Authors of a new study are claiming it to be the first to examine the effect of "helicopter parents" -- so named because of how they hover over their children, often in their college years, and take the lead roles in managing their lives.

Think about what happens when a helicopter hovers over a particular spot -- items around that spot often get blown into disarray. Helicopter parents work the same way. Whenever they blow in to solve even the most minor of problems for their kids, unnecessary disruptions are likely to follow.

Parental involvement is a great thing. It's a crucial component of a child's success in school and in life. However, like so many other positive activities, it can be carried to an unhealthy extreme. That's what makes helicopter parents at college a growing menace from above.

The study released Monday asserts the opposite. The National Survey of Student Engagement found that kids who are hovered over get more out of their college experience, and become more involved in campus life.

What the study failed to adequately do, however, is to define the line between being an involved parent and an over involved one.

It's one thing for a parent to help a son move into his dorm room, maybe meet his roommate and call from home once in a while. It's another thing to install a 24-hour "nanny-cam" in the dorm room, and place a tracking chip in the son's car.

That's not an exaggeration for effect, either. According to the survey, the latter example actually happened.

The college experience used to be more of a time when parents' supervisory bonds would fade a bit, and young students would gain independence and find identity. Helicopter parenting squelches that. It instead creates a neediness, and fosters in the student an inability to cope with even ordinary academic issues, such as disputing a grade or deciding which classes to take. Faculty and staff at colleges nationwide are seeing more of helicopter parenting's ill effects every year.

Modern technology makes it even easier to hover (remember that nanny-cam?). University of Georgia professor Richard Mullendore has called the cell phone "the world's longest umbilical cord," as he recently described incidents at UGA in which students frustrated with class registration simply will call their parents and hand the phones to their advisers.

Worse, that umbilical cord is stretching beyond college campuses. Stories have emerged from corporate America about moms and dads who will call their kids' internship supervisors and dispute their sons' and daughters' job duties, or gripe about treatment at work.

Parents are even sitting in on job interviews. How do you think that level of dependency looks in the eyes of a boss?

Many helicopter parents say they view their actions as managing an investment -- after all, college these days isn't cheap, and they want a good return on the money they spend.

But as much as parents want to guide their children into successful lives, that concern shouldn't spill over into the kind of smothering that will do their kids more harm than good. If matriculating college students can't summon the independence and assertiveness to deal with basic circumstances that life throws at them, how can we expect them to function as responsible adults?

By all means, parents, love your children and be there for them. America needs stronger, positive family structure.

But rearing children isn't just about doing things for them. It's also about teaching them to cope, and to solve problems, and nurturing them into an adulthood in which they can stand on their own two feet. And that can be done without sitting in the cockpit of a metaphorical helicopter.

It's like the old quote says: "If you love someone, set them free."