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Woman's Hour

Parenting: Snowplough Parents

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture

4.13K Ratings

🗓️ 8 January 2020

⏱️ 9 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We’ve heard of the helicopter mum. Now here comes the snowplough. That’s the term used to describe an overprotective parent who clears anything in their path in order to ensure their child’s success. But what does this behaviour do to a child? Jenni is joined by Rebecca Glover, Principal of Surbiton High School who has created a TedX Talk ‘Do Snowplough parents remove true grit?’ and Dr Angharad Rudkin, a child psychologist.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless

0:06.8

searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the

0:11.8

telly we share what we've been watching

0:14.0

Fladiated.

0:16.0

Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.

0:19.0

Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.

0:21.0

And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less

0:25.0

searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC Sounds.

0:31.0

BBC Sounds Music music radio podcasts.

0:34.4

Hello Jenny Murray welcoming you to today's podcast for parents.

0:38.9

Now we've all heard of the helicopter parents, the one who constantly hovers over the children to make sure they're doing the right thing at all times.

0:49.0

Well, there's a new name for a slightly different kind of attentive mother or father, the snow plow makes it his or her business

0:57.1

to make sure all obstacles are cleared from the path of their child to make sure nothing

1:02.1

blocks their route to a successful future.

1:05.0

Well what impact does that kind of constant attention have on the child?

1:10.0

Dr. Anharad Rugin is a child psychologist Rebecca Glover is the principal of Surbiton High School whose

1:17.4

Ted X talk is called Do Snow Plow Parents Remove True Grid.. Rebecca as a teacher what examples of the

1:26.0

snowplow parent have you come across? Yes good morning. There are a number of

1:31.3

examples that I've experienced over my 30 years.

1:35.0

More recently, I suppose, the introduction of a homework app in schools

1:41.0

allows pupils, but more important to hear parents, to be able to see homeworks as they are

1:45.8

set by the teacher in any school day. And we more recently had a year nine parent came to see me to say that the app was actually distracting her from her working day

...

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