CNN article about "helicopter parents" involved in their kids' education. Thoughts?

[Beth in SW WA]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/family/02/04/hm.helicopter.parents/index.html

[HollyinNNV]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/family/02/04/hm.helicopter.parents/index.html

tomorrow CNN will publish an article about "bad" parents who send their kids to college and then have no part in their college experience. These horrible parents don't look at the entrance essays and applications before they are sent in.

Fiddlesticks.

Moderation in everything is probably the key to most problems.
Holly

[Annie G]

I'm skeptical of the notion of a correlation between high contact with parents and lower grades. Our oldest daughter is a grad student at Georgia Tech and has made all A's in college except one B in an undergrad English course. I talk to her every day, but it's not the "I need to know what's going on in her life' or the 'I can't make any decisions without talking to my mom' type...we just enjoy talking to each other.
There seems to be a fine line...we have to be involved but not TOO involved. And that line is at different places for different kids. Our middle daughter calls or comes over once a week or so...she's just different.

In addition, we encourage our children to attend undergrad schools that will provide them with individual attention. Our dd's undergrad mentor was wonderful...he encouraged her to attend grad school and found her summer internships. He attended her wedding and his family and dd's are now close friends. Contrast that with her current Tech mentor...who cares and is brilliant, but has no interest in who she is and what her goals are. And she's worked under him for 3 years!

I think there are plenty of helicopter parents out there. But this article wasn't in the top 5 I have read about the issue.

This is a difficult see saw to balance. We're told to be involved with our children, know their friends, know what they are doing, etc. And then there are those who take it too far and become helicopter parents. But it's not something parents intentionally do...it just happens.

[Lori D.]

All I could think of was, "Wow! My boys will want to see the link for that one!" LOL! Guess I was thinking of that cool link someone posted last week on the guy who moves Stonehenge-sized pillars around by himself. Wonder what the helicopter pants video would have looked like... (heeheehee)

Guess it's time to get my glasses adjusted! Warmly, Lori D.

[Jane in NC]

It seems that in my day most students applied to one or two colleges--maybe three. Colleges themselves have made the application process more demanding, more difficult and more daunting. Most kids seem to need some help in just negotiating through the hoops.

Tethering via technology is an issue, in my opinion. When I was a college student and spent a summer backpacking through Europe, my parents received one or two phone calls, some letters and numerous postcards. When my friend's daughter was in Vienna last semester, she had a blog with photos of her experience. She not only emailed her mom but used one of the chat services to talk with Mom regularly via the Internet. When she had a bad day, she talked to her Mom. Toward the end of the semester, she was really missing home and chatted (and cried) regularly. My friend and I thought that technology was part of her problem! If she had not been able to find a shoulder to cry on so easily, would she have found more inner resources? Of course, my parents were worried sick in my absence and probably had quite a few more gray hairs as a result!

Jane

[mcconnellboys]

I think there's a huge difference between hovering, which I would agree is on the increase, and being a homeschool parent who directs your child's educational opportunities. If I hover over my child and check all his work and even help him complete assignments rather than allowing him to do his own work, then I'm not doing anything but setting him up for failure the first time he gets into a position where I *can't* do that for him. Same thing if I lean on a teacher in order that he receive higher grades.

If, however, I mentor him, discussing things with him whenever he wants to do that, encouraging him, etc., that's just being a parent - not hovering. School isn't meant to be a lone wolf experience. If my child comes home and has a question about something and I can help him think through that, that's just part of my job. He doesn't have to get every scrap of info about his world from a stranger or someone labeled "teacher" in order for it to be valid.

Now that my older son is back in school, I encourage him to go to his math teachers before/after school for tutoring if he's not understanding something they're doing because his father and I really can't generally recall enough about geometry in order to be able to help him. But if he wants to talk to me about Huck Finn, well we've already read and discussed this book before - why shouldn't I discuss it with him again? That's not me micromanaging his life - that's just normal family life.

