Hovering
helicopter parents need to buzz off
Our
view
Attention
boys and girls on deck, the helicopter
parents have arrived to make sure little
Jimmy and sweet Sally’s transition
to college goes smoothly.
They will be metaphorically floating above the college campus, overseeing all
grades, housing situations and professors.
According to a recent Associated Press article, such scenarios are likely,
if not common, on the modern campus scene. Some parents, dubbed “helicopters” for
their constant prying over their child’s student affairs, are proving
to be a nuisance for both students and staff.
They pervade the phone lines with complaints that originated from their student
varying from a crappy roommate to test grades.
The article even reported one parent demanded to know what a college would
do about sub-par plumbing for her daughter’s study-abroad trip to China.
According to the AP article, the historically close bond between child and
parent as a result of the Baby Boomer generation may answer such questions.
Parents nowadays have become highly involved in their children’s development,
more than ever before.
At first this seems fine, but upon closer observation and by applying that
fact to the college experience, it can be a pain. In the days of yore, college
students were highly inaccessible.
Students calling home to parents were forced to use devices now tucked away
in the back of our memories: public payphones.
Now with the advent of cell phones, little Jimmy can worry that his mom and
pop will call him in the middle of a Saturday night party just to see what’s
going on — it’s every student’s nightmare.
In addition to cell phones, students are now easier to communicate with via
the Internet and e-mail. Long gone are the days of writing letters via candlelight
or desk lamps. Now students indulge in instant messaging and composing e-mails
in the lifeless electronic light of computer screens.
The romance of receiving Sally’s letter in the mailbox after her first
month away is now nothing but a fond memory of the way things used to be.
But what a difference the days make. Everything’s changing and going
faster and faster, with some of those parents wanting to get closer and closer.
Are the overly concerned parents just that, overly concerned? Or are they trying
to re-live their college glory days through their children? Maybe they’re
just overly sensitive, bound by a desire to never let go.
Letting go of children, to see them off into the world, is a difficult step
for many parents after raising them from babies to mature adults. To be there
for their first steps on the home carpet to the first steps of move-in day
into the dorms is an odyssey of its own.
But while all journeys have a beginning, they have an end as well. College
for many is such an end, where students must leave their parent’s grasp
to tackle the world on their own. Remember the key words, “on their own.”
Students need to take personal responsibility from preparing for classes, getting
along with roommates, to drinking alcohol and having sex.
Some parents feel their years of guidance through the pubescent and maturity
mistakes paid off. Maybe Jimmy and Sally are ready for the real world.
Other parents, typically the helicopter types, do not have such a sense of
security and it’s about time they should. We cannot deny their love and
concern but at the same time parents of the newly independent college-bound
cannot deny their child’s rights to be self-sufficient.
Students will make their own decisions, some good, some bad. Helicopter parents
should drop their kids off and hover away. |
