How did the latchkey kid generations grow up to become helicopter parents?

On a recent drive home on a busy four-lane road during Friday evening rush hour, in a momentary break in the traffic, I saw a group of middle-school aged kids crossing the road on their bikes and it got me to thinking about the last time I had seen something that was such a routine part of our childhoods.

The societal shift in how and where kids gather and play, especially in many areas across the U.S., has happened in just half a generation...and it's our generation of 40-year olds whose collective decisions have disappeared some of the most formative aspects of our childhoods from the childhoods of our children. 

So how did we become these kinds of parents? And whether you have children or not, in what ways are our generation's ideas of protection and safety having side effects on the experiences of our youth?

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