Similarly, if he wants to discuss a history topic they're studying, or something from comparative world religions, well we've talked about all these things all his homeschooling life and why should we stop now? He's not generally even asking me specific questions about assignments, he's just talking about something they're covering in class - making conversation; analyzing his own thoughts about a topic. Talking to him further about these things is good for him, I think.

So I can see educators quickly trying to label all homeschooling parents as micromanagers and hoverers, but I think that most, in fact, tend to be far from that. The entire purpose of most of what we do is to teach our children to think outside the box and think for themselves. If we've done that job well, we don't need to micromanage.

Regena

[Annie G]

Jane, I think it can go either way. Dd has bad days and she either calls or emails. It gets it out of her system and she moves on rather than brooding about it. I do the same...if I'm having a bad day I call dh or my sister and get it out of my system.
I think time is a key...our dd has lived 850 miles from us since she was 14 and in high school. She adjusted and so did we. Perhaps your friend's dd would have adjusted more quickly without the communication tether, but if she had stayed there longer, she would have adjusted eventually...and if she didn't, there was probably a bigger problem.
I have read many stories that applaud the impact email has on kids going on mission trips and soldiers being sent overseas. The articles claim the ability to stay in touch with their families improves their ability to adapt and thrive in their new environment. So it's probably that whole balance thing...some contact is good, too much is detrimental.

[Claire]

I read that article this morning. Regarding the correlation between parent contact and poor grades, they are making a *huge* assumption that the parent contact is the cause of the poor grades. They have no evidence for that. It is just armchair reasoning, which can be very flawed. I am thinking that it's much more likely that academically strong students reject parental input and want to do it all themselves, while academically weaker students have parents who realize these weaknesses exist and want to support these students so they get through college.

I see this, in fact, in my own family. A niece has been a high-performing student (almost straight-As) throughout her years in the public school system, has been valued by teachers, and enjoyed high social status among her peers. She is in her freshman year of university and calls home (if the parents are lucky) a couple of times a month. They live in the same metropolitan area, but they see each other once a month -- maybe. She wants to be out on her own, she's ready to be out on her own, she can make it academically in college with no problem. She's making a few mistakes (her weight is ballooning up because she is able to indulge her addiction to Starbucks and there is no one to guide her choices at the cafeteria buffet), but overall there's no worry about her being able to graduate with a four-year degree.

Not all students are like this niece!!! My dd is not academically gifted. She has talents, but they are ones that tend not to be highly valued by teachers of math and science. She is in public high school, and I have no doubt she could graduate from high school on her own, but she wants to go to college and get a four-year degree. She will be going to a community college to make the transition easier for her, but I think also that she is going to want and benefit from parental input as she learns to navigate life on her own in college. She is one who would be likely to "sink" if thrown into the water on her own.

These days a four-year degree is almost a necessity if you want to be able to hold down a white-collar job with a livable salary. The cost of failing just one college class is quite high, not to mention a whole quarter, semester or year. Overall, the stakes involved in a college education are much higher than they used to be.

I think that article was very poorly done. It provides a single point-of-view that anyone can spout, but which has no research support to lend it credibility. Blecchhh! :mad:

[Nan in Mass]

I think you are right about the high stakes. Another thing to think about is back a generation. When my mother was in college, the college was in loco parentis and she sent her laundry home for her mother to do. I think she was pretty much on her own as far as academics went, but there was a lot more support as far as living circumstances went. There was a "dorm mother" in her dorm who looked after the girls, for instance. I wonder if our generation was just a blip in the continuum?
-Nan

[Ms. Riding Hood]

This article takes its information from the National Survey of Student Engagement (http://nsse.iub.edu/NSSE_2007_Annual_Report/docs/withhold/NSSE_2007_Annual_Report.pdf). Basically, it rips a statistic out of context and uses it to support a thesis that the Survey itself explicitly questions. Look it up on p. 24-25 of the Survey.

