Helicopter Parents

There was once a freshman college student who could not find her classroom. So she fired up her cell phone and called her mom. Mom, miles away, called the college, retrieved the necessary information, then rang her daughter. Classroom found, problem solved.

Wow, just wow!

I remember the day before classes began my freshman year, I walked through campus making sure I knew the exact location of each of my classes. In hindsight, I sound like a total geek but I cannot imagine calling my parents (on my long-distance calling card, no less) with that question. Of course, their reply would have been along the lines of "did it not occur to you to ask another person on campus for help?!" ha!

Working on a college campus, I have seen plenty of students that I suspect are the product of Helicopter Parents. I wonder at what point these (what I hope is a small percentage of) students will be less dependent on their parents and more confident in their own abilities to complete tasks and problem solve before calling their parents? I know parents want what they believe is best for their children, but could all this hand-holding be a dis-service when 'copter kids enter the workforce either as college interns or graduates? How about when it is time to manage their own finances?

And if you are raising a 'copter kid at least tell him not to admit to the college librarian that his mom did his high school term paper and that is why he is unable to do his own this time!

BostonGal links to a Boston Globe article, Life-Away-from-Home 101, which addresses the detailed orientations colleges are offering their students, who are used to much hand-holding.

So even though I do not have helicopter parents, I was a boomerang kid and that carries an equally negative stigma :shrug: