I regret being such a helicopter parent

One day in November 2024, I started to organize an old cupboard full of old school textbooks and discovered, to my surprise, an essay that I had written when I was ten.

The title was “What I would buy if I had £100”.

Just then my grandchildren came rushing through the door. I’m lucky enough to live close to them, so I help out quite a bit, especially during school holidays while their parents are working.

“Look!” I said. “I just discovered a story I wrote. Would you like to write one too?

“Not now,” groaned seven-year-old George. “We want to go out on our bikes in the garden.”

“Mom asked me to do some homework with you,” I begged.

“We don’t want to,” said nine-year-old Rose firmly.

“But you love writing stories.”

It’s true. My granddaughter has a very vivid imagination and I am convinced that she has the writer gene in her.

“Yes, but we don’t want to do that right now,” George retorts.

It was impossible to move them. I have to say I felt like I had failed. Surely that would have been good for them? Besides, stories have always been my passion and I like the idea that they inherit the “writing gene”.

Later, after they returned home, I continued to sort through the cupboard and came across a math notebook with a purple cover and many erasures. One even had 3/10 and the dreaded words “You have to try harder”.

A horrible shiver ran through me. Instantly, I was taken back to the classroom, at age ten, feeling like a complete dunce.

I also went to a very academic school where the expectation was to be on top of everything. Everything about math literally made me break out in a cold sweat – and still does.

My father, in an effort to improve my grades, had spent hours trying to help me with a daunting mental arithmetic like this: “If a baker has 12 buns and they each cost 3 pence, how much is do they raise in everything? »

I couldn’t do it for love or money and it made me feel completely stupid. This harassment, although done with the best intentions, had only made things worse.

Yet I had continued this with my own children: always practicing beyond spelling and making sure they had done their homework.

I have to say that all three got good grades and degrees, but the pressure of my expectations left us all very stressed.

And now here I am, doing the exact same thing with my own grandchildren. Often during my grandmother years I sit them down and give them spelling tests and even math when they really want to do something else.

Worse still, I don’t always know what I’m doing. Nowadays, they add, subtract and divide in a completely different way. But this pattern of “you have to do well in school” is so firmly ingrained in my head that I just can’t help it.

Until now. That horrible math book with its purple cover had made me understand something. I would become a helicopter grandmother! Not only that, but I transferred my own academic likes and dislikes to them (English every time rather than math or science!).

It was time to relax.

So I’ve been trying ever since. I won’t say it was easy. It’s a big responsibility having grandchildren and I’m often at the limit – not just with homework but with everything else. In fact, it’s fair to say that I’m constantly expecting disaster around the corner. “Watch out for that car,” “take my hand,” and “wait for me” are practically etched on my tongue and they always will be.

I am also interested in good table manners. “They are much worse at your place than at ours,” said my daughter. “I think they’re making fun of you.”

Most likely.

I have, however, cut back on stubborn homework. Instead of looking up “words every seven or eight year old should know” and taking spelling tests, I now start my grandmotherly days with crafts like tie dyeing or walks. adventure along the beach. Then I’ll slip in some academic know-how, such as: “Did you know that the white-toothed cowrie is the rarest shell in the world?”

Recently, on a snowy day, we were playing educational board games without even realizing it – because we were laughing so much.

Then last week something happened. “You know, that story you showed us about what you would buy if you had £100,” Rose said. “What did you write?”

“I said I would buy my mother some driving lessons.”

“Why hasn’t she driven already?”

“Because it was expensive like it is now,” I explained. “Also, at that time, a lot of women didn’t drive.”

“Why not?”

This led to a long discussion about times and monetary values ​​that had changed since then.

“Can we write down what we would buy if we had £100? » Rose asked, apparently forgetting that she hadn’t wanted to do it before.

“Of course.”

So I opened my grandchildren’s kitchen drawer, filled with pens and paper.

I’ll tell you what they put in when they’re finished. Apparently they’re still working on it and I’m not going to rush them. This is part of my newfound relaxation.

Meanwhile, I asked George – who is particularly good with numbers – to explain the modern method of division. Nowadays it’s more like a game and, you know, it’s actually quite fun. Best of all, it builds his confidence as an expert as well as mine as a novice.

I’m always striving to become a more relaxed grandmother. But when I find myself slipping, I go back to that horrible purple math book I found and remind myself that “nagging for the better” doesn’t help that special relationship between a grandparent and grandchild .

It’s the magic of laughter and happy faces that make memories. So excuse us. We are just arriving at the tip. I decided to empty this closet for good.

Jane Corry is the author of eight Sunday Times Penguin bestsellers. His latest novel is I died on a Tuesdayabout a woman who hovers between life and death