Make you wonder how often this happens? :mad:

[Ms. Riding Hood]

"Do interventions by family members blunt student engagement,
learning and development during college? NSSE data suggest this may
not be the case. Students with “helicopter” parents (those in frequent
contact and frequently intervening on their student’s behalf) reported:
• Higher levels of engagement and more frequent use of deep
learning activities.
• Greater gains on a host of desired college outcomes, and greater
satisfaction with the college experience.
Although students with involved parents reported higher levels of
engagement, deep learning and greater educational gains, they had
significantly lower grades. Perhaps the reason some parents intervened
was to support a student who was having academic difficulties – thus
the correlation with lower grades. Unfortunately, we cannot determine
the extent parental interventions were related to academic or other
matters. It may also be that support from their highly involved parents
encourages their lower performing student to engage in educationally
purposeful activities."

(Highlighting my own.)

Exactly the opposite of the article, no?

[Susan M in WA]

I'm skeptical of the notion of a correlation between high contact with parents and lower grades.

I would be skeptical too. I thought there was an article several months ago referencing this same or a similar study that said those students with Helicopter parents actually had higher grades. I wish I had the link and may do a quick search, but I don't have the source handy.

[Michelle in MO]

but I also have a responsibility to help mentor them along, and give them guidance. My oldest is about to start at the cc this summer (part-time) and next fall (possibly full-time). She needs more independence, plus she also needs someone else to help give her deadlines---she doesn't always "believe" my deadlines!:D

Nevertheless, this comment by someone called "JC" after the article was scary, but it may be indicative of how others feel about involved parents:


"Working in the school system for the last 10 years, this phenomenon is not new but needs to stop. Usually, these are the same children that have no respect for adults or authority because nothing, including laziness, can ever be their fault. We need to make people obtain licenses in order to become parents."

" . . . make people obtain licenses in order to become parents." Excuse me?!? Yet, I believe there are educators who believe this. Even some of the teachers at the private school that my dd's were at (up through 3rd grade with my oldest) would get a little irked at my involvement with the kids. Yet, I did not do their homework for them; I merely went along on field trips, helped them study their spelling, helped them practice their reading, etc. Maybe I have a character flaw here (i.e., over-involvement) that I'm not seeing, but I thought I was simply being a parent, doing my job in making sure they did what was required of them.

Interesting article. I do think there's some truth to it, but I think that "letting go" process is different for each child. It would undoubtedly be a mistake to hover over every aspect of what our children did and then suddenly let them loose into college life. There must be some kind of "weaning" process that takes place between parent and child.

[Susan M in WA]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-11-04-nsse-helicopter-parents_N.htm

This article was from Nov 2007.

From the CNN article: "The same report concluded students with higher levels of parental involvement had significantly lower grades."

From the USA Today article: "But the study also found students with highly involved parents tended to have lower grades — a surprise, because higher engagement "tends to be linked to higher grades," Kuh says.

An additional note from USA Today article: "Students who reported frequent parental intervention reported lower grades. While the difference (3.21 vs. 3.31 for other students on a 4.0 scale) was statistically significant, it was still quite small.

It may be that parental intervention helps keep underperformers in school. Or, grades may not be as important a gauge of how much a student is getting from college as other measures, Kuh says. "

[Annie G]

Lynne, thanks for the link to the article. I read on page 26 that students with involved parents have significantly lower grades. The report had graphs and charts for everything else and yet no other details about this statement...I'd still like to learn more about this.

I think as tuition rises, we ARE going to see more parents becoming more involved. A college education is a significant investment and I'm guessing parents want some involvement when they are paying hefty tuition bills.

Dd went to college in Georgia on a Hope scholarship (and a few others) so we never had to pay any bills for her...books, fees, everything was covered. But 2nd dd didn't take that route and we were more involved in what was going on since we were paying the bills. When she was old enough, we decided it was time for her to pay and we backed away.

This has been interesting!

[Laura K (NC)]

If parents are hovering in college, I wonder if it's guilt. Could it be that those same parents shipped their kids off to daycare and preschool, overscheduled them in elementary school, looked the other way in high school, then woke up once they were gone and felt tremendous loneliness all of a sudden?

Remember that song "Cats in the Cradle?"