Big Think | IdeaFeed: In a way, I understand the plight of the helicopter parent. Raising a kid is expensive. It takes time. It takes determination. For many folks, a child is the most important investment they'll ever make. And just like any other highly leveraged investment, you want to keep tabs on it and make sure it's protected. Thus, the overbearing e-mails to teachers and the windfalls of cash spent on safety features and now, as mentioned in this Washington Post piece, phone calls to college presidents regarding dorm disputes. Yeah, you read that right. Helicopter Mom and Helicopter Dad are still fighting their kids' battles on the collegiate level.
17 comments:
I firmly believe that parents should be a part of one's life at college, but be a part, not the whole thing. Like the author of the article stated, it is a good thing to take interest in what your child does, but over parenting is dangerous. I also think an important thing to observe in this issue, is the order of the child. For example, I am the last-born in my family, and therefore my parents have slowly given me more and more freedom than they gave my older siblings. Therefore, the entire process has been easier for them than it was for my older siblings because they have said goodbye before.
Going to college is a huge step in a kids life but it is a step they need to try and make on their own. It is scary and it is overwhelming but if your parents hole your hand through it a child may never be able to fully do things on their own. These are the years when you start transforming yourself into an adult and it is hard to do that if your parents are there to take care of you and call the school on your behalf. Now is our time to fight our own battles and take care of ourselves. We have to do our own laundry, clean our rooms, manage our time, make friends, and succeed in school. These are big moments for a kid and it has to be something that they get to do, on their own.
Going to college is a huge step in a kids life but it is a step they need to try and make on their own. It is scary and it is overwhelming but if your parents hole your hand through it a child may never be able to fully do things on their own. These are the years when you start transforming yourself into an adult and it is hard to do that if your parents are there to take care of you and call the school on your behalf. Now is our time to fight our own battles and take care of ourselves. We have to do our own laundry, clean our rooms, manage our time, make friends, and succeed in school. These are big moments for a kid and it has to be something that they get to do, on their own.
I will never understand helicopter parents. I know it is scary to allow your precious child out into the big bad world, but they do need to leave sometime, and parents need to have faith in their children and in the fact that they have taught their children well. I also wonder what has changed culturally to result in an increase in helicopter parents, as I don’t think they existed, or at least were not nearly this prevalent, in previous generations. I imagine that technology has helped, as it is much easier to keep constant tabs on your child when they have cellphones or you can constantly email them. However, there also has to have been a cultural shift in order to facilitate this sort of thing, as I don’t think overbearing parents existed to such an extent in previous generations. If we can pinpoint what started this trend, we may be able to prevent it from occurring in the next generation.
Fortunately I grew up in a household of trust, in which my parents trusted me to make smart decisions and to handle myself responsibly because of how they raised me. I firmly believe that you should always try and maintain a relationship with your parents at college, but not to the point to where it seems you haven't even left home. I traveled 2500 miles by myself to go to school away from home, friend, and family. It is part of growing up, and it it something that should be undertaken without the worry of an overbearing or "helicopter parent" hovering around. It would ultimately only hurt the son or daughter's experience at school and in life, how are your going to garner responsibility if your parents are trying to do it for you?
This really just makes me feel bad for the kids, or at this point adults. You would think that parents would realize if they never let their kids do anything for themselves, or by themselves. than they wont learn how to be self sufficient. My situation was a little weird growing up because I was at the opposite end of the spectrum. I had almost no interaction with my parents. But I definitely prefer that to the idea of having someone follow me around trying fight all my battles for me. Unless you don’t want your children to succeed at some point you have to let them be self-sufficient and sending them to college seems to be a pretty good point to do that.
I think the biggest myth about helicopter parenting is that it only becomes a problem when a freshman gets to a dorm room. It's illogical to expect both a parent and a child to go from 1000% involvement in solving a child's every problem to "See ya at Christmas!"
Usually, the parents who are calling university presidents are the same parents who have legislated and mediated every dispute a child had on an elementary school playground, or called the teacher every time Johnny got a bad grade on a spelling test. Perhaps my news sources are skewed towards college-aged kids and this already is a larger conversation in the child development world, but I think that ignoring problematic helicopter-ish behavior when kids are young just sets both kids and parents up for failure when they get older.
I think that this phenomenon relates to an article I read about the growth of students who go away for school versus the growth of students who stay at home and go to school, and the results were very similar. It's important to have a support system, but it's equally important to make sure that the support system doesn't consume you and effect your individual development. This also makes me think of the parents who live vicariously through their children and thus pressuring them into a field of study that they may not really be interested in, which does no one any good. I really like the strategy of having a conversation about leaving for school with your child and speaking to them as an equal. That kind of conversation allows the parents to recognize their child as an adult and treat them as such, which I feel would alleviate the chances of having helicopter parent-like tendencies in the future.
