Former Stanford dean explains why helicopter parenting is ruining a generation of children

Parents Forum
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My spouse and I work at the same university. If he forgets his cell phone or a set of notes, and needs them (and I have not left for work yet, but he has), then I take them to him. It’s not often. But our family is one kind of team, and any time I did not have a conflicting time demand, I would certainly take things to him–and vice versa, although I do tend to function more as the family’s “unpaid database,” in Garrison Keillor’s useful turn-of-phrase.

Not taking your kid a forgotten bicycle helmet? lol!

To reassure blossom, there is no fear of running into QMP driving on too little sleep (or being run into by QMP). From what I have read, 6.5 hours of sleep on a regular basis causes as much impairment in driving as some level of being “under the influence.”

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I was far too lazy to be a helicopter parent. I did advocate for my kids from time to time. After two terrible teachers in a row (K and 1st grade) I told the principal, I didn’t know which teacher my youngest kid needed, but he needed a good one as he hadn’t learned a thing in two years. He was reading Harry Potter a few months into 2nd grade and had a wonderful teacher who is probably responsible for his love of history. In 1st and 6th grade we did a lot of advocating to get my older son a grade skip in math and then in 8th talked to the high school math department (with him) about getting him into AP Comp Sci as a freshman. I didn’t intervene when the math guy got in school suspension for getting into a fight. I didn’t bring forgotten violins to school after grade school. I didn’t even know what the homework was in high school.

We were lucky our teachers didn’t have time to correct reams of homework so they didn’t assign ridiculous amounts. The Calc BC teacher said it was a college course, they should do as many of the homework problems as gave them the confidence that they understood the material. For my oldest it wasn’t very many of them. For my youngest it was every single one.

I wanted my kids to get into elite schools because they had the brains for it, but it was up to them to do the work. It didn’t require a lot of nagging. Neither of them took every AP offered.

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For our girls, their mother did two of her medical fellowships when they were younger and I think that had a great impact on how they approached their studies. These were fairly intensive time periods (70-80 works were common), and I think it provided a template on both work ethic and what was necessary for demanding career aspirations. Fortunately, both were just for two years each and resulted in a much more relaxed work schedule, upon completion. I guess for some, that would repel them from a career in medicine, but oldest is a MD, and the youngest is a freshmen who aspires to be a dentist. Who knows, sometimes you just luck out…

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I disagree with this one. I think it’s fine for a kid to opt not to play on an elite/travel/select team and play house league. But commitment is part of the package. D left travel soccer after 10 seasons (she wanted to devote more time to dance), but when she was part of the team (and it was always HER choice) we expected her to honor her commitment to her teammates and coaches.

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One thing I liked about the book is the author’s message on college acceptance. She said on hearing that there’s a 5% chance of rain most people would not bother bringing an umbrella as they leave the house, but why is it that on hearing there’s a 5% chance of getting accepted so many people assume that they have a good chance of being part of that 5%? I thought that was funny, and a good point.

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TheGFC & Quantmech: I see what you are seeing.

Kids who don’t require much sleep are at an advantage. Mine never ever slept normal hours. Not in infancy, toddler hood, not in HS, and not in college. Now they are on teams, where they work almost all their waking hours and get up in the middle of the night to check on what is up with their projects. They do not drive to work. They take shuttles or uber. Sometimes they sleep during the commute, in between checking devices.

I agree with boohla about the importance of modeling, although we never modeled this round the clock working behavior. Never. But HS, and then college, encouraged becoming the round-the-clock sort of workers the sorts of companies my kids work for seem to want. I am not a fan of this lifestyle choice.

My father modeled opting out of surgery as a specialty because it would be too time intensive. He kept his private practice psychiatry hours at the minimum necessary to comfortably support the family. He came home for lunch.

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I agree with you, alh.

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@FallGirl you misread that post. The advice is that the PARENT need not attend every game. The child should live up to his or her commitments.

And for others commenting who haven’t read the book - the author is not advising that we make our children do everything for themselves all the time. We are still their parents. Rather, there is an age-appropriate progression, with the ultimate goal being a healthy, independent adult. She discusses a four-step method for teaching kids any skill: 1) do it for them; 2) do it with them; 3) watch them do it; and 4) then they do it completely. And while she happens to be a former Stanford Dean and Harvard Law grad, the detailed research she presents in her book extends far beyond those elite college environments (indeed, the main focus is pre-college).

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There is one anecdote from the book that really struck me in terms of the type of problem she’s trying to address. It wasn’t a deadly serious situation, but demonstrative nonetheless.

A UPS box with a college freshman’s belongings was delivered to the front of a particular student’s dorm. The box was too heavy for one person to carry so the student needed to figure out a way to get the belongings to his room. What was the solution? Ask a random passer-by? Or perhaps ask a roommate or a resident assistant? Nope. He called his parents in some far away state, who then tracked down the dorm’s resident fellow and asked him to arrange for a group of students to carry the box to the student’s room. That is a pretty clear example of parents who failed to progress from stage 1 (doing it for them).

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Some of you are making a lot of assumptions based on your own experience with high school and life, which apparently is quite different. People cannot always just up and move if they don’t like the public school (which, by the way, was a very different place when we first moved here). We cannot afford a private school. We also do not have the money to fix up our house for sale right now, what with college costs and elder parent care. Even if we did, we could not afford to re-buy a similar home at the much higher price it would be in the current market.

