We were all free range children and adults.

There were traumas, trials, and difficulties along
the way; but there were also great moments of
discovery, learning from mistakes, and some
seriously good fun.

Why do you think students who graduate with worthless majors in social sciences especially think they should make big bucks? It is ridiculous. Unless you continue to advanced degrees, your sociology bachelors degree will allow you to make 10 bucks an hour maybe.

Did you forget the sarcasm thingie? A BSW is only worth $10 per hour? I hope you're kidding.

Apparently YOU think that's all a social worker deserves. Shame on you.

I didn't say social workers deserved anything. Stop putting words in my mouth.

It promises from first glance to provide me hours of entertainment.

So glad that didn't happen to me nor did I do that to my kids.........

some of them actually made me laugh but they are indeed very serious

in the military, you could get extra duty for mom interference because that is what would give soldiers enough exasperation / anger to bark at their mothers to lay off

Their admissions standards almost insure that the kids who don't have this sort of over-support are not accepted.

Most schools have a larger pool of applicants, so they can require higher GPAs, and more extra-curricular accolades than they once did.

Nowadays, they expect double, sometimes triple the amount of extracurricular activities.

My child will not be attending an elite school-we just cannot afford it. She has a 4.29 on a 4.0 scale. (This is from her honors classes.) She is in band, color guard, winter guard, jazz, French Club, Model UN and a few other "fun"clubs. She has been advised that she should also add private music lessons to her activities, along with at least one sport. She mentioned that she is also active in the church, with bells, choir, youth group and volunteering not only at the church but with a group in the community. She's been advised that is still not enough if she wants to get into a "good" school, such as Washington U or Creighton.

I think they expect too much out of the kids, knowing that parents will do what they can just to get them through school. I can barely afford the activities she already does and I certainly cannot afford to add more. She cannot afford to spend more time with yet another activity ro else it will take away from her studies and the extras she's already in. A few weeks ago I was informed that I wasn't "focusing on the future" when I put my foot down with the school over her doing even more and was "talked down to" by the assistant principal. I just can't imagine someone else going through the same.

After this convo with the school it's been decided: state university for my child!

When does she have to be a teenaged girl, hang with her friends, read for FUN, or just be herself? Not saying or even implying that you are pushing her to do any of this. I cannot imagine what that kind of life would be like.

I dropped out of high school at 16 and seven years later aced the GED and was immediately admitted to my state's highly ranked flagship public university, from which I graduated with highest honors and went on to an Ivy League law school. And that was in the 1980s, not the Jurassic era.

or a private school. It's a school that's just outside of the metro area, mostly rural in size. They push and push the kids until they break.

I admit to being a bit of a helicopter at times. I have to remind her that not everyone can do everything they are expected to do and that sometimes you have to evaluate a situation and decide what's best, what's most important to you. I check her grades every day and try to stay on top of things. That sounds a bit helicopter-ish but I do have good reasons. She knows if her grades drop too much she will have to drop an activity until her grades are up. If her grades don't return we'll possibly drop more activities until she has a course load and activity/social life she is comfortably able to handle. And yes, this has elicited comments of "helicopter mom" from some, including a couple of teachers.

As a parent, I believe that it's her job to go to school, maintain good grades, find things that are fun for her to do, be home as often as possible for family dinner (nightly is preferred but missing on occasion is permissible), make a good friend and get enough sleep. I don't believe in "busy for busy's sake". I see too many kids and I wonder when they have time to even get a decent night's sleep. (I know one student in competitive band, football, soccer, swimming, debate and clubs-all in just the fall alone! NOT ALLOWED in my house!)

Her band is a class, with a few extra practices. That's fine. Her guard is two nights/ week practice-fine. Clubs are once a month, on average, for a half hour at a time, which is fine. (Model UN is different-2 hours every week but she doesn't have to be at every meeting-once a month allows her to compete.) Church is all on Sunday and it's more social for her than anything. Bells and choir are half hour each and youth group is one hour with no expectations of being there every week. Youth group is mostly about unwinding, having a snack while having a quick Bible study and then voting on fun activities to do as a group. (Example: pumpkin patch, corn maze, concerts, movies, minor league ball games, etc-things that the kids can do together in a group that they might not do alone. ) Youth group gives her the best socialization. Most of her volunteer time comes when on break from school, including a mission trip every summer. It's loose but offers a bit of structure at the same time. They have their own room in the church for just them that they decorated with a kitchenette, a big screen tv, video games, board and card games, pool and foosball.

I do agree that she needs time to be a teen. She does get the time since I encourage her to make time to spend with friends, go to dances, the movies, etc. Some of the other kids? I don't know when they have time to get a good night's sleep.

and reminding her of the genuinely important things in life.

