I’m a jellyfish parent – my run-in with a tiger mum was terrifying

Most parents breathe a sigh of relief when the summer holidays are over – but not me. I’ll miss my kids roaming around like free-range chickens, their schedules clear and their activities reserved to climbing a few trees. See, I’m more of a “jellyfish parent” than a “tiger mum”. I take a more laidback, relaxed and flexible approach to my children, instead of being strict, pushy, insistent on extracurricular activities or eager to drive my kids to attain high levels of academic achievement.

Admittedly, it can sometimes feel like “broken-down-car parenting”, but I get through it. Parenting today can become an exhausting drive for perfection, and I’m glad I’ve let go of it. My children – aged five and seven – seem happy and balanced, which to me is the main thing. But as I stand at the school gates waving them off into their new classes, my heart sinks.

Another mum tells me that her five-year-old spent the summer learning Mandarin and coding, and is speeding through the Harry Potter books. I can’t believe it. This mum also recruited a “nanny plus” – otherwise known in tiger mum circles as an “academic nanny”. It’s £30 to £40 per hour, rather than the bog standard £12 to £15 hourly rate for normal childcare – and, she insists, “made all the difference”. She’s hired other specialists, too, such as a Chinese tutor. She even took a bilingual swimming coach on holiday with her family, who doubles up as a French tutor. So if her child is entering year one with the mindset of an Oxbridge student, where does this leave me and my kid’s development? This pushy parenting approach is totally normal to her – and for many other parents whose quest it is to make their child the best.

The idea of a tiger mum falls under the similar “helicopter parent” banner, somebody who – as the name suggests – hovers over their children, anxiously micro-managing their every move, tracking them on spy apps like Find My and Life360, monitoring their Instagram and TikTok posts, even selecting their friends. Sometimes these same parents do their children’s homework for them, bargain with their teachers for higher grades, and hem their offspring in with so many after-school clubs they have zero downtime.

There are further variations on the name, too: lawnmower, snowplough or bulldozer parenting, all examples of parents being super controlling and swooping to the rescue at any sign of conflict. It’s all an attempt to remove obstacles from a child’s path so that they never experience emotional pain, failure or difficult feelings.

Evidence, however, suggests that this kind of parenting may not actually help children succeed so much as harm their mental health long term. A report earlier this year by Dr Peter Gray in The Journal of Pediatrics claimed that the “primary cause” of the rise in childhood and adolescent mental disorders is their increased lack of independence over the decades – or the ability to “play, roam, and engage in other activities” without “direct oversight and control by adults”. Another study, published in The Journal of Child and Family Studies in 2014, also found that over-parenting is contributing to higher levels of child anxiety and depression.

“[Tiger parenting] is most certainly fuelling a mental health crisis in children,” says Jill Martin, lead mental health occupational therapist and co-founder of Purpose People – a mental health occupational therapy practice in London. “I tend to get parents referring their children for maladaptive coping behaviours without realising that a big part of the underlying cause is their helicoptering behaviour … parents don’t know they’re doing it! That’s the hardest part [for me], helping them see that they need to change, and not the child.”

As for my own parenting style, I still have questions. Is it really any better to take the more bohemian and relaxed route? Some experts argue that jellyfish parenting has its drawbacks too, claiming that it’s a far too touchy-feely approach to child-rearing. Jellyfish parents are criticised for walking on eggshells around their kids in fear of upsetting them, essentially letting them run wild and leaving them with no steely core or clear sense of boundaries. You could be raising children to do exactly what they like with no consequences.

While I certainly don’t take things to a “jellyfish” extreme, I do believe in letting my children develop into the little people they truly are – not somebody I’ve carefully moulded. The nearest I’ve ever got to a tutor is having my eldest daughter help her little sister practice her reading – and that’s only because I was too busy working. Should I be taking a leaf out of the tiger parents’ handbook and do more to give my children the brightest future?

“I think the whole ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ school gate mentality is such a natural, normal reaction,” says Kate Shand, the founder, and CEO of Enjoy Education – whose company offers bespoke high-end private tutoring and schools consultancy to royalty and the international jet set crowd. “I think we’re all in danger of having those feelings. At the same time, it’s all about just getting that balance of what your kids need to thrive.”

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Shand, who takes a more pragmatic view on tiger parenting, says there is no “one size fits all” approach to raising children, and that some young people respond well to having a full-on schedule. She adds that “the sky’s the limit” when it comes to possible approaches, but that money tends to help.

“Families will call us and say, ‘You know, my kid wants to do a film course for a week.’ And so we’ll send a film tutor to them wherever they are so they can film with them for a week,” she says. “The rich don’t necessarily want to send their kids to a huge camp where there isn’t much flexibility. They want to be going to their second, third, or fourth home, and they want to take the camp with them. Basically, everything is tailor made.”

Shand admits she’s had the “odd helicopter-type parent” calling on her for support. “You can see they are almost suffocating the child because it is all the stuff they haven’t achieved themselves, or they just want the very best because they never had it themselves. It comes from a good place, but it absolutely can land on a child in a very negative way.” However, she says, so much of the time, “it’s just parents wanting information to make good decisions”.

She also makes the point that in certain cultures, tiger parenting is the norm – in China, for instance, children are expected to put in many more hours of schooling than in the West. “Some parents just want the best grades from the best school and nothing else matters,” she says.

But what exactly makes a tiger parent tick? Sue Kumleben, a parenting coach and co-founder – with Raphaelle Bischoff – of the virtual parenting class company Parenting with Purpose, says a tiger and helicopter parent “usually suffers from some combination of heightened anxiety and an excessive drive for success”.

“The sad truth is that, while all helicopter parents have excellent intentions, their approach backfires,” she continues. “On one hand, tiger mums can contribute to the plague of perfectionism and even foster the narcissism latent in any child. On the other hand, their excessive involvement telegraphs a message that their child is not capable, [which] leads to low self-esteem. The child of a helicopter parent may feel deeply loved, but will have stunted autonomy.”

So how do tiger mums curb their approach if they think it’s gone too far? “Take a parenting course to hone your skills,” Kumleben suggests, along with recommending books such as Lenore Skenazy’s Free-Range Kids. “Interrogate the deep needs and wants that drive you to act as your child’s concierge. Turn your enormous talents and energy to a new project, [which leaves] less room to helicopter. Learn to welcome mistakes as learning opportunities.”

Still, I suspect it’s not so easy to get the balance right. And when all is said and done, I’d much rather be a jellyfish than a tiger when it comes to parenting. The truth is that our children are free spirits and control is an illusion. Absolutely none of us know how they’re going to turn out – and isn’t that incredibly exciting?