Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2005 > December > 22 > Entry
Are you a “helicopter parent?”
A guidance counselor once told me a story about a teacher who was handing back papers when a student who was disappointed in her grade began to argue. The teacher answered a couple of her questions and said if she wanted to talk more they could meet after school. When she got back to the front of the room, the student, still stewing, short her hand in the air and demanded, “I want to see my counselor!”
“What does she think a counselor is, her lawyer?” the counselor told me with a laugh.
But the more I read about how far some students will go to pressure teachers and schools so they can get their way — and how their parents are backing them up on these tactics — the more I think it may just be a matter of time before lawyers begin specializing in negotiating better grades for students.
As an alumni of the University of Dayton, I have the good fortune to receive their well-written and award-winning alumni newspaper, UD Quarterly. The latest issue has a story about “helicopter parents” — those that “hover” over their kids, ready to intervene should anything go wrong.
Amazingly, these parents continue to meddle even after the kids go off to college.
The story cites these examples — a mom who flew from Utah to argue a biology grade for daughter at Harvard, a parent who demanded a college repair faulty plumbing her daughter faced while studying abroad in China and students who call mom and dad via cell phone from the classroom to have the professor explain a low grade.
This also was the subject of a Time Magazine story earlier this year that generated a lot of buzz.
Parents are pushing the envelope, and schools often cave under the pressure. What can schools to arrest this trend?
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: The Parent-Teacher Divide
Comments
By Mary
December 23, 2005 4:01 PM | Link to this
To the other Mary (not my alter ego)- how did you know about Aruba? Could you also be listening to the media? Maybe your point is the parent should go to China and check things out like they check things out in American colleges before they drop their kid off. Actually, I prefer to travel with my child. He was 16 and wanted to go to Japan by himself. I went along anyway. Guess what? We landed in Japan on “911” in the year 2001. It was intersting watching the news media mostly in Japanese.By wheels
December 23, 2005 12:48 PM | Link to this
I think hovering is a struggle for parents because you want your children to learn these critical coping skills, but it is clear that parents who constantly intervene get results for their children. If a parent is persistent, teachers often back down, or at least compromise, and who can blame them? It is difficult to hold fast to standards when you have a parent in your face and administrators that don’t back you up. This is not always true in a school, but it happens often. When I was growing up, it was assumed in my house that my parents were “on the teacher’s side.” Even if my parents didn’t agree with the teacher, I would never know because they sure weren’t going to involve me in the situation, and sometimes they thought I just needed to learn to deal with an unfair situation. Today it is more the standard that it is expected that parents will fight for the students. My fear is that we are raising a generation of children who will not know how to deal with their own problems.By Mary:
December 23, 2005 5:42 AM | Link to this
Are you so out of touch with the world that you expect every country in the world to have the same standard of living as the US? Do yourself a favor….before you send YOUR child off to ANOTHER country to study, do some research or possibly visit the country first!! Rather than sit back and complain AFTER the fact. Americans whine and cry about so much they have no clue how lucky they are to live in America. You listen to the media way too much. Americas standard of living far surpasses 95% of the countries in the world. Would you send your kid to a college in America and not visit the campus first? Seems like a pretty simple concept but it’s easier to blame someone else and expect THEM to do what YOU should have done before you send your kid to another country. If you have any questions call the woman from Alabama whose girl got killed in Aruba….By Mary
December 22, 2005 2:48 PM | Link to this
Are helicopter parents the problem or a symptom of something else wrong with the system? I think if evaluation systems were better communicated and fairly applied, if schools and opportunities were based more on objectivity and less on nepotism, cronyism and favoritism, then there would be less helicopter parents. They would see the fruitlessness of their hovering efforts, detect the inherent fairness of the system and therefore respect and trust the system. I would not want to see my child studying in China if the plumbing did not work? Does that make me a helicopter parent? Isn’t broken or non-existant plumbing how plagues got started? According to the news, we are due another one.By susan
December 22, 2005 12:21 PM | Link to this
this is a very big problem for one particular actor in the process … the child. the subtext of every parent intervention is ‘you can’t handle this. let me do it for you.’ it is an insidious technique that undermines a kid’s belief that they can handle situations, even disastrous ones, on their own. it stems from a misguided belief that the impact of a grade, or being caught breaking a rule will completely destroy a kid’s future. the opposite is true … continually rescuing a kid from their problems will ruin their future. i watched my kids struggle with the typical difficulties of adolescence: grades they didn’t like, coaches who treated them ‘unfairly,’ no invitation to ‘turnabout,’ etc. it was difficult to see them uncomfortable and unhappy but they developed superior coping skills that allowed them to succeed in their post-secondary endeavors. i would suggest that schools start a campaign from top to bottom (federal and state DOE to local districts) to inform parents that their interventions are a danger to their kids long-term ability to function, in school, work, even in adult relationships. it’s important to tell your kids you believe in them. behaving as if you do is critical. as far as schools go, they can’t back down. doing so not only undermines the kids who are get the extra attention but the ones who are making it without parents paving the way. at its core, it’s a fairness issue.