It has to be hard as hell to raise a sane and smart kid in this insane society.

I feel guilty sometimes because I don't make enough for her to take fancy immersion trips and such. I feel like the volunteer work I do with the school sometimes isn't enough but then I feel stressed when I'm doing it. Why? Because I don't feel as though I actually belong with the other parents. We just don't see things the same way.

and 20 years ago she would be considered a high achiever. Nowadays, her accomplishments are nothing and she's pushed into even more every time I turn around.

You must groom your children to become the most efficient consumers possible & to that end, they will need a good job - a good job in a country where good jobs are being shipped overseas & low wage workers are imported.

No wonder our kids are stressed & unhappy. Our culture is perverted & focused entirely on profit. I don't know how we turn this around so that money/profit is not the only thing that matters.

Once again I saw ad after ad in the halls, telling students the benefits of joining a club or sport. The top benefit was about college-every. single. time. Fun was low on the list.

I really feel bad for the kids.

(BTW, my kid-straight A's. I'm pleased.She still isn't adding more activities on to her list.)

which also gets deeply into the restructuring of even the most elite universities being as extensions of pirate capitalism. Read "Excellent Sheep" by William Deresiewicz. VERY thought-provoking and informative.

I worked in it for years. Tons of money going into layers of middle-management non faculty positions are designed to counsel, administer, design and deliver programs, blah blah blah. Billions of dollars. A lot of this crap isn't accessed by young students who'd benefit more from a lower adviser to student ratio and an adviser who could actually help them navigate the byzantine degree paths that endless committees create and recreate. Glitzy programs that aren't delivering.

Also, blaming parents for desperately focusing on their kids' competitiveness for college (and scholarships) displaces blame for outsourcing and the destruction of middle-class job opportunities that belongs to corporations and neoliberal policies. Of course parents freak about their kids' preparedness if that might land them a scholarship that avoids 100k in debt and they're terrified about their future.

I also noted how much of the "helicopter" label is used against mothers who say anything critical about common core and/or the rest of the current testing mania in schools. It's a great way to silence women who want to advocate for their kids.

I'm very hands off with my kids' teachers and administrators but provide a lot of support/scaffolding behind the scenes. Yes, I see lots of this "helicopter parenting" among Asian parents--the ones who are choosing their kids college classes--but you know, if you're bankrolling a huge investment in their future, I don't know that I disagree. I wouldn't raise my kids that way, but when you are a generation away from dirt poor poverty in a third world country you might have other ideas.

As a college instructor I can share that I've had parents, using their children's school email accounts, write me and grill me about "their" grades and "their" coursework. Because, legally, I can't discuss these issues with anyone other than the student.

How do I know it is the parent? Well, the sudden ability to write a cogent paragraph, with proper sentence structure, correct capitalization, spelling, and grammar, is always my first clue.

Nobody is trying to "shame" parents. We're only suggesting they butt the fuck out of other grown people's personal business.

To continue to "fix" their adult children's problems is both short sighted and, in the long run, cruel. It robs the adult child of agency and does not allow them to develop an inner core of confidence. This ends up eroding their ability to function in the real world.

That these parents' next dilemma will be whether to leave their kids homeless after graduation or whether they will be stuck subsidizing them or having them return to live at home.

The economy sucks for most. And many will be deep in debt with paltry salaries.

can waltz into whatever job they want. The name on the diploma, the networks they are a part of, and their parents' connections - most of the parents of kids at Stanford have plenty of money and connections - will see to that.

And a lot of those kids are very bright in their own right. The ones who can navigate the real world, whose parents didn't treat them like hothouse orchids, will do just fine.

- deal with unpleasant people, and your problems, on YOUR OWN. There are no school authorities or mommy and daddy to take care of you. The world is filled with idiots and assholes and the landscape is what it is. You will win some and lose some, and you will probably lose far more often than you win, and no one outside your immediate circle of family and friends gives one single fuck whether you win or lose. That's the way Pirate Capitalist Amerkkka is and has been since Raygun. This is BY FAR the most important operational definition of the Real World.

- not expect that you are entitled to the things just because of where you went to school, how much money your parents have or who your uncle is. Get over yourself.

- there will be things you don't like out there in unfiltered reality. Tough shit. Live with it. My parents - working class people - made damn sure I understood that the world was not going to rearrange itself to suit my whims.

Those are the important points, I think.

certainly college students are.

What separates - in my opinion - university from day-to-day existence is that one's goals are, more or less, mapped out temporarily. Other than that, college students deal with all of that stuff as much as anyone else does.

if I had a question about a grade - which was not often - or any other issue I went and talked to the prof or the TA. Or an academic adviser or the director of the honors program when I was an undergrad. I didn't expect anyone to do it for me and would have been completely puzzled and quite indignant at the suggestion that I ask someone else to do so.