Secondly, quantmech is absolutely correct that the lower level classes can often be much worse as far as busy work, and especially arts and crafts nonsense. D’s regular level classes are actually the most time intensive due to all the projects requiring Powerpoint presentations, group projects, interviews, attending cultural events etc. For D, being art-challenged, dropping down would not solve much.

Third, you can’t just opt out of excessive homework. There are too many graded homework assignments to do that more than once or twice a marking period and still pass the class. So long as many other students (ie. Asian immigrants’ children) are willing to kill themselves and live on little sleep, one lone parent or child is not going to change the system.

And who said my tired kid was driving, or aiming for elite schools? She needs to attend a college that offers the major she wants and in which she can succeed, which is classics or something related. Regrettably, most lower level schools no longer offer Latin etc. (or if they do, only for future language teachers), so our only goal is for her to have enough course rigor to be able to get in a decent LAC. Even one AP can be a ridiculous workload, and it has nothing to do with the kid’s ability, intelligence, or organizational skills. Even perfectly brilliant children are up late here because there’s just that much work.

How this relates to the topic of helicoptering is that often parents find themselves doing a lot of chores and administrative tasks for their kids so they can just get to bed. I have not found that packing my high schoolers’ lunch and sports bag stunted them in any way. Both went to top colleges, succeeded with no need for my help or intervention, and immediately after college got jobs and their own apartments. I don’t think doing simple menial tasks for our children to lighten their load is the same as helicoptering, but often those are the examples given.

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Saying some kids do fine with expanded expectations, have friends and do sleep…is not saying “pick two.” Apples and oranges.

If your kid isn’t one of these, agree with blossom: revisit your options. Don’t take the passive approach of just blaming externals. But the topic was parents who do push, sometimes relentlessly.

D2’s best hs year was crazy booked. That’s how she ticks. She made the choices and I kept telling her she had the option to pull back, if needed. When she wanted to move back from AP calc to honors, we weighed it together and I let her make the call.

I can’t remember either girl ever robbing their sleep except for social reasons. They managed. Good life skill. They liked high school. They were not aiming to be perfect.

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Interesting view of the Cultural Revolution. My friend went to a labor camp while her parents went to re-education camps.

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Your name on the check does not make you a party to the contact, it simply means that you’re paying (part of) the bill. The legalities of a minor being able to enter into a contract aside, the deal is between the college and your child. The fact that you are using some of your money to pay the bill should be appreciated by your child, but in the eyes of the school it doesn’t confer upon you any special rights.

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Reality check…there are lots of people, including deans, who would say that anyone who is reading college confidential is probably helicoptering. The non-helicopters have never heard of this site

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I always said I read CC so I wouldn’t drive my kids crazy.

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lookingforward, I just think that the high school your girls attended was different from the high school that TheGFG’s children were/are attending, and our local high school. Presumably, there are a lot of high schools like the ones you are familiar with. There are at least a few high schools like the ones that TheGFG and I are talking about–not necessarily the famous Stuy-type pressure cookers, just demanding in terms of production of work.

My own high school experience was much better for me. The intellectual demands were actually higher than at the local high school in general, I believe, yet the demands for papers, homework sets, projects, etc. were lower.

One doesn’t have to be aiming for perfection to have problems with the workload. The impact of a couple of scores of 0 on the homework per marking period would be strong enough to really drop a grade. So I agree with TheGFG that just opting out is not a solution.

In terms of students thriving with the expanded expectations: I do not honest think that is applicable locally. I am aware for non-helicoptering reasons of how much sleep quite a few of the local top students got, and virtually none of it was enough.

Also, I agree with TheGFG that some of the comments about helicopter parents depriving their children of the opportunity to find their own interests are not well matched by the examples provided. For example, I doubt that by doing her daughter’s laundry, TheGFG is depriving her child of the opportunity to discover that she would like to be a laundress.

I also have never lived in a locale where it is possible to shield a child from disappointment or failure. Presumably there are such places. Not around here.

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@cmsjmt By the time the kid is 17 or 18, the way it’s supposed to work is that they remember the bike helmet at some point on the trip and even if they don’t go back for it, are so bothered by it that they are much less likely to forget it the next time.

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What about the spouses? Is my husband supposed to begin remembering his various chargers, wallet, cell phone, and now hearing aid at some point? (That is, I’m just saying that it’s not only the kids who forget things.)

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Revisiting options is not “opting out.” The sole alternative to a heavy workload and sleepless nights is not zeroes.

Yes, there are kids struggling with various demands on their time and energy. I doubt anyone is suggesting there are no kids able to master the challenges while maintaining balance and grounding, enjoying life and getting enough sleep. Know your kids, pay heed to their needs. Adjust as needed. And let them grow.

And sometimes, check to see you aren’t inadvertently part of the pressure.

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  1. do it for them; 2) do it with them; 3) watch them do it; and 4) then they do it completely

This is exactly the path we followed for a kid with type 1 diabetes, doing her insulin and testing. It was a good model for other parenting. (Of course with an illness that noone understands, including public school administrators, my very appropriate involvement was often misunderstood with painful consequences.)

This article covers two different things, parents who are overinvolved and the elite admissions race. For a Stanford dean, they are one in the same, but not elsewhere.

I have had “experts” at our school tell us that all of the social turmoil going on is from technology and social media. There are countless other factors I could think of, besides parent-blaming, though there are of course parents putting a lot of pressure on their kids.

Texting allows kids and parents to be more in touch. When I was college age there was one phone for a hall and we wrote letters. This dean should have more of a historical perspective (for an academic).