<p>Parents pay exorbitant private or OOS undergraduate tuition bills by choice. Students pay high travel costs because they choose go to a “dream school” 3000 miles away. Every kid I know who chose to go across the country to an expensive school also was accepted at very fine local institutions offering exactly the same degree programs. These are choices. A high GPA is required for graduate or medical school. But where I work, no one looks at the grades on a transcript- they look to see what degree was awarded. They are much more interested in demonstrated ability and people skills, which your parents can’t
buy you.</p>
<p>^ Every company my son applied to made it clear that they not only wanted to see a GPG but they wanted transcripts as well.</p>
<p>^The cost of a state school today is not comparable to the cost of state schools back in my day, and no it was not relative to the time.</p>
<p>I actually think the late high school years are an excellent time for students to become self reliant. For us that is being personally responsible, holding down a part-time job for gas money, helping around the house, doing a load of laundry once in a while, making dinner for the family now and then, helping a neighbor without being “told to”, recognizing that the lawn needs mowing or the snow needs shoveling, cleaning their bedrooms without being told etc. They may not always do what we expect and they certainly need reminding about “stuff” but they get the point and it’s sinking somewhere into the crevices in their teenage brains. I think it’s fine to set boundaries such as curfews and chores, when dinner is, asking that they tell us where and when they are going and will be home and things that affect the family no matter how old the kids are. But again, it just shows that there is no one correct set of parenting styles. </p>
<p>Again, I’m not perfect. Our dishwasher broke earlier this year and I had to remind my 3rd to do the dishes at one point in the evening when I went to the kitchen and they were in the sink and he looked at me and said “how? the dishwasher is broken.” My jaw hit the floor and I realized this one had never done dishes by hand. He learned.</p>
<p>Thank you ejr, tpt and mo3b. Agree wholeheartedly with you.</p>
<p>Also, I got my UG in '72. GPA counted. MA in '85. GPA counted. 17 years ago when I applied for my current position, it still counted.</p>
<p>^^Neither of my two adults have had to produce their gpa’s for their various employers.
For grad school and fellowships, yes, but not for jobs. So, I guess it varies, and maybe always has.</p>
<p>When I was in college (early 70s) we also had to juggle classes and often didn’t get what we wanted. When I graduated, teaching positions were very few and far between due to an oversupply and tight money. I understand that it’s competitive out there, but this is not really something completely new for parents and students, although it is for this generation of students.
I think it’s wonderful that today’s parents have the time and desire to give to parenting, but more direct involvement in managing our kid’s lives does not necessarily equal better parenting. There is value in teaching our kids how to manage themselves while they’re still living at home, as momofthreeboys points out, so that they are capable of handling life’s challenges when they leave home.
I can look back and see many opportunities I let go by that could have been teachable moments while my daughter was young. We all know it’s sometimes easier to do things for them than to risk the possible poor outcome from letting them do for themselves, but they really don’t learn this way and it does make it harder down the road. Many parents of my generation fall into this trap because we’re afraid our kid will lose out on whatever the goal of the moment is. I see it all the time, but the outcome is a strange mixture of lack of confidence with feelings of entitlement. Perhaps it’s more evident in my upper-middle class community than the worlds some of you live in. But I sure see it, even a bit in my own family. Fortunately, it’s not irreparable.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is a very good example. When you’re in a carpool, the carpool arrives, but a parent comes out with a plate of strawberries and says “Johnny is in the shower. Would you all like to have some fresh berries until he comes?” there’s a problem. I did not make this up.</p>
<p>On another thread some parents are so concerned about their child not “making the transition”, spending Friday nights alone and not making friends. I was brought up by a depression-era Rosie the Riveter mom. She never had a clue what I was doing on Friday nights in college or knew much about my college friends, because she left me alone, and I didn’t see a need to keep her informed of the minutiae of my personal life. Good thing she didn’t know, it was the 70s. Anyway, I guess we end up being our moms, because my daughter is exactly like me, and I really try not to pry.
