I agree that parents need to avoid micromanaging the superficial..course selection, laundry, room decoration...But you have to keep in close contact because mental health issues can erupt and colleges keep students; medical issues private by law. The other thing I find slight disingenuous on the part of all players in the system...high school, colleges, admissions and placement professionals...as they are engaged in the hype machine of increasing admissions selectivity and exclusivity---for US News rankings and bond ratings... and the search for the unique..which ends up promoting kids who feel compelled to manufacture an identity. It is a well-oiled machines and parents who step aside completely often see their children at a disadvantage. It is a new world. Much more competitive much more complicated. Three kids through college, one through law school and I have stepped back but I respond quickly and I check in regularly. Don't blame the parents for a system everyone created.
40
I would say it is always important for parents to be involved with their son‘s or daughter’s college life. Even the most self reliant student can use the help of a parent advocate. Communication is the most important gift you can share with your son/daughter. A cautionary tale: my nephew was falsely accused by a girl of a Title 9 violation. The college convinced him he was an adult and could handle required “meetings” himself. Luckily his parents intervened and were able to get him help. Without that help, he probably would have been expelled and had a record. The girl never attended the meetings nor did anything she was required to do. There were costly legal fees, not refunded, but without good parent/student communication it could have been to late to intervene.
17
This parental behavior is a rational reaction to colleges charging exorbitant tuition to hire a "Director of Family Engagement," build fancy buildings, etc. Enough.
I studied at Oxford University. There is no "staff," and there is a minuscule, largely unseen "administration." Aside from the architecture, there are no bells and whistles in the facilities (think pre-war sinks). The "computer lab" in my college was a tiny, hot, windowless room. And students pay a-la-carte for any and all extras, even the use of the gym. Yet it offers a world-class education for a fraction of the cost of American universities.
My husband and I went to U Chicago. In 2018, we visited with our kids. Undergrad tuition was $75k. I was gobsmacked. It will only be more when my kids go to college.
As working professionals, if our kids go there, it will mean years and years of more work before retirement, and significant, long-term, qualitative lifestyle downgrades. Naturally, as two working professionals, we would not qualify for aid.
Should we choose to do that (and who knows what will happen), I would expect white-glove treatment. When you're selling a $400k undergraduate degree, paid for by parents who worked their tails off to do so, the parents are now the customer, and you better make sure the kid gets in the classes s/he needs, at a bare minimum.
Don't ask parents to back off until you stop asking them to sacrifice so much for tuition. The author's job should not even exist.
84
Tell the college kids to study hard. Maybe that's not a problem at Barnard but at most schools there's way too little in the way of learning going on.
8
On the one hand, I made sure my kids college email forwarded me emails. Mostly to be aware of when the bill was due, etc.
Email is not standard communication for teens, so there is little to spy on anyway.
College will lie through their teeth however about attending to your child. They say they'll drop by the dorm if grades tank for example. NO, they won't.
I (and the other parents) were horrified to see advice about taking only 12 credits as a freshman. Really , ????
At any good school, students should be coming in with 30 credits already done , AP, community college, whatever.
The best thing you can do it watch like a hawk, listen listen listen, but let's be real. As parents, we want the best.
Now, campus is about luxury dorms, with luxury cafeteria, when the best thing you could ever provide, it dumpy apartment on the bus line to the grocery store.
Then you'll graduate a self sufficient student who knows how to look after them self., class selection , or dinner selection.
7
I agree wholeheartedly with the dean who wrote this essay, and I'm in the same profession. But isn't a college that has director of the "office of family engagement" sending mixed signals?
32
Maybe the parents should recognize that you never learn much from your successes (sometimes not even why you were successful), but you learn a great deal from your failures.
I always said to my kids to make "original" mistakes, rather than repeating the old ones.
12
Dr. Friedman:
Have you never heard of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act? This federal law forbids college officials from discussing any information about a student's education record, without the student's written consent. If you did get the students' consent before discussing their problems, you failed to mention that fact.
11
I couldn’t agree with the article more. Parents who do everything for their kids rob them of the ability to develop crucial life skills. When I graduated college, I had terrible communication and interpersonal skills - the stuff they don’t or can’t teach you - and had a hard time finding a job and persevering even through a modest amount of adversity.
I’d also say college is in general a pretty poor institution for developing life skills, though parents can make the situation better or by what they do, or more importantly, do not do.
3
We have taught our kids that it isn’t okay to fail, yet failing (or close to it) while the stakes are relatively low is one of the best things that can happen to a college student. Whether it’s being cut from the team, not being selected for the Spring musical or flunking a course, none of these events have much impact on young lives. Yet, the lessons learned and the resolve gained from these experiences will last a lifetime. Just ask the legions of men and women who have gone onto greatness but who experienced the occasional bump in the road along the way.
10
Very interesting timing on this. Had I sent a daughter to New York City to attend Barnard College I would have been sure that she knew to never walk in Morningside Park. Apparently the college did not dispense this advice or update its students that attacks had recently taken place there. So I'm not sure why Barnard is handing out advice to parents right now. It just seems off.
43
The sub-head, undoubtedly added by an editor, panders to zeitgeist about what parents and others think.
Instead, report honestly what the article is about and you'll get more clicks.
I don't like it when newspapers condescend to me.
2
What a shame that the stock photo used for this article features a GUY unloading his stuff -- the author is on the staff of Barnard, a WOMEN's college!!!
9
So a woman on the staff of a women's college can't write an article that addresses all genders? What a strange worldview!
8
Children have to learn how to fail, how to persevere, how to handle disappointment and frustrations. Smoothing out all the rough edges of life for your kids is not doing them any favors. Sure it hurts when your little one hits a bump in first grade, but your job isn't to remove the bumps but to help them learn how to navigate the bumps.
The parents that bull doze in college, don't stop this behavior once graduation date rolls around.
7
Our child struggled academically and socially the first year of college. The school bent over backwards to include us to help correct academic performance. They told our child they believed in our child's talent and abilities and offered support that was above reproach. Once academics were back on track, the social portion seemed improve greatly.