My parents have a great deal of trust in me, so they rarely question my decision making or my confidence. As an only child, however, I find it strange and heartbreaking that I am drifting away from my parents through both physical and emotional distance. It hurts not to be at the center of your family's world, but it's rewarding to know that you can actually manage without the unfailing support of your parents. As painful as the separation may be, I believe it is ultimately beneficial to have your child work out their problems on their own, especially if they are considered a legal adult.
I agree with the overall point of this article. I think parents should be there to help and support their kids when they are asked for it, not whenever they feel its necessary. I firmly believe that college is supposed to be the time in kids lives when they are learning about how to live independently and make it for themselves in the world. Also its the time when everyone really learns the consequences of their actions, good and bad. If parents are too present during this time, kids will never learn and that will stifle their independence once they graduate.
Working in Student Life, I have definitely heard about and dealt with a few helicopter parents in the past. I completely agree with the article, parents are important, they nearly always are your best support system, but they cannot do everything for their kids. I don't understand how parents do everything for their kids. How would the kids ever learn everything? What really scares me for people are the parents that go to their kids job interviews. How is that ok at all?!?!????
My parents have not necessarily been helicopter parents, but definitely highly invested in my education, as well as the rest of my life. I would certainly place them under the category of "overly-protective", but not to the point that they completely controlled my life as a child and a teenager. My mother always said at the beginning that she wouldn't get involved in my grades, but usually a few weeks into classes I'd have a printed out copy of my grades with the ones that were either not good enough or incomplete highlighted. She has gotten much better at not checking in on my grades and coursework since I stated college, but she still expects a final tally at the end of each semester so she can make sure I'm doing well. I understand her motives, but I know that I'm doing fine by my standards, and think she should take my word for it rather than wanting cold hard facts that don't reflect my work in any way other than the percentage that the teacher has deemed correct.
Helicopter parenting is a big deal in today's society. With the existence of cell phones and social media, it is so much easier to be constantly a part of someone's life than it once was. I have friends who don't live close to me that I talk to every day, but I probably wouldn't if it weren't so simple to be able to. I think this ease of communication can be wonderful, and can help with the maintenance of long distance relationships with others. However, people's parents, who they have, in most cases, lived with for 18 years before going to college, can become a major problem. Parents are losing touch with what it means to let their child grow. And, no, as much as it might hurt, they can't grow with you constantly by their side. We all need opportunities to take on the world on our own, and that starts in college. I don't talk to my parents every day or even every week, which is still baffling to some people. People can view it as rejection, rather than independence. I think it would serve many to step away from that fear and try to handle more situations on their own.
I think that you can't eliminate a parents role from someonses college experience. I think that students should have the right to go forth and explore the world on their own. But one can't expect parents to not take some part in support their college experiences. I think that it's important for students to have a strong support system and someone whom they connect with outside the university. Sure I don't think that parents should be 100% involved in all decision made by students and their education. But I think that students who are lucky enough to have the support of their parents should definitely utilize it
I think I see myself in this article. This might sound silly, but it's exactly the kind of situation I've been through when I was in college. My parents never let me do anything that they thought it's not safe and not a proper behavior for a girl to do. So I never went to a bar, staying late at school with friends unless when we need to work on a project, which my parents will come pick me up no matter how late it was and it means I can't actually stayed that late cause my friends started to feel uncomfortable making my parents staying late at night waiting for us. I wasn't allow to stat in a dorm or go to my friend's dorm and etc. And that led me to problems and having difficulty having friends and many people don't like me. It bacame much better after I get older and start working. And it's great after I moved here and started living alone by myself without having them around because now I feel like I have more freedom and less stressful and I can actually hang out with friends without having to worry about my parents. It's bad to feel like this especially when I know the reason behind their actions is because they love me. But if I become a mom myself I might not overparenting my kids this much like what my parents did.
Parents often have a harder time dealing with the change of their children going to college than the child themselves. After 18+ years, something they value extremely just disappears. That being said, I do not at all believe that parents need to be involved in every aspect of the child's life in college. College is a space to grow and become independent. Not only that, but there isn't a lot of free time, and so making time for parents is sometimes a hindrance rather than helpful. I personally only contact my parents on the weekends therefore there is rarely a time restriction on our conversation. Since we only speak weekly, they are still involved in my life to a degree, but I also have the independence that I need to become an adult.
A parent has every right to remain an influential part of their child's life in college, especially if they are paying for it. However the expectation is that as an adult not only should the parents realize its time to step back, but that the child has been sufficiently prepared for the grand undertaking that is life. It is simply not appropriate for a parent to continue in such a manner that the child is not learning the basics of societal interactions or functions.
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