And I very much liked the structure of academia; it's my natural and preferred environment. But I handled all my personal issues on my own during my seven years in higher ed. It existentially baffles me that today's kids can't do what generations of college students have managed to do - grow up. If you can't handle the academic environment - which is much more structured and reasonable than any workplace I have ever been in - Princess Celestia help you after you graduate.

All I can offer is that - after thousands of hours with hundreds of young people in a workplace - I don't hold that opinion. My experience is that they are as interesting, mature, and diverse as any young generation.

Far from it. Hell, look at the college-aged kids busting their asses for Bernie.

But the rich and/or whiny ones who have been told all their lives how "special" they are and that they can have anything and everything they want (Memo: Santa doesn't exist) seem to lately be raising a gawdawful stink about how hard they have it, and getting a lot of press.

The cool kids just get on with their lives.

I understand that.

doesn't cost you decades of debt, then you can complain. As long as certain profs and many admins are making multiples of 6 figures for doing more technologically-assisted work and government-fund-grubbing than ever, they can all piss off about how a family handles the 5-6 figure debt that comes along with the education. Dealing with the parents - the "investors" if you will - is now a part of your job.

You teach investments, not students. People monitor their investments closely.

What's the parent's excuse when tuition and cost is relatively low?

Legally and ethically, my only obligation is to the student.

As for cutting the Dean's pay... I'll do you one better: Get rid of the 1 to 1.25 ratio of instructors to administration. Make it something more reasonable like 1 to .75. Use that money to lower costs AND give instructors a raise. The system is top heavy with people who do little more than shuffle papers and draw a paycheck.

I've actually heard the term "helicoptering" applied to the dad more often than i've heard it applied to the mom.

So, that tiny piece of your post i can't accept. The rest is great.

for any student from any income level. The parents know that and to hell with public opinion. Even "successful" students will need a lot of luck in this economy. School costs too damn much to leave anything at risk. High tuition ruins everything about education.

...and eventually drop out because they were on a government grant.

I have supervised teams of them - a dozen or more at a time - as the only staff person in a library. Most of the criticisms about them not being ready for the """REAL WORLD""" and other judgey bullshit is just typical intergenerational ignorance and superiority complexes. Not very different from every other era for thousands of years.

The kids are fine. Many of them are impressive.

in fact, as a lecturer, I generally find my students more committed and responsible, and less spoilt and 'entitled' than many of my 80s student contemporaries, even if it's not always fashionable to say so!

The kids are ok.
The system is screwed up.

in the lives of their 20-something's than their parents were when they were that age. She says she talks to both her daughters at least once a day & when she was that age she talked to her mom once a week, maybe longer. I know technology has changed communication drastically, but man, there is no way I wanted to talk to my mom once a day when I was that age. Or any age, really, once I left home.

When I went off to college, my parents had to pay long distance charges to call me. As my dad was tight with money, this served to limit our phone conversations to about once per week, unless there was some important matter.

Now in my 40s with a family of my own, this "once a week" habit has persisted even though there's no financial burden.

I can't imagine it! And the ones that do, also have adult kids living at home with them.

I wish my boys (29 and 25) were interested in communicating more often, but that's the price
you pay for making sure they grow up to have independent lives.

What is it? Daily? Weekly? Now and then--could be more often
during some times and less often in others? Once a month?

All of those could be defined as 'regular'. What's sufficient for one
person may feel too often for someone else.

with how "independent" one is. I certainly wouldn't presume to know anything about a person just because they text their parents during the week. My mom and dad are hilarious!

1. Check your language. “If you say ‘we’ when you mean your son or your daughter — as in, ‘We’re on the travel soccer team’ — it’s a hint to yourself that you are intertwined in a way that is unhealthy,” Lythcott-Haims said.
2. Examine your interactions with adults in your child’s life. “If you’re arguing with teachers and principals and coaches and umpires all the time, it’s a sign you’re a little too invested,” she said. “When we’re doing all the arguing, we are not teaching our kids to advocate for themselves.”
3. Stop doing their homework. Enough said.

n/t

and cost for band alone becomes a "we" are involved-as in the whole family. We travel every weekend and volunteer to help with food, uniform, driving trucks, etc because there have been too many cuts to the music program. The parents make up in time and funding whatever was cut from the budget. During marching season a number of parents put in so many hours it's the equivalent of a part time job.

while I find the whole idea of helicopter parenting to be pretty ridiculous, you have to admit when the financial stakes are close to a quarter million bucks, I can see how some people may tend to over-involvement.

That said, I personally was/am hands off my daughters education. But mine was/is very self motivated.

Did you look into CC for her to get started. My house cost a little more then that. Not judging, just saying..