Our child, however, had a coach that made cruel and soul crushing comments behind closed doors that had nothing to do with the sport being played. The coach did everything he could to derail an improving situation. The comments were meant to destroy our child. Yes, we stepped in and went to the athletic director as well as the president of the college. This coward of a man was eventually fired and banned from campus - his alma mater.
This wasn't about registering for a class or getting in the right dorm; we were fighting to remove a man that should never be around young people. We were fighting to protect our child from a dangerous bully.
We are forever grateful to the college and how they handled things. They took the time to listen, investigate and act.
What could have happened if we'd not stepped in is frightening to think about.
17
My sister and brother in law trained my nephew from the start to function as an adult when the time came. Within 2 months after HS graduation he had his own apartment, paid by him, furnished it by dumpster diving and buying at yard sales himself, got a full time good paying job that is going to go to part time when he starts college in September, and he's managed to save money from his job besides that. They started a college saving plan for him the week he was born and it has enough to cover the college costs.
Train them right from the start. If they are helplessly dependent, it is on you.
9
This is so very annoying. Yes, I thought my child should have courses they wanted to take-we were paying 50K and up a year for that privilege and the college was saving money by not offering enough sections of a course-that was the bottom line-hiring enough teachers and spending the money.
And they turn the focus to blame the parent. Where else in life do you spend that kind of money and expect to get whatever is handed to you. My son called his counselor to talk about courses and was upset (but very polite) he could not take a course. I was in the room and he was on speaker phone. The counselor asked him if his "mommy was going to call"! She did not know I was listening obviously. So that is the attitude!
Yes people pay a lot of money and expect to get what they pay for. And colleges should deliver and stop their constant complaining and hiding behind this stupid (but very self aggrandizing and quite handy) story they tell themselves.
And my son can cook, clean, lives on a budget and all those other things listed undoubtedly by people who don't have children.
29
What exactly does a "director of family engagement" do? Apparently not "engage with family." Perhaps Barnard should cut this position and use the savings to hire another instructor to offer more course sections.
32
What is family engagement exactly?
10
What is even worse than calling the Dean at a college about your student’s problem is bragging on your Linked in page about your brilliant child (22 years old) who is looking for a job in data analytics. And then the parent says “DM me for his resume”. She is also listed as a reference on it.
11
I think this article is more aptly titled, “Four ways to help parents of college-aged children grow up.”
13
Then you can remind them that nothing really matters and there's no level of ignorance that prevents you from becoming The President of the United States
10
The author holds the title "Director of Family Engagement." Seriously.
12
This is my Alma mater too. Cringe.
6
The type of parent described in this article has profoundly misunderstood the purpose of college. Faculty are there to EDUCATE students. They are NOT there to guarantee their success. These are different goals, and no one who believes the second will ever be satisfied with the first.
8
I’d love to hear from family engagement deans or college health center leaders on a more serious source of trouble for young adults than what is mentioned here.
As a parent, my great fear is for the 1/100 people or so who experience first psychosis or diagnosable depression / mania at college. You want to be hands-off as a parent, but serious psychiatric illness is not that uncommon. It’s manageable, with good diagnosis and support. But un-caught, it can be worse than a heart attack and no less surprising. It often gets going for real in late teens early twenties. It affects the brilliant and the bemused. Parents are lucky if their first alert is a “harmless” interaction with police, or a student in the ER. Not that common, you say - but if not your student, others in their class will suffer this.
Colleges are understandably shy to discuss student suicides or “medical” dropouts. But for parents, these are real nightmare monsters out there for this age group. Sometimes a parent can’t help - especially if a non- minor student doesn’t want them involved. But sometimes early family support can be life-saving, or even just a small raft in a sea of what can feel like a disorienting catastrophe. When a student’s life path takes that kind of turn, staying at college may or may not be in the cards. But can there more than risk, stigma, and liability-anxious institutional silence for them and for their family?
15
I'm surprised the dean doesn't understand that parents do this sort of thing not because they think they're kids can't, but because they KNOW that the adults on the other end of a child's issues will absolutely give more weight to a fellow Adult.
My parents dropped me off at university, wrote the checks and beyond that everything was my own job to figure out.
I got to watch nearly all my classmates apply late for classes and internships and have their issues resolved by parents. When I, as an 19 year old girl, tried to advocate for myself I was absolutely talked down to, ignored, and generally treated like I was useless.
I had an apartment with black mold. I followed all the steps, called everybody I was supposed to from the school and housing office, then from legal. Nothing. "We can't take this on right now."
Took my dad one call.
Parents understand full well that middle age confers a sense of peer group respect from college admin that even the most articulate students won't have.
62
Here's another sure fire tip:
Don't waste money sending your kid to college, if you turn around and vote for federal office holders on the basis of looks or money, without noticing whether they are factually challenged about the geographical location of Kansas City, MO.
We Americans love to preach about the value of education, but at the same time we love to pick on the nerds and thinkers.
If you're determined to prove me wrong, vote for Elizabeth Warren. She committed the cardinal sin of actually explaining the details of what she'd do to improve the country. I'll predict that will doom her, but give her some kudos anyway.
17
I used to go over to my daughter's dorm once a month for an hour on Friday night. I brought great snacks. One girl said that she a a D in Biology and she did not know what to do about it. I told her to take it over. I explained that I was terrible in Spanish so I first audited a class and then took it for credit. I basically took every class twice and I got A's. This is how much effort it took me to learn Spanish. I still can not speak it. Sensible problem solving is what a kid needs. (She took the class over and got an A.)
7
What to do when your student needs small, easy-to-do accommodations for a diagnosed disability? Can't talk to anyone at the college/university. Student with disability gets the run-around and pushed out the door. Really, helicopter parent?! When does post-secondary start getting the scrutiny that K-12 does?
2
Nearly every college has a disability student services office that helps with this. From my experience, they are experienced and able to help.
7
@BB
Have your student provide written authorization for the school to speak with you about the disability and accommodations.
2
As much as the university, or any other creditor, would prefer I drop junior off at their doorstep with my AMEX gold card and the happy declaration "Have fun! See you in the Spring," Um, that's not going happen.
And if the over priced administrator at the office of family engagement whose job it is to 'handle me' after junior informs me via text that I need to tack on another semester to his college career because his required courses are full, she better be prepared to earn her check.
