Friday, January 4, 2008
Damn Helicopter Parents
Luckily, I haven't had to deal with this too much. The BBC has an interesting article, including the 5 different types of helicopter parents. The worst I've gotten so far is an e-mail from a parent. But I am really expecting it to pick up. Not to sound like an old fogey, but in my day, we didn't want our parents around 'interfering' with our life. Nowadays, it seems like the kids never grow up! The parents keep doing things so the kids don't have to. So when they get to my freshmen college course, they're young and don't know what it means to try and be an adult. I'm not saying my generation succeeded at being an adult ;) but at least we wanted to try it out.
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2 comments:
I'm the parent of a freshman, and it's interesting to see your thoughts on the helicopter issue. Over the last year I've written quite a few posts about my son's search for the right college and the transition and resulting empty nest as he set out on his college career.
The last time I specifically addressed the helicopter topic was after last fall's National Survey of Student Engagement results were reported. One interesting finding was “Contrary to what some educators believe, students who frequently talk with the parents and follow their advice participate more frequently in educationally purposeful activities and are more satisfied with their college experience. This is also true for students with so-called ‘helicopter parents’—those who intervened with institutional officials to solve problems their student encountered on campus.”
My Millennial son is different from his GenX older brother. And the link to the BBC article hit the nail on the head as to one key reason: cell-phones. My son will call more regularly than I ever expected.
When we took him to freshman orientation, his college included a rather extensive parent orientation where this very issue of helicoptering was discussed after which I felt reassured.
I'm close to my son but do not try to solve problems for him like I know some parents do. When he got a D on one of his first exams, he went to talk to the professor. Son set up new study guidelines for himself and ended up with steadily improving grades. He ended up with a A. But I had nothing to do with his success.
I guess some parents need more help in breaking away from the coach/manager/advocate role and you get stuck dealing with the ones who haven't learned to let go.
It's nice to hear from an actual parent (especially a non-helicopter one ;) I haven't had too much trouble so far, but I've heard horror stories from colleagues and in print. I agree that parents and students should have a close relationship, and it makes complete sense that that would help them (as the survey you cite indicates). Unfortunately, some parents go too far. If the helicopter parents are responsible for cleaning up the problems, even if it helps the student in the short run, it hurts them in the long run, because they aren't the ones fixing the problem. Eventually mom and dad aren't going to be around and then what does the grown up kid do?
As a GenXer, I can *really* see the difference between my generation and the next. I have a borderline-millenial sibling and we're completely opposite in how we deal with things.
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