<p>The “rule” on CC is, absent serious illness or danger, to allow kids in college to manage their own affairs, and resolve their own problems.</p>
<p>However, there often are exceptions to rules.</p>
<p>When did you make an exception and intervene? What did you do, and how did it work out? Would you do it again?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>DD had some weird things going on in her dorm suite freshman year(think bordello without charge). I called the resident director who told me that DD should be handling it. DD was and is pretty shy, but I was growing tired of the middle of the night phone calls. During one early A.M. call, I told her to please go wake up her RA who was actually in her same building rather than 250 miles away and have her do her job. Stopped the middle of the night calls.</p>
<p>About the only thing we did for our oldest when he was in college is provide financial information as needed. There were a couple times the financial aid office needed to talk to us about stuff, semi-complicated tax return stuff, that DS would have had no idea about. We certainly offered advice when asked about various situations. I did have to call the Verizon store once to ok that DS could talk to them about getting his phone fixed.</p>
<p>I would say that if your child has exhausted all of his or her options dealing with whatever situation, that if it is serious enough, you should step in, but only if asked.</p>
<p>The only time I intervened was also a dorm issue in freshman year. D got involved in some theft charges because her roommate had decorated the room with street signs that she had stolen from frat houses (which had originally been stolen from the street by drunken frat boys). The cleaning lady reported their room. My D, a naive freshman, had no idea this could be construed as a felony. Anyway, my intervention just consisted of calling a higher up in the office of residence life, but in the end my D handled it herself (had to write an essay about how she would never steal street signs again; even though she didn’t actually do it, she was present when the roommate did). She learned a lesson- fessing up is better than denying. Still wants to room with the same girl after three years! (The roommate is crazy but fun).</p>
<p>There seems to be a long list of things my D doesn’t realize are illegal or stupid, like getting in a limo with Andy Dick (not kidding!) but she’s learning. At least she knows not to drink and drive.</p>
<p>I am not one of those CC parents who believe it is best to be hands off, so maybe I shouldn’t post. I have intervened whenever needed:
<p>After she graduated, she found her an apartment, signed her own lease. I helped her with her employment onboarding - 401K, health insurance, tax. She is living on her own, calling us only few times a week to chat, without “please help me out on this.” She learned from me on how to handle those difficult situations while she was in college. It was a gradual thing that she stopped to rely on me, now I kind of miss it.</p>
<p>I’m with you on this one oldfort.</p>
<p>It strikes me as odd that the folks who manage/schedule/drive/intervene/hire college consultants/‘package’ kids/groom them from preconception for so and so school …can then be oh so taken aback when someone else will mention that they had any involvement beyond check writing in what happens once kiddle is away at college. </p>
<p>I prefer to close the door on childhood gently rather than slam it.</p>
<p>dietz199–I guess the difference is that we started backing out of these things when the kids were in about 5th grade. We expected them to try to deal with these things the best they could from that age on and when they did what they could, we would step in. Now as high school kids, they are quite capable of taking care of getting a grade corrected, dealing with friends/classmates, etc. When new things come up, like negotiating a lease contract, we will give advice as to what they should do, but we would fully expect them to do those things on their own.</p>
<p>I really admire parents who have that great of confidence in their children to be able to get grades corrected in high school and be able to negotiate a lease contract in college. I have to openly admit that I have not raised such a capable kid. I work with what I have and I tend to be realistic with my expectation too based on my personal experience with the adult world.</p>
<p>D1 will often call for advice on how to handle problems, but she always ends up tackling it herself. She goes to school far away from us, so logistically it’s usually more expedient for her to take care of things herself. So far we have not had to intervene beyond giving her our take on the situation. </p>
<p>While I would say that it’s good to get kids as independent as possible by the time they go off to college, there could certainly be times which mandate parental involvement for serious issues.</p>
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<p>As did we…however, college and being on your own will present itself with a different set of challenges which may likely require a skill set which has not yet been developed. I do not know of any 5th graders - or HSers - who have had to deal with peeping toms, bordello running roommates, choices on dress options for interviews, or fought with a health insurance company for coverage or access. These are the level of things I would involve myself with if needed. I’m not talking about project management, scheduling, personality issues with teachers. </p>