30
Some of these parents know from hard experience exactly how little other adults care and how little effort other adults are willing to make in order to do the right thing. And they know that their kids don’t have the information they need, and that the adults in charge will take advantage of that asymmetry.
I wish someone had helped me, and I’m not going to not help my kids.
15
I am a proud member of the Barnard class of 1963. When I was in elementary school and high school my mother interfered continually, often making a bad situation worse. During my time at Barnard, I made a point of not telling my mother when I had a problem, which mostly kept her out of my hair. When I was in grad school in England, I made the mistake of telling her my supervisor’s name. I can’t prove she ever called him (at a time when transatlantic calls were very expensive), but after a certain date he began many meetings with me by inquiring “And how IS your mother?” causing me to want to drop through the floor. I suspect she called him to complain that I didn’t confide in her enough!
7
Director of Family Engagement??
Another reason for the high price tag. And part of the problem.
17
Worth mentioning, too, is that over-involvement of parents perpetuates equity issues at many schools, too. The faculty and instructors who respond to these interventions are disproportionately women, who are then disproportionately criticized for not being sufficiently nurturing, compassionate, or understanding when they decline to accommodate unrealistic expectations.
7
Cultivating independence is easier if the parents don't have much ability to help. My son let me know that, due to school bureaucracy, his work-study job hadn't paid him in weeks. He was struggling to pay rent and resorting to stealing food. But informing me didn't help him -- I'm still scraping together this month's rent here, and will have a grand total of $24 to live on after it's paid, so I have nothing extra to share with him. I suggested he look for another job ASAP. I have two myself, and they keep me from having the time to phone the college to complain on his behalf. I supppse that's the upside of income inequality!
9
Why is there a department call Family Engagement? Doesn't she see that having this office is also part of the problem?
15
The author is forgetting an important piece of the puzzle: money. Parents are responsible for paying huge sums, whether they have the funds or not, for their adult children’s college education. In this regard, advocating for space in a full class is looking after a significant investment. Parents need children to graduate on time, or be responsible for paying even more. Colleges need to own up to their role in this frustrating situation.
28
@Tania Schlatter parents aren't responsible for paying for college. That is an individual parent decision to do so. It isn't the colleges job to ensure your child graduates on time, it is the child's and more the parents' to have taught their children work ethic and personal responsibility long before they arrive at college.
4
I question whether it really “stems from love.”
I think it stems from control and self-absorption. If it stemmed from love, then they’d respect their adult children, wouldn’t they?
9
1. Tell them not to take student loans
2. Encourage trade school
3. Tell them to get a job while they are in their post secondary education.
4. Ensure (if they decide to stay in a college environment) to study a STEM field and ONLY a STEM field.
2
I had just read a few articles on "helicopter parenting" right around the time my 9 year old daughter joined a travel soccer team that cost LOTS of money and monopolized our weekends for the next 4 years. We did it solely because my daughter was both very good at, and very interested in, soccer. I came from a lower middle class background where I played sports but with little parental support. I was shocked at other parents on the travel team and the way they bulldozed coaches, referees and other parents on the team. I instinctively knew, reinforced by reading the "helicopter" articles, that they were doing major long term damage to their kids. So much so that I finally got my daughter away from the whole sordid situation. The amount of pig headed bullying and screaming at referees, demands that their kid always be playing to the point of MONETARY BRIBES etc. was mind boggling. When we got out I told my wife I knew exactly which kids were going to fall apart in the next few years. Two of those names have been thru drug rehab and are still "partying", one flunked out of school and has apparently been abandoned by her formerly helicopter parents and one is flunking junior college and injured a friend when she totalled the new Lexus while drunk her parents gave her last year . My daughter just graduated from a Masters program 6 weeks ago and has multiple lucrative job offers. But yet those parents had absolutely no self awareness of what they were doing to their kids!
11
I have two daughters.
When my daughter was in school. If she did problems totally wrong. I would help her to correct it. I am not particularly interested in standing in at eight to the school. When they can send me a B or C or not good enough. I watch their homework. When they made errors I am allowed it. I wanted the teacher to correct it as part of the system.
I never ever cleaned their rooms. Or demanded that they do it. In fact I would call and say the room look like it belong in the modern museum of art! They will. And they certainly learned as they left the house to straighten their rooms and organize it.
With the cash and gifts they had. I always made them by their mother and father a gift from their cash. They did then. And they do now.
Some people call their kids gifted! Some students are stem. Advanced students. My daughters were, well within their norm. People certainly want to tell me how gifted their students are.
Coming from a large family. We were all invited at Christmas, Thanksgiving at Cetera. We declined. We made our own dinner for ourselves, And my kids learned how to cook.
We certainly have our own disagreements. We argue and discuss. When someone sees a comment from one of my daughters. They say do you allow it. I certainly do. Because that is the way I taught them to be independent.
My two daughters are very successful. And we are a family.
1
Great writing and insights. I think Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan had to wait until Helen's voice was acceptable by the people in admissions, before she could enter.
I accepted a position to teach at a 'student-centric' campus in the early 1990's, impressed with the commitment of the administration and faculty for going to extra lengths to connect individually with students to guide their success.
I began my college experience at a very competitive SUNY StonyBrook in the mid-1970s, where there was no coddling, but a rich cultural and academic life for students willing to make the required sacrifices.
In my new faculty position, I was proud of how we helped our students, many of whom were the first in their families to attend college. We were given ample administrative support to do our course preparations, community service, and still work closely with students. Once state budgets and enrollments began their precipitous declines, faculty support was virtually eliminated while every imaginable entertainment and comfort was offered to attract and keep students. Rather than foster responsibility by enforcing deadlines or limited seats, faculty were advised to be more flexible with due dates, allow re-takes on exams, and basically accept drivel for assignments while minimizing actual criticism of punctuation, grammar, or spelling. Students sporting expensive tattoos would let us know they couldn't afford their textbooks or paper for printing out assignments. Working all night to pay for tuition and then sleeping through, or missing class was to be 'worked out.' Basically, no accountability at all for this new generation of students.
