Deans Can't Stand 'Helicopter Parents,' but They Hover, Too, When Their Kids Apply

[HC_Alum]

<p><a href=“http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i34/34b00801.htm[/url]”>http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i34/34b00801.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[premature_gray]

<p>HC - You need a user name and password to read the article.</p>

<p>I’m amused by the disparate messages aimed at parents today:
“Let your children experience failure (don’t helicopter).”
“It’s 3:22. Do you know where your child is?”</p>

<p>However does one reconcile the two?</p>

[nauru]

<p>You’re not supposed to reconcile them. That’s the point. The more fearful you are, the more useless tv you’ll watch and the more useless stuff you’ll buy.</p>

[midwesterner]

<p>You must purchase a “pass” to read the article - simply registering won’t do it.</p>

[tsdad]

<p>

James S. Miller, dean of admission at Brown University, “I thought the advice I’ve been giving for 27 years was great,” he says. “But then I realized I was ignoring it all with my own daughter.”</p>

<p>On campus tours, he insisted that they leave early if he did not like the tour guide, even though he tells parents and students to avoid letting one person sway their impression of a college. </p>

<p>Just because you know a lot about colleges does not mean your kids want your input. </p>

<p>Matthew X. Fissinger, director of admissions at Loyola Marymount University, in Los Angeles, was banned from tagging along on his son’s campus visits during the past two years…“I realized stuff like tours were going to be a lot easier to do with my mom.”</p>

<p>Richard Vos, dean of admission and financial aid at Claremont McKenna College, in California, was perhaps more fortunate because his son, Carl Vos, welcomed his presence on campus tours. But there were times on college visits in the past two years when Carl had to censor his father’s questions.</p>

<p>"It wasn’t that he was being patronizing, but in those information sessions he would have this tone of ‘I know what I’m talking about and you don’t,’ " says the son. "I had to say to him, ‘OK, Dad, don’t make this like last time, where you sounded pushy and condescending.’ "

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<p>The Dean at Scripps says that being a college parent has made her a more empathetic dean. </p>

<p>There’s more along the same line. Kind of fun.</p>

[3bm103]

<p>There’s a difference between knowing where your 12 yr old is at 3:22 pm and helicoptoring your 20 yr to an extent that they don’t tell you anything anymore. Kids should be allowed to make mistakes, but not life threatening ones. They should be allowed to forget their homework, stay up too late and be tired the next day and leave the house without a hat so they are cold. They should not be allowed to be unsupervised enough in middle school to own a guy or do drugs. And if you have raised them correctly, at 18 they should go away to college pretty much on their own. I don’t need to choose their classes or their roommates. And as long as they remain enrolled (school will kick them out if their grades drop too far) I will pay their tuition and rejoice when they graduate.</p>

[mum07]

<p>James Miller spoke about this issue last week during admitted student days at Brown. He is a wonderful and very entertaining speaker. Now that the process is over, we (the parents) were able to laugh at and relate to many of his observations. It was obvious that going through admissions from the other side gave him a different perspective and a new appreciation for the process. </p>

<p>I enjoyed this quotation from the article - an issue he didn’t address in his talk…

On the few occasions when Mr. Miller’s daughter sought his input — to decipher the instructions given on applications, for example — he saw just how confusing and ambiguous the process can be for high-school students. In many cases, he says, he himself had no idea what the colleges were asking for.

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[paying3tuitions]

<p>There’s an old expression, “Sometimes, the cobbler"s child has no shoes,” which was a commentary on poverty. Today, the meaning could expand. We all sometimes misplace the lessons at home that we profess in our daily work. </p>

<p>Sounds like a dean somewhere had an extra left foot (a bad thing) and his kid was trying to keep him from chewing on it. </p>

<p>Or the dean shared enough stories over a family dinner table that the kid knew the pitfalls of his dad’s profession (a good thing). </p>

<p>I always figured it’d be especially hard in h.s. to have a parent who is any one of these: police superintendent, school superintendent, football team coach, director of Planned Parenthood.</p>