I think some parents need to take a chill pill. It’s no wonder some of these kids can’t make friends- they don’t know how!</p>
<p>Harder for parents to arrange “play dates” in college. But I am sure some are trying.</p>
<p>So true moonchild. We had some kids stay with us this summer while the parents were away. The kids ranged in age from early elementary to middle school. Smart kids from highly intelligent parents. The kids do all the “right” things, piano lessons, ballet lessons, soccer etc. etc. None of them knew how to open a new bottle of milk or fruit juice or clear a table and load a dishwasher. the oldest had never “helped” bake anything I found out when we made a simple coffee cake so they measured and cracked an egg and all that great stuff. I was stunned at first but so pleased with how quickly they picked up on things. I told them I was a mom that needed lots of help and so what if they were messy that we’d all just clean up and they all pitched in. They actually thought it was kind of fun because they aren’t “allowed” to do these things at home. They did make their beds which I don’t think my kids every really leaned to do properly. Maybe my boys future wives will have better luck. The teachable moments start very young. You have to be willing to have messy moments whether it’s a dropped egg, or an F on some homework left at home, or a scrape on the car, and be willing to let go of alittle control but it’s worth it at the end of the day.</p>
<p>Funny side note, looking back the hardest thing I ever had to do was let the kids pick their own clothes. Every control impulse was on high alert - what if they dress wrong, no one will “like” them, what if other parents think they have bad parents. And this was when they were about 6. Seems so silly now, but it was a monumental and scary jump for me to see one of them head out for school with stripes and plaids and colors that didn’t match and the beginning of a long journey to college. I learned alot about myself and my kids at that moment when it arrived.</p>
<p>^^Mo3B- my daughter and I had a discussion yesterday about why she looked so “funny” in the clothes she wore at 3 years (and up)… I told her she always picked out her clothes. So I couldn’t (and can’t) help it if some things didn’t match. :)</p>
<p>As far as my son who’s attending college- he’s been making his own decision since middle school. But I still find it hard to not offer “advice”. Only when I think back to my first years in college and then the military and living in a foreign country when I was 21 do I remember that he needs to experience his own ups and downs. They will be more meaningful. There were a lot of things I did NOT tell my parents. Nor did I ask for advice. </p>
<p>The only thing I did last week was to remind son that while he thinks going to ihop for breakfast at 0200 is a great idea… if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time- your wallet is not worth your life. Give it up. </p>
<p>So it’s been one month and so far he has been in areas he probably shouldn’t be, stayed up all night before a test (by the time he realized what time it was, he didn’t want to oversleep, so he stayed up instead), went to a party and had fun. </p>
<p>So far we are both alive to talk about it and I don’t have anymore grey hairs (I don’t think) :)</p>
<p>tptshorty wrote,
</p>
<p>No. Neglectful and abusive parenting kills. </p>
<p>This is a good example of why I find typically find my eyes rolling up into my brain a few lines into articles like the one in the OP and comments like “over-parening kills.”</p>
<p>Any one who thinks that students buying papers to pass of as their own or students/parents trying to buy their way into/through college is new is simply wrong. Ditto parents who spoil their children or coddle them beyond the point of reason well in adulthood. </p>
<p>Neglect, abuse, sub-standard education and so on are real problems that require complex, long-term solutions. Complaining about spoiled children and their soft parents is sport and it is an ancient sport. But it’s cheap, easy and requires nothing except an ability to speak or type. </p>
<p>So we can either seize on the story of the student whose mother drove a pencil over and get riled up about that or we can get riled about the state of education overall. It’s an easy choice for me.</p>
<p>For all the parents who over-parent there are many more who under-parent. My SIL works at a school where a majority of the kids come to school hungry, luckily they get a free lunch or they would have no lunch. Many are still waiting in front of the school at 4 and 5 oclock waiting for a parent who has not yet come to pick them up.
Also our world today makes over-parenting easier. In our day we could not just whip out our cell phone and call Mom when we ran out of money or when we forgot to bring our calculator, or when we were lonely in our dorm room at night. We could not email or view into their lives via facebook or check grades online.