3
I went to Barnard. My first roommate was a nightmare. Her boyfriend moved into our room on Day 1 and they had sex constantly, even when I was in the room. I came back from class one day and the boyfriend was wearing my shower shoes and bathrobe. I took to spending as much time as possible at places other than my dorm room. Without asking, my mother called the school and I was immediately assigned a new roommate who was a much better match for me. I am grateful my mother did that. At that age of 18, I didn't know how to navigate that situation. I doubt that the Dean of Residential Life would have acted so quickly had I been the one to advocate for myself.
25
I could not disagree more with Tintin. After working for almost 30 years in higher education, I am astonished that this dean's advice is not taken as just plain common sense. If one's college age children don't have adequate emotional independence, problem solving skills, and resilience by this point in their lives, it is a clear sign the parents have not grown either.
5
My favorite professor once told me a story of an excited mother--wearing hair curlers, so you can imagine the date--appearing at the door of a lecture where her son was in attendance. When she came in and tried to engage the professor about her child, the prof merely pointed and said, "Madam, the door."
2
When my oldest kid was in kindergarten, my husband wanted to go speak to her teacher because she got a "satisfactory" in reading instead of an "outstanding." I get where he was coming from. My daughter was reading at 3 and literally read the NYTimes at home in K. But my point to him was, WHO CARES? It's kindergarten! We knew she was doing well. She could get unsatisfactory in every single subject and it would have zero effect on her life.
I took the opportunity to share with my husband my philosophy on the subject of intervening at school. I am not going to be "that parent." The principal will see me when my child is at risk of physical or serious emotional harm. Otherwise, school is their domain and home is ours. My kids are 10, 12 and 14 and doing well. I have yet to find cause to contact the teachers or principal. When it comes to these parenting issues, less is more.
16
The thinking behind this is generous and quite kind, especially when the author writes that parents are doing this out of love. But I disagree. It has been my experience that parents who interfere are doing it mainly out of self-interest and living vicariously through their children. It's the same reason that the celebs bribed to get their kids into prestigious colleges; that wasn't about love, either. It's about bragging rights and co-dependence. Considering that young men and women of 18 who do not have money to go to college often end up fighting our wars, I find it shocking that parents would so coddle their children who are similarly aged but socially privileged and emotionally swaddled. Maybe these children should take a few gap years to grow up -- and their parents, too. And maybe universities should ask for evidence of emotional maturity, compassion, ability to problem solve and analyze instead of looking at what ZIP code or private school the applicant comes from. I'd bet that most of these instances involve very, very well-to-do kids.
12
Ms Friedman wrote "When a student isn’t able to register for a class because it’s full, for example, her exasperated father might call to inform me that the administration needs to open more sections of the course so there will be an open seat for his child. And when I explain that no one is available to teach an additional section, the common response from dads is, “Well, then you need to hire more instructors.”
People who work and teach at universities know that the institution is funneling an innordinate proportion of tuition money towards administrative, human resources, student life services. I think it is shameful that university departments have to struggle so hard to get adequate funds for hiring instructors to meet the demand for classes or sections. The father who is disparaged in her account was actually doing the right thing. More parents need to get the universities to prioritize instruction. Good job Dad...
28
Thank you for stating this so clearly! If you were anywhere else paying a very high price for a specific item you would not be forced to buy something else instead. The tuition is paid whether you get into the classes you want to take or whether you get a lousy professor who doesn’t teach well!
What is family engagement anyway?
6
Parents, this right here is why your kids cant make a doctors appointments. Please dont call a college dean to fix your kids problems. Your kid didnt get the class they wanted 9/10x because they registered for it late. I would have been mortified if my dad had called my college to complain about my schedule. If your kid is actually in trouble of course you should step in and try to help, but not for the small things. Even at a small private college its unlikely that a dean has much more then a cursory relationship with the dean unless they are having academic or social problems. Call your kid not their professors.
7
@Rob I disagree that '9/10 x because they registered for it late.' Occasionally, yes. More often, because they didn't have a high enough lottery number for timing of registration, because their advisor didn't give them correct information, or because the class simply didn't allow many students in. In my own case, I tried never to limit number of students in a class except when there was a lab involved. And, if a student came to me and asked to be let in after being closed out, I did so, even if it meant I had to add another lab (and teach it myself). Colleges are way too expensive these days, and need to focus more on serving students and less on paying big salaries to coaches and administrators.
22
This op-ed reflects a common scam on the part of expensive colleges: Try to shame paying customers into being more passive and less expectant regarding their financial outlay, acting as if the parents are overly intrusive and hovering for wanting their money's worth. Notice that the dean writing this piece comes from a college that charges more than $65,000 a year in tuition, room, and board. Wouldn't it be convenient to shame parents into asking less for their money so the college can be even less accountable? What better than to charge exorbitant tuition and not have to worry about those paying the bills actually expecting something. This is nonsense. If the dean wants less demanding parents, less demanding customers (which is what those who pay $65,000/year for something are), then the dean should either get her college to charge reasonable rates, or get a job at a college that charges nothing. As long as higher education feels free to charge whatever it wants, regardless of how fair or affordable that price tag is, then higher education should expect those who pay to be vigilant about whether they are getting their money's worth. Welcome to the world of commerce, dean, since you are selling a commodity. The fact you want your product, your service, to be purchased without question or expectations is utterly ridiculous.
200
@Tintin I don't hear the author saying that the colleges shouldn't address issues with course choices etc, but that to the extent higher education is intended to grow the knowledge and capacities of the student that having the parents supplant the student as an advocate is counter-productive. Also, I imagine that at Barnard there is a wide-range of tuitions actually being paid based on the wherewithal of the students' family etc. Should the level of attention given to a concern be gauged the amount of money the student generates for the school?
34
@Tintin The idea that students and their parents are "customers" is completely off-base and very destructive. It's also tragic that some people think education is a commodity. This kind of thinking is partly to blame for the sorry state of affairs in the U. S.