<p>DD is involved in a horse lease. this involves health and liability insurance issues. No, I would not expect her to manage all of these on her own. She is well on the way to securing next years off campus housing. Will I look at the lease - you bet. I was 24 when I moved out of my first apartment. The LL was known for finding many reasons to hold on to the security deposit. I asked my dad to be present at the walk through. Got the deposit back lickity split. Glad I asked for help, glad he gave it.</p>
<p>Sometimes it sounds like D is calling to ask for my help with a problem or my advice and it turns out she is just calling to vent. :D</p>
<p>I guess that we will just have to agree to disagree because if you keep stepping in to “help” they don’t learn it on their own. My 16 year old would know enough to go to the RA or the staff resident or even the college president if need be to deal with a bordello running roommate. We have talked to our kids about insurance, etc. and I will assist them if they ask if they have issues down the road but they are quite capable of calling the insurance company or talking to the HR department and getting the answers they need. I know for sure my DD would fight tooth and nail to get any security deposit back after helping us deal with renters in our own rental properties, etc.</p>
<p>I’m with mncollegemom - many of us intentionally declined to “manage/schedule/drive/intervene/hire college consultants/‘package’ kids/groom them from preconception for so and so school,” and as a result don’t need to land the helicopters to deal with dirty bathrooms or get grades corrected or deal with leasing problems - and as a result, by the time they’re ready to do a job search, they don’t need us to guide us through job search interviews.</p>
<p>Midswest: It took me about half way through DD’s freshman year to realize exactly that. She would be upset, call and then let me know how frustrating, unfair and wrong something was at that moment. I’d wind up losing sleep, only to call her the next day and get a ‘oh that…it’s all taken care of and wasn’t a big deal’ response. argh! I’ve learned to just listen and respond with ‘ain’t it awful’. :)</p>
<p>We never intervened after middle school in anything related to exams, grades, etc. Our kids would disown us if we called any professor or dean!!!Nor did we deal with roommate issues, drunken dorms, etc. </p>
<p>However we have been sounding boards for rental leases, choosing health insurance and doing taxes & investments. These are not things that they had to ever do in H.S. so we are there when needed.</p>
<p>When my son was a sophomore in college, living in a dorm single, he sent me an e-mail one night at midnight, saying “I forgot that I had already taken my [name of prescription medicine] pill, and I took another one. I don’t know whether this is a problem.”</p>
<p>When I received the e-mail, at 7 a.m. the next day, I attempted to contact him by e-mail and phone and failed. So I called the dorm desk and asked to have an RA check on him because I thought there was a possibility that he might be ill as a result of taking too much of the drug. Someone checked on him, discovered that he was asleep and had turned his phone off, and asked him to call me. I then tore him a new excretory opening for e-mailing me in the middle of the night rather than calling his college health center’s 24-hour phone line for health information.</p>
<p>The only other time I contacted either of my kids’ colleges directly was when I had trouble paying my daughter’s tuition bill online. But I don’t think that one counts because paying the bill was my responsibility, not hers.</p>
<p>I think some parents who are extreme with regard to helicoptering are doing so because, perhaps unconsciously, they want their kids to remain dependent. This dependence serves to meet the parent’s (certainly not the child’s) needs-the desire to be needed, to continue the active parent role rather than transitioning to the peripheral supportive role. The want to continue to feel “relevant.” It has nothing to do with the student’s actual ability to become competent in navigating the challenges of life. This parent will still be rescuing their adult children, or at least attempting to micro manage their children, well into their golden years. </p>
<p>I think DH and I fall in the middle somewhere, but lean towards expecting our kids to become as independent as possible. But let’s face it, we all need help/advice sometimes, no matter how old we get.</p>
<p>^ Bingo …</p>
<p>OTOH, Nrdsb4, some of our kids have executive function issues and need to have more micromanagement than we really want to have to provide. I have been trying to extract from S’s functioning as much as possible, but sometimes…</p>
<p>In addition, sometimes they don’t know that a little grease can help. Eg, we went to NYC over MLK weekend. S was supposed to move back into the dorm that Sunday, but we were going to be out of town. He thought there was no alternative but to wait until Monday night on our return. I called Res Life to see if they would allow him to bring his stuff back in earlier and they were allowing Internationals, etc. back in on Friday, so he was able to get into the dorm and get his things back in order, as well as getting his textbooks.</p>
<p>This type of thread always gets down to “we have done a better job than you, and our way is better than yours.” One would never know. My kids and I have a very close relationship. They know they could always come to me when necessary, and maybe with that knowledge and security they are also not afraid to take risk in life.</p>