12 Top Parenting Trends for 2011

Hands-off Parenting

Buzzy pieces from Jennifer Senior in New York Magazine and Erica Jong in the The Wall Street Journal gave voice to the angst associated with being helicopter parents who micromanage their kids' time and always put themselves last. Might 2011 be the year parents swing toward a more low-key parenting style, where kids learn to entertain themselves more, and Mommy actually gets a few minutes to read a magazine?

"I'm positive that's going to happen. I've been to three conferences recently about the importance of unsupervised play," says Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry, who also writes the Free-Range Kids blog. "All the yuppie over-involved parents are realizing the most enriching, helpful thing you can do for your children to help them develop socially is to leave them alone and make them fill up their own time."