107
@PeteM The price tag of a product will determine how much demand is placed upon that product. Whether some students are assisted in the purchase of that product with scholarships does not decrease the price of the product: A scholarship does not result in a cheaper product, only a discounted price. Demands upon the product, then, should be the same, scholarship or no scholarship. If a college dean, like this one, believes students need to learn to be more self-sufficient in college, then I would say: Get to work, dean; the students are there to learn. Teach them. Trying to shame parents for what they conclude is necessary advocacy is not the solution. Parents should not have to advocate, not for $65,000/year tuition. The fact that they feel a need to do so speaks to the college not living up to its end of the deal. I see how colleges have charged more and more while trying to cut back on student support and student services. New dorms and gymnasiums get priority over student advising and counseling center staff. This dean then comes forward and tries to get the parents to back off without taking any responsibility for WHY those parents feel the need to advocate in the first place. This is another effort for a college to charge outlandish fees while ducking accountability. Parent blaming is not a solution. Functional college campuses with adequate support and advising is the solution.
34
Get out of the kid's life and let them succeed or fail on their own. During my freshman year at a presigious university , I contracted mononucleosis and flunked out. My parents were supportive, but it never occorred to any of us that they should contact or intervene with the university - this was my mess and I had to clean it up. I spent the summer first berating myself and then taking serious stock of what happened, and read books that pertained to the classes I had planned to take during my sophomore year. I wrote my own letter requesting readmission and returned that fall. I worked hard and never got anything less than a B- for the remainder of my undergraduate stay and was accepted into a graduate program at the same university. Lessons learned.
6
@NK that would be a 30K loss today unless the sick student had purchased tuition insurance.
5
Readers may appreciate an opinion I wrote in the New York Times on this issue, in response to an article by Frank Bruni: "Tips for reaping the benefits of college,"
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/25/opinion/letters/benefits-college.html
My view is that many of the challenges young adults face on campus is due to the fact that they really don't even belong there yet--they are better off working and/or serving in the military, as Henry Kissenger did before graduating from Harvard College at 27 years of age. College can be behaviorally counter-productive, and the faculty, often very poor role models concerning work, social and even intellectual habits. Behavioral and ideological faculty "mirroring" by students can be dysfunctional, resulting from an absence of their own strong personal identity and intellectual independence that largely comes from experience outside college, or at least prior to it. How many 18 year-old freshman know what it is like to commit to hard physical labor, and have standards of conduct from meaningful, responsible employment?
As for the writer's recommendations, they're fairly trite, even 'parental' in their tone, while leaving unaddressed many other urgent, and justified concerns. One is rather notorious on her campus: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/26/nyregion/tessa-majors-barnard-student-stabbing.html
4
Here are the sure-fire four ways:
1. Make your child work during high school at a level-skills job for at least 10 hours a week. Dishwasher at IHOP, stocker at the supermarket, lawn care crew. They'll learn responsibility and respect for people that has nothing to do with intelligence. And, their own money.
2. Let them fail from time to time. It won't kill them.
3. When you feel like reaching for the cell phone to call their college, call your mother instead. She'll appreciate it more.
4. Tell them not to expect to live at home when college is over, and stick to it. If they can't find a job or are moving on to graduate school, let them join a branch of the military. With a college education, they'll go in as officers.
11
I completely understand and agree with the author of this article. But if the college student is to be treated as an adult with the parents remaining in the background available only as support, shouldn't the college not consider the parents' income and net worth in deciding student aid? Seems like the college wants it both ways.
17
@Lisa Amen.
2
I suppose if college was something students could pay for on their own, by working a summer job, then parents wouldn't feel so compelled to be involved. (If you are a 1 percenter, then this is a non-issue -- your child has their trust fund and hefty allowance and so what if they flunk a few classes and take 6 years to graduate?) It's laughable that college administrators take the attitude that students should advocate for themselves when parents AND their children are going deeply into debt to finance a 4-year degree.
If college administrators don't want to be hassled by parents, then there should be no "Expected Family Contribution" that obliterates life savings.
32
Ms. Friedman writes, "When a student isn’t able to register for a class because it’s full, for example, her exasperated father might call to inform me that the administration needs to open more sections of the course so there will be an open seat for his child. And when I explain that no one is available to teach an additional section, the common response from dads is, “Well, then you need to hire more instructors.”" Amen to the father! Colleges are insanely expensive and they need to serve the students (not the other way around).
As a professor emerita, I would like to point out that if a student is unable to register for certain courses, it can delay graduation and cost parents and students tens of thousands of dollars. Even if a course is not specifically 'required,' per se, it can be a pre-requisite for another class, and may be needed to help fulfill distribution requirements. Too many young people are having a tough time graduating on time as a result of being closed out of courses. The problem is especially bad when a student switches majors. This is costing students and parents huge sums of money, and contributing to drop out rates.
Considering how expensive college is, if a student is having problems with a roommate who is making it difficult for the student to study and get sufficient sleep, it is incumbent on the university to fix the problem ASAP.
If you're going to charge a fortune, then you have to stop whining over reasonable expectations!
42
This piece promised irony, and but a few paragraphs in it delivered. The author describes the parents intervention as counterproductive, when in fact the child in question is attending Barnard. One can only wonder how the author understands counterproductive.
40
I traveled around Europe in the summer of 1977 for 3 months on a Eurail pass with a couple of friends from college. I was 20. When my parents dropped me off in May at the airport was the last I communicated with them until they picked me up at the same airport at the end of August. I sent postcards, but they took six weeks to get home. Had I died, the American Embassy would have notified my parents. Had they died, I wouldn't have known until I got back.
Can you imagine how much I grew up that summer, how much inner strength I developed? And do you realize, that no one will ever again develop and experience that type of independence?
So -- how do we allow our children to develop true inner strength today? I figure at this point if you don't have it within you authentically so that you can model it for them, and so that you can know the best decisions to make as they arise, good luck.
54
@jon Not sure I understand this? Is her mother Lori Loughlin?
5
I have been a Professor for almost 20 years and am a mom to a college Freshman. I have gotten lots of texts and emails this year from my daughter, problems, concerns, but also good news.
My go to comments are “ what do you want to do next?” “ who do you think you should talk to?” “ what do you plan to say?”. Then give encouragement that they can handle the problem.
I have also given comments on draft emails my daughter has written to professors or to her advisor.
