goal of being a laid back, non-helicoptering mother turned into something else, too.

Sometimes I purposely make the whirring noise of rapidly spinning propellers to punctuate the fact that like many Manhattan mothers I am called a "helicopter."

I've been appalled at the way in which NBC's Olympic coverage has become a celebration of parents crossing the line from healthy support of their children into a neurotic condition of living their lives through the experiences of their offspring.

Fiction of all sorts, including nursery rhymes, allows us to try out conflict in a safe way. That's the point, it's where the thrill comes in; we're scared, then reassured the danger isn't real.

I know our 12-year-old is going to ask for assurance that something like that can never happen to her and would never happen where we live. And I know there will be nightmares and much more anxiety to come for her when neither I nor her dad can make her that promise.

A parent who is so close to her daughter that she would spend $115,000 to get her a job, but is NOT so close to her daughter as to mention that fact? What mother do you know who would not bring it up every single day?

Adults -- teachers and parents -- need to help children understand that making mistakes is a normal part of learning.

When we are misattuned to the developmental stages of our children, carrying them when they'd rather walk, breastfeeding them when they'd rather play, we undermine their confidence.

We wouldn't expect our child to heal from an illness by going about their daily lives, yet we are hesitant to make changes in the home that can benefit our overwhelmed kids. Why?

"Stop right there," I said. "You cannot study all those things. How would that look to the admissions committees at the colleges where you're applying to four years from now? They want to see that you have just one passion, two at the most. Top candidates choose something they love in third grade and stick with it."