David Baxter PhD
Late Founder
Parents, let them kids alone
Globe & Mail
September 5, 2010
Parents who will not let their children fail may bring on a failure to grow up. This is the core of the problem with ?helicopter parents,? those who hover over their children even when they leave home for university or college. Standing on one?s own feet implies falling occasionally.
Twenty-five is the new 15, some say. Some postsecondary schools have begun trying to shoo the parents away. Morehouse College in Atlanta actually closes its campus gates on parents, in a ?parting ceremony.? Princeton University feels the necessity to tell parents that orientation events are ?for students only.? Memorial University in Newfoundland and McGill University in Montreal have taken a somewhat different tack; their career centres have published newsletters aimed at parents, who now play a major role as career advisers for their adult children. Problem is, though, some parents go so far as to attend their offspring?s job interviews, a declaration in effect that they are not yet ready for the adult world.
Left to their own devices, young people may behave badly at university. They may eat too much pizza, drink too much beer. They may have sexual relations in a way that is not in keeping with the mores of their parents. Will they read their expensive textbooks without a parent hovering? Possibly not.
But failures such as these, and more serious ones, too, have more uses than many in this generation of parents are prepared to accept. One does not fail if one takes no risks. And one learns little without risk.
The damage done by well meaning but over-involved parents is underlined in a new U.S. survey that found college freshmen who have helicopter parents are more dependent, vulnerable and anxious than their peers. Neil Montgomery, a psychologist at Keene State College in New Hampshire, asked students to rate their level of agreement with such statements as ?My parents have contacted a school official on my behalf to solve problems for me,? ?On my college move-in day, my parents stayed the night in town to make sure I was adjusted,? and ?If two days go by without contact my parents would contact me.? Hovering promotes dependency, he found.
A middle road is possible. Young adults may still need support ? the right support at the right time. Not constant contact by cellphone, Skype and e-mail. One survey found U.S. college seniors in touch with their parents on average 13 times a week. ?We see parents who are running flat-out to provide everything they can for their teenagers, from lessons to tutors to prep courses to electronic gadgets,? two U.S. psychologists told this newspaper. ?And we see teens who in spite of this nurturance seem helpless in the face of everyday tasks. We see bright, educated kids who don?t know how to make a doctor?s appointment, buy food at the grocery store.?
Hovering doesn?t start when children are 18. Perhaps it begins with an obsessive focus on the early years. The over-involvement never wanes. And it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: the greater the tendency to hover, the more fearful and dependent the child. The hovering creates a justification for itself.
Parents who wish to create the conditions for success need to stop hovering, and while still being available allow their children to take risks, fail and learn from failure. That is how children, and adults, grow.
Globe & Mail
September 5, 2010
Parents who will not let their children fail may bring on a failure to grow up. This is the core of the problem with ?helicopter parents,? those who hover over their children even when they leave home for university or college. Standing on one?s own feet implies falling occasionally.
Twenty-five is the new 15, some say. Some postsecondary schools have begun trying to shoo the parents away. Morehouse College in Atlanta actually closes its campus gates on parents, in a ?parting ceremony.? Princeton University feels the necessity to tell parents that orientation events are ?for students only.? Memorial University in Newfoundland and McGill University in Montreal have taken a somewhat different tack; their career centres have published newsletters aimed at parents, who now play a major role as career advisers for their adult children. Problem is, though, some parents go so far as to attend their offspring?s job interviews, a declaration in effect that they are not yet ready for the adult world.
Left to their own devices, young people may behave badly at university. They may eat too much pizza, drink too much beer. They may have sexual relations in a way that is not in keeping with the mores of their parents. Will they read their expensive textbooks without a parent hovering? Possibly not.
But failures such as these, and more serious ones, too, have more uses than many in this generation of parents are prepared to accept. One does not fail if one takes no risks. And one learns little without risk.
The damage done by well meaning but over-involved parents is underlined in a new U.S. survey that found college freshmen who have helicopter parents are more dependent, vulnerable and anxious than their peers. Neil Montgomery, a psychologist at Keene State College in New Hampshire, asked students to rate their level of agreement with such statements as ?My parents have contacted a school official on my behalf to solve problems for me,? ?On my college move-in day, my parents stayed the night in town to make sure I was adjusted,? and ?If two days go by without contact my parents would contact me.? Hovering promotes dependency, he found.
A middle road is possible. Young adults may still need support ? the right support at the right time. Not constant contact by cellphone, Skype and e-mail. One survey found U.S. college seniors in touch with their parents on average 13 times a week. ?We see parents who are running flat-out to provide everything they can for their teenagers, from lessons to tutors to prep courses to electronic gadgets,? two U.S. psychologists told this newspaper. ?And we see teens who in spite of this nurturance seem helpless in the face of everyday tasks. We see bright, educated kids who don?t know how to make a doctor?s appointment, buy food at the grocery store.?
Hovering doesn?t start when children are 18. Perhaps it begins with an obsessive focus on the early years. The over-involvement never wanes. And it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: the greater the tendency to hover, the more fearful and dependent the child. The hovering creates a justification for itself.
Parents who wish to create the conditions for success need to stop hovering, and while still being available allow their children to take risks, fail and learn from failure. That is how children, and adults, grow.