I have always prided myself on having an open door to my own students, but this year I have been kinder, and I hope I stay that way.
College students are figuring things out, who they are, what their goals are. I love being a part of that at my university.
Encourage your college students to seek out Professors and advisors who feel as I do. There are many of us who will help your child gain the skills and confidence they need for success.
184
@Liza —Since you’re a professor I can’t help letting you know that “professor” shouldn’t be capitalized. It’s a common noun. It would only have a capital if it’s in the context of a name, as in Professor Smith. I see this all the time now, people capitalizing common nouns. Trump does this all the time on Twitter. He puts capitals on the word “country” and well, just about any noun he feels is important. It’s always wrong and looks ridiculous.
11
@Liza so much of this should be done in high school. If parents let go more in high school their child may not get in to Barnard but they will be better able to know themselves and negotiate their young adult lives
5
"The fathers who contact my office have a tendency to infantilize their daughters and try to enforce their own “solutions.” When a student isn’t able to register for a class because it’s full, for example, her exasperated father might call to inform me that the administration needs to open more sections of the course so there will be an open seat for his child. And when I explain that no one is available to teach an additional section, the common response from dads is, “Well, then you need to hire more instructors.”
Moms usually take a more collaborative approach. In this same situation, a mother usually inquires about how similar issues have been handled in the past. When I respond that most students simply register for the class the next time it’s offered, she will typically implore me to do everything in my power to facilitate a one-time exception and ask what she can do to help me make a spot available for her daughter."
So the fathers treat the problem as a general one needing a general solution, while the mothers attempt to get special treatment for their children at everyone else's expense?
The motherly approach doesn't strike me as particularly "collaborative." Or preferable, for that matter.
3
There is a lot of truth in Dr. Friedman's essay.
I am curious about her personal experiences as a daughter or as a parent dealing with a complex and sometimes impersonal bureaucracy and interacting with people in unequal power relationships. Did her parents and did she follow her advice?
And, even the director of family engagement works for the institution. Her advice for dealing with the institution is not free of the possibility of a conflict of interest.
3
When I was a junior in college, my father said to me, "You know, it occurred to me that I've been paying for school for two and half years now and have never seen a report card." I answered, "You want to see my report card?" He laughed and said, "No."
My parents raised me for eighteen years before I left their house. I was close with them both and my dad knew I liked college and was a good student. I can't imagine them having this level of interest in my life, much less exercising control over it. Now, if I had been in danger or something like that, they would've taken the first flight out to help.
My dad passed away last summer. I miss him so much.
21
Perhaps intervening regarding closed classes has to do with the prospect of paying for extra semesters at an expensive school. And they're all expensive in one way or another.
13
I'd recommend Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt's 2018 book (and 2015 Atlantic article) Coddling of the American Mind to get a good look at the culture change that has been taking place on college campuses in the past few years.
I just finished listening to the audio book and while it pains me to hear about some of the things students, parents, and administrators are doing it explains a lot.
3
Creating situations where your adult child can build their own resilience is great. Getting lectured by colleges administrators not so great. It seems snarky and unfair. To actually get into Barnard takes a lot of effort, and I'm guessing most kids at Barnard had some adult helping them along the way.
Most colleges have no problem engaging parents when asking for money. Maybe they practice this model by only asking the students for money.
12
And don’t forget to teach your kid how to do their laundry, clean a toilet, and distinguish between the flu and a hangover. Teach them to change a tire, cook 5 simple meals, and how to shop for groceries with $20 in their wallet. Teach them to be self reliant, kind, and empathetic to others. Teach them to be inquisitive, to take classes because they might be interesting, not because they are future-earnings- related. Teach them to go hear the chorus or theatre perform and go to see the student sculpture gallery, no matter how amateur the result. Visit the upper floors of the library and handle actual books in subject Tx they know nothing about. Try the on campus dentist or counselor. Not everything need be arbitrated nor decided by their mom, dad, auntie or hometown former prom date. Get out there, and practice, practice, practice being grown up.
676
@ABaron Oh, if it were so easy...
12
@ABaron
What a brilliant comment! You should write a column on this as well. Thank you.
18
Amen!
12
I have seen things go very wrong when parents aren't deeply involved, especially around discipline and mental health.
The parents of a young person I'm close to did not help their child prepare for a disciplinary hearing and the kid was needlessly suspended, effectively derailing her college career since she lost her scholarship and ability to quickly transfer. I deeply wish the parents had acted.
It is also a shock to many students and their parents that as of the magic day when their kids turn 18, parents can no longer have any involvement with their child's mental health care. It is a nightmare, and no one is satisfied with the outcomes. We need a solution.
134
@Cousy In this one instance, I think justice prevailed - someone in a disciplinary hearing is not someone I'd want to encourage by giving them a scholarship.
4
@Maria
She was sexually assaulted while drunk. This was confirmed by the health center. Her assailant, who had two lawyers and had been previously kicked out of another college for similar behavior, was able to slide out of accountability because of subsequent contact between the two of them. She did not have a lawyer and did not know how to think it through. She's no angel but the disciplinary process at these schools is pretty lousy.
32
@Maria now you saw Cousy's answer, but the judgement in your response is ridiculous - because someone is in a disciplinary hearing they should LOSE (note -she already had it) her scholarship?!? That is sad.
30
Maybe I’m overally sensitive, but is there a reason presented in the article for the cover photo being of an asian family?
4
As a first gen college student, I had to navigate the university system on my own while also working full time. After I finished undergrad, I worked for a year in the registrar's office of my university. Parents calling in to discuss their students was frustrating on a lot of levels. FERPA is a federal privacy law that protects student's privacy and often precludes university employees from being able to discuss any of this to begin with.
Beyond that, I'm grateful now at 29 that my parents never intervened for me. I have felt capable of handling all my adult affairs since I moved out at 18. I feel confident when I have to decide things like how I want to handle my retirement or when to purchase a home or repaying my student loans. Feeling like a capable adult can't happen without some struggle in the beginning. It's something you have to learn.
8
The problem, Ms. Friedman, is this WORKS at least part of the time. It definitely works in high schools -- especially private ones -- especially if the parents are affluent, influential, "connected".
