What's a helicopter parent? The imagination boggles.

What's a helicopter parent? The imagination boggles.

A beloved annual tradition is wrecked by inexcusably childish behavior — from the parents, not the kids.

It's safe to say the 2011 Easter egg hunt in Old Colorado City, Colo., did not go as planned. Organizers had expected young kids to waddle out into Bancroft Park and collect the brightly colored plastic eggs that had been strewn on the grass. Instead, when the master of ceremonies gave the signal to start, the field was overrun by overzealous parents. The hunt was over in the blink of an eye, much to the bewilderment of the children standing on the sidelines and the anger of those parents who had played by the rules.

This year, Old Colorado City canceled the event, and the debacle is being characterized as a prime example of "helicoptering," in which parents constantly hover over their children and try to micromanage every part of their lives. Is the city's Easter egg controversy a symptom of a larger problem?

Parents these days can't let children be children: Old Colorado City's Easter egg hunt is a "perfect metaphor" for our times, Ron Aslop, the author of The Trophy Kids Grow Up, tells the Associated Press. Parents "can't stay out of their children's lives. They don't give their children enough chances to learn from hard knocks, mistakes." And the phenomenon isn't going away anytime soon. Everything from college admissions to day camps is "more competitive, fast paced," and parents will do everything they can "to help their kids get an edge."

TheWeek March 27, 2012 Colorado's ruined Easter egg hunt: Helicopter parents gone too far?

At a Sacramento job fair last fall, the polished, well-dressed woman went from booth to booth, recruiter to recruiter, passing out résumés, asking about job openings. Not for herself, however. For her son.

" 'He just graduated. He has a degree. He's sharp. He doesn't know what he wants to do, but I think he'd be good at HR (human resources),' " recalls Preet Kuar, a Manpower company recruiter who spoke with the mom.

For baby boomer parents, who have diligently – some would say obsessively – followed their children from diapers to diplomas, that encounter was perhaps the next logical phase of so-called "helicopter parenting."

Clearly, parental hovering doesn't end at college graduation but continues well into the job hunt. According to a recent survey of more than 3,000 employers by the Collegiate Employment Research Institute, or CERI, based at Michigan State University, about a third – 31 percent – of companies report that parents are more involved in their son's or daughter's career search than prior to the recession.