My oldest daughter only applied to one university (Indiana), got in and got enough scholarship $$ that she escaped with minimal debt. She got her masters in archaeology in the UK for a fraction of the cost and is easily paying down her loans.

Younger daughter applied to 6 schools, got in everywhere (including Northwestern with costs equivalent to Stanford), but she's declined to go to school because she refuses to take on ANY debt and has instead pursued her other passion - jewelry design - that's doing so shockingly well in 18 months she's moved out and is independent, has her own apartment, wheels, and is renting a house in St Augustine this winter for 4 months on the beach.

If younger daughter survives her current intensely wild lifestyle and goes to college, yuppy Stanford will never be one of her choices imo.

used to be an integral part of growing up. It was for us boomers.

These special snowflakes are in for a richly deserved ten-million-volt shock when they have to go out into an unfiltered, asshole-packed Real World and Mommy and Daddy can't serve as buffers.

for the messes we created. Now I am eternally grateful to them because I realize that they were showing us how to become adults. They didn't stick up for us when we were wrong, we had to face the music. I feel fortunate to have been raised that way and it has made me less afraid of admitting when I am wrong. I realize that owning up to your mistakes is much easier on your conscience than always trying to blame your problems on somebody else.

the parents might be helping the kids learn to deal with other people

My parents never discussed my grades with college professors. They only called me once a month or so. But times were simpler then. They didn't have to buy me a laptop or look at anything online. No opportunity to do that, even.

Then i got into the real world, where I did not have to deal with any but the people in front of me or on the telephone. I could learn that over time.

Now they kid has to deal with all the technology too. Maybe observing their parents in college helps them deal with all that.

...that students and parents come in with high grade expectations, and if you're going to grade someone down (B- or below), you have to have a solid argument as to why.

can set you back an entire academic year. Many classes are "fall/spring only" and so, again, high tuition and money grubbing cutbacks ruin everything about education.

College especially in the USA is becoming fantastically expensive, and the prospects of a reasonably-paid job lower, or at least significantly deferred. Therefore, students are more financially dependent on their parents for longer, and those (the parents) who pay the piper call the tune. This is happening to some extent in the UK, but much less than described for the USA, no doubt reflecting that even with our fee increases, the level of student debt is typically lower than in the USA. I don't think it's so much 'entitlement' as a recognition that students need far more of a push to get established in a career, and financially solvent, nowadays than in the past. Of course, this adds to class differences, as upper middle class parents are inevitably much more able than poor parents to provide that push.

Having said that, I do think that more coaching of secondary school pupils goes on than in the past - by home-hired tutors to an increasing extent, but also to a large extent by the schools, who are under pressure to get good exam results - and that the resulting spoon-feeding and emphasis on memorization is not always good for pupils' intellectual development.

You can't always have it your way. If you're real lucky you might get it your way half the time.

Her parents from Ohio bought her one of these:

http://findmespot.com/en/index.php?cid=100

She is basically going to be in the Silicon Valley of France. Americans and other english speakers are everywhere and probably at no point will she be more than fifteen minutes from the airport.

Her parents are acting like she is going to somewhere in the former Soviet Union.

Her suggestion that she stay an extra week and meet her parents in Paris was poorly received. "No, you just get home as soon as possible." There is apparently a pandemic of rapes and beheadings in France.

and said even the Midshipmen had helicopter parents. I guess it shouldn't be surprising, since it's an elite school, but the revelation was still a bit jarring.

but she cracked-up when I showed her the synopsis. She says it really just a matter of her parents being backwards hicks who find the outside world terrifying. And "outside world" includes most of the US. She says they haven't even been to visit her since she moved to California. She says if you try talking to her dad about traveling he just starts talking about concealed carry reciprocity. Because yeah dad, you totally need to be packing heat in Newport Beach, those surf bros are pretty dangerous.

Helicopter parents obviously suffer from extreme anxiety. That anxiety is then passed on to the kids. And anxiety is known to cause ADD/ADHD (and vice versa).

The question should be, why are mental disorders taking over?

I don't think there was any point in postwar U.S. history (and at many other times before, no doubt) when you could not find an equivalent panic story, about how the young are spoiled and soft like never before and this is the reason everything in this once-great country has been ruined. Dr. Spock was blamed for the lazy hippies, and now that they're old the baby boomers see lazy millennials. The anecdotes of overprotective parenting given in this thread are doubtless real enough, but could have also been found 30 years ago and long before that (and depend on a family's social class).

They have to learn to solve adult problems somehow and accept negative consequences when needed, not call in mommy and daddy all the time to save the day.

These parents are basically codependent on their kids and act as enablers, they have to be overly involved in their kids lives because their (the parents') self-esteem depends on it. If their kids were independent and self-sufficient it would create a big void in their (the parents') self-worth.