They get privileges all the time. This is not even new.
When I was in high school...my best friend, an excellent student, got a D in gym class. (She was smart, but very non-athletic.) The truth was, she didn't even try and often "sat out" sports or exercise. She deserved that D.
But her MOM went to college with the Dean of Girls (yup, that was a "thing" back in the 70s) and they were in the same sorority. So MOM went and had a little chat with the Dean and dontcha know -- my friend had her D erased and turned into a B+.
Armed with this, she got a National Merit Scholarship.
I got a D in gym, on my permanent record. I got no scholarships at all. My mom never went to college, her family was far too poor for that. We had no connections and no "pull".
Rinse and repeat.
15
I did to my son what my parents did to me.. Dropped him off, made sure he had food and drinks in his dorm fridge then left.. Saw him on Christmas vacation.. he seems to be doing OK.
3
"Their actions are motivated by love."
I work in higher education and I approve this article. I agree wholeheartedly with the author's point. I just don't think these helicopter parents' are motivated by love, though. They probably think it's love, but it they really love their kids, then they should not impede their children's ability to self advocate, problem solve, and be resilient. Their over-parenting is motivated by stupidity and their own lack of resilience. Parents are supposed to be role models to their kids, but how can that happen when the parents themselves behave like a child when a crisis happens? in my work I deal with overly anxious parents of students in their early twenties. The level of immaturity shown by both the parents and their child often amazes me. The level of entitlement is another story.
1
@Petunia Drop the cost of college precipitously and then all your arguments make sense. Colleges are way way way too expensive. Fix that then we can all take a step back and give kids space to grow up.
4
Several years back, but I remember "off to college". The only caveat from my mother was to call every Sunday. Of course, I missed a Sunday. I called the next Sunday to apologize. Mom said it was okay to not call unless I wanted come home for a visit, then I should know "I rented you room!".
1
In my second -to-last year as a college professor, I swore I'd never teach a lecture class again after an undergraduate tried to hand me her cellphone at the end of a class, saying "my Mom wants to talk to you." (As a teacher in the performing arts, I've almost always been fortunate enough to teach in a studio, with a small number of students. I thought I'd enjoy lecturing; I was wrong.) In my last year, the university replaced the head football coach, but had to pay him the full salary named in his unfinished contract; i.e., he was sent away but still paid more than 40 times my salary to NOT coach football that year. I miss teaching terribly, but am so grateful that I no longer swim in the highly toxic waters of academia.
6
Perhaps some of this is driven by the outrageous prices these schools charge?
8
My child is in pre-k and I don't even intervene like these parents do.
3
As a faculty member, I had a much easier way to handle this. Under federal law, students must sign a release to allow their professors to talk to their families. So, when a parent would call to ask about a question on a test (yes, it was that deep), I would tell them that I couldn't talk to them without a release. Then I would give the release to the student the next time I saw them, and explain the situation. To a one, the students were mortified, and I never got a signed release back. Student's comments about "how do I get them to stop this?" was often followed up with a conversation about healthy boundaries. A growth opportunity for everyone.
8
I am also on both sides of this issue. I put myself through undergraduate school as a commuter student (someone who lived off campus). I worked full time. I saw first hand how cold professors and administrators could be to students that did not fit the “normal” box. I put myself through grad school with the same kind of experiences. You move forward with your lessons learned.
On the other side, I am now dealing with my stepson who has multiple issues and cannot advocate for himself in a reasonable and rational way. Everything is drama, hysterics, screaming, crying and the school, administrators, professors and in fact the entire world is against him so why should he even try? He is almost done with school but now dragging his feet because he doesn’t want to have to get a job and support himself.
For every well adjusted, hardworking teen out there in school, there are others that have struggles, real or imagined. One size fits all advice rarely works. I personally would like to see more interaction between administrators and students to help the stragglers build a framework to success which would reinforce what we do as parents.
7
While I agree there may be some parents of highly capable students at elite schools who hover, this is really not the issue for most students and especially for students whose parents are just not engaged, ever, in their children's studies.
Having gone to a flagship state university and now having a child in one, there is also a huge difference in the amount of help that students get to manage their studies. Spaces in classes are limited, you have to be enrolled in a program to get an advisor, people give you bad advice, departments don't have a single viewpoint, and then there are all the myriad of things that can happen to someone at 18-22 on campus, in their living arrangements, with other students, and even being victim of crimes and/or harassment. They are pretty much cold-heartless places where you can get a private education at a good discount. No one is making sure your kid is going to graduate on time .. and maybe you might have to assist them. And yes, if there are not enough spots in classes to complete a degree, that is something I think it is fair for a parent to bring up as a formal complaint.
I have always tried to be an advocate for my children, not a manager or a personal assistant or someone to call the teacher and complain about grades. As an advocate for them (and for my and their hard earned money), I might intervene.
7
Gen Z entitlement has reached pandemic proportions. I just retired after 30 years as a college professor. I won several teaching awards and was lucky to spend my days working with so many wonderful young adults. In the last few years, however, I saw very different attitudes among students. They couldn’t tolerate the slightest failure. If they missed a test question, the question must have been unclear. If they overslept and missed lecture, the class was scheduled too early. They were professional complainers. And yes, once the parents of a 30-year old grad student called the President’s office to complain that my standards were too high. Higher Ed is definitely flawed in many ways, but universities are currently overwhelmed by the hapless incompetence of the average Gen Z “student.”
13
I too worked on a college campus and managed a number of fix it parents. Yes, students must learn to ask their own questions and find their way through the college experience. But, sometimes students are truly lost in the process and don't know where to turn.I will ask this of Ms. Friedman. On your elite campus, if a student goes to an office and says "I'm having problems with...." and that problem isn't the purview of that particular office, what are staff members trained to do? If it sounds like "you need to go talk to the office of..." then your staff is part of the campus shuffle problem. Staff members. Pick up the phone and get the NAME of the person this student needs to speak to. People sometimes don't know how to ask the real question. ALL staff: listen to the question and be sure they understand what you are communicating to them. Without students you wouldn't have a job.