Granted all this what I try to practice is “not doing for them what they could be doing for themselves”.</p>
<p>I was joking about how over-parenting kills; what I meant was that it kills self-reliance, independence, and initiative, and creates wusses. And yes, none of this is new. But this country, which once encouraged values like self-reliance, independence, and initiative, will continue to sink unless its citizens have inner strength. The higher education system isn’t equipped to promote those values. Parents need to let go. If the parents step in and get over-involved in micromanaging their kids’ lives by doing their homework (in college), monitoring every grade as it is entered online (in hs, in college), we are in big trouble.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes. I mostly just tell my kids I’m pretty lazy. Or, “I was already in 8th grade once. I’m not doing it again.”</p>
<p>I did once tell a teacher who had a penchant for assigning parent projects, to the point where we were running around getting all these “materials” all the time, that “I already went through 5th grade, and I’m getting a little tired of the errands.”</p>
<p>I think the principle was a little shocked when I said I thought if they were going to continue these kinds of assignments, they could provide the materials and “bill me.” Any project which required me to go to more than one store to get the “stuff” really annoyed me.</p>
<p>These exact same teachers would then complain that parents are “too involved.” I don’t know. I think parent’s can’t win, these days, personally.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s very true. Nothing is sadder than children being abused or utterly ignored by their parents.</p>
<p>But . . . that doesn’t mean over-parenting doesn’t exist or that it isn’t a problem.</p>
<p>I compare it to dog owners . . . You get the ones who are cruel to their dogs, who starve them or hit them or neglect them until you wonder, “Why did this person get a dog in the first place?”</p>
<p>Then you get the people who love their dogs . . . and feed them until they look like a bloated blimp, barely able to walk they’re so obese. Or the owner who won’t let their dog do anything “doggy” like get dirty or walk on grass, ever, because they don’t think of their dogs as dogs (yes, some people are really this extreme) or who give their dogs what they, the owner, think the dog wants . . . like getting them real jewelry. (I have seen chihuahuas with pierced ears, weighed down with necklaces and bracelets. Including some of the aforementioned “not allowed to touch the grass” dogs. Poor dogs.) </p>
<p>These pet owners are not as bad as the ones who beat or starve their dogs. They mean well. They love their dogs. But they still aren’t being the best dog owners they could be.</p>
<p>I am sure all of us believe we are better parents than others. If we speak with our kids once a day, a week, a month, or never, is always the the right interval. If we pickup and drop off our kids whenever they need us, or if we make them walk 2 miles in the snow to school everyday, we are not spoiling our kids. I could go on and on, because at the end of day we must think we are doing what’s good for our kids, or we wouldn’t be doing it. </p>
<p>What I think it’s sad is the parents who really couldn’t give a hoot, and there are a lot of kids out there with parents like that.</p>
<p>Anyway, the original article was about over-parenting of COLLEGE students, not elementary school kids. I would assume these are mostly the progeny of the middle- and upper-middle classes.</p>
<p>tptshorty, you’re an educator so you more than most will understand where I’m coning from here. It’s the words, the characterizations, the pejorative connotations that rankle me. I like quoting people who are smarter than I. Thomas Hobbes: Words are wise men’s counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools. </p>
<p>Words and phrases like over-parenting, helicopter parenting, etc. are imprecise and mean different things to different people. And once a person is branded with the imprecise definition, that person is a pariah in some circles. That’s why these threads set me off. </p>
<p>Even in their college years, wise college students will seek counsel from parents. These days, it’s easy to conclude that colleges, even high schools, actively discourage students from doing that, hence my reaction to the Wake Forrest admonition.</p>
<p>It’s not about kids seeking counsel from their parents, which is normal and fine and appropriate. I advise my D when she needs it.
The problem is parents who call or email the professors, parents who choose the kid’s major and/or classes, parents who freak out at an A-, parents who log in and check their college student’s online grade records 10 times a day, parents who monitor their adult children’s Facebook pages and cellphone use, that kind of thing. I know parents who do all of the above for intelligent kids who, as a result, cannot choose between Halloween costume A or B at the age of 19 or be in class without the blue mechanical pencil. Anyway, labels just provide shortcuts. I’m not a psychologist, but my observation would be that some of us need our kids more than they need us.</p>
<p>Some kids get too much attention (some too little). It has always been this way. The world has not changed. I can recall a thousand stories from my youth (60’s, 70’s) of kids I knew whose parents did everything for them. What drives me crazy is when someone publishes one of these stupid articles and everyone starts screaming about the decline of our youth, country etc. What makes me even crazier is when teachers and professors, the people who we most need to see the good in our children, start painting our youth with a broad brush as lazy and wusses, based on the actions of a few bad apples. Maybe that kid sleeping in your class is an awesome human being who is just overextended by work, sports and EC’s. Its just way too cynical to say that every parent action is overparenting and every kids misstep is a sign of lazy entitlement.</p>