13
Oh my goodness. A couple of weeks ago, the parents' Facebook group for my child's elite liberal arts college blew up with complaints about students not being able to get the classes they wanted. A number of parents suggested the parent who'd posted call the dean, or their child's adviser, or they wanted the child to go to the class they'd been shut out of and advocate for an exception. I did find myself wondering who had written their child's college essays.
The advice that this author suggests is sensible and down-to-earth, even for students whose parents are paying $70k/year. It's a lesson I learned a number of years ago from an assistant principal at my child's high school, who gently told me, when I called about my 14-year-old's unhappiness with a teacher: "We expect your child to learn to advocate for himself in high school. Why not sent him to talk to me, and I'll sort it out with him." They did sort it out, and my child is now in college and still, sometimes with my advice, sorting things out for himself.
4
A parents’ Facebook page? For parents a bunch of young adults? The very idea makes me shudder!
5
Thanks for the comedy. If I used any of these "tips" on my perfectly capable 19yo college freshman, he'd hurt himself laughing. The time to teach your kids to take care of and advocate for themselves comes long before they leave for college.
14
So right! We have been encouraging our daughter, now a sophomore, to advocate for herself since middle school. It hasn’t always been perfect but she learns from mistakes and corrects the next time. She’s practicing these skills so that they are second nature when she’s on her own. After all, that’s our goal as parents - to help her become a full functioning, responsible adult.
4
I wish my parents were still alive so I could thank them.
Thanks for letting me grow up ay my own pace. As in, fast.
Thanks for letting me choose my own career.
Thanks for not offering advice unless it was asked for.
Thanks for not meddling in my education/jobs/marriages.
Thanks for have your own full, interesting lives.
And thanks for not even knowing the names of my deans.
15
An Office for Family Engagement? I never heard of such a thing prior to this opinion column.
Talk about treating young adults like children.
8
What's so obnoxious about this article is that it ignores the fact that most colleges are not user friendly. The degree requirements are murky, the class sign-up process convoluted and byzantine, the administration (as this article itself admits) standoffish and dismissive.
This article also ignores the fact that many parents are paying HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS for their childrens' education.
So, you expect my child, who is still a child in many respects, should navigate the absurd college bureaucracy alone, and if they fail, I should be happy that my money has been wasted?
Honestly, this article is wildly self-serving. Of course colleges want my kids to screw up the process and attend for a fifth year. Of course colleges want to have that advantage over my kids, and over my money.
Sorry, but I'm doing everything in my power to help my children, especially when it comes to fighting back against institutions that care FAR more about making money than about making sure my kid is being treated well.
20
@Todd Will you go on job interviews with your kid when they get out of college too...or call and complain when they don't get offered a position? Because that is what you are setting them up for.
4
I'm on both sides of this issue. I have a daughter in college and I'm a college administrator. Yes, it's annoying when parents e-mail or call to advocate for their student. I encourage them to ask their young adult to come in and talk to me. I assure the parents that I'll be professional and as helpful as I can be.
That said, I'm also aware that universities can be a bit cold-hearted when students need help. Long story short, my daughter dented another car by accident and went to look for paper to write a note. In the meanwhile, the car had left and reported the dent to police. Through the police, she resolved the problem and paid for the repair.
Soon, though, the Associate Dean of Students was bringing her up on charges for endangering others and theft of another's property (still not sure how that came about). Needless to say, I did intervene with that Associate Dean and his boss the Dean of Students. As an administrator myself, I couldn't believe the cold bureaucracy at work.
As far as problems signing up for classes, I agree that the student needs to take the lead, but I do understand a parent's concern. An additional semester at a place like Barnard costs perhaps $40,000. A few semesters of missed courses really adds up. If a parent is paying that kind of bill, they have a right to be a bit proactive.
18
Maybe if the cost of higher ed wasn't so high, parents would be more inclined to let their kids work it out their problems on their own. The stakes are just too high.
17
I worked my way through junior college; I finished college at night, while in the army. I worked my way through law school (not recommended by law schools). I'm having trouble identifying with any of this.
How are these kids going to manage the requirements of a job?
Moreover, someone below discussed "children with ADHD, mental health issues," and something else, none of which were addressed by three different colleges. Why are they in college? With those issues, what college degree requiring occupation are they going to contend with? I'm sympathetic, but professions do not have job coaches.
7
I'm a single parent of a high school senior and a college junior. I can't "overparent" because I don't have the time, money, or energy. Throughout high school I told them to "figure it out" if something didn't go their way. I was hear to coach and guide but they had to contact teacher, adviser, coach, employer and initiate a conversation. It's probably the best thing I could have done.
7
A few years ago Vermont Public Radio did an interview with the director of a kids summer camp. Her family has owned and operated the facility for generations. When asked what the biggest change she had seen over the years was, she said in the old days the kids came into the office crying asking to call their parents, and now the parents call crying asking to talk to their kids (they forbid the campers to have cell phones).
You can stand in front of my local elementary school and see parents pull out of driveways, drive down the street, and deliver their kids to school.
6
I teach at another university in the same city as this author, but a different borough. My students are very different. Mine are typically first in their family to go to college, the kids of immigrants. They are poor, so finances are always a huge problem. My students have very little idea how to navigate the higher education bureaucracy, and their parents, who often speak little English, have even less idea. I have almost never had a phone call from a parent, even though I am the director of one of our undergrad programs. In general, my students could use a lot more helicoptering.
10
I'm a professor at a large state university. There's an easy way to handle most of the parent inquiries. Their "children" are actually adults, and I'm prohibited by law from discussing them. I suspect parents of students at prestigious private colleges would riot if they heard such a thing.
The bigger issue I face more and more are students who are dealing with significant issues (e.g. homelessness, food insecurity, lack of academic resources, health crises, etc.) without much support at all. I'd be thrilled if all the resources used to handle disgruntled parents were instead used to help the students who actually need it.
13
This article is fundamentally one about self-differentiation, i.e., students learning to differentiate themselves from their parents and leading self-directed lives and solving their own problems.
The difficulty is that when college costs $80k/year, and parents are footing most of the bill, parents naturally feel entitled to managing their student, "their investment".
Many of these students, let us not forget, come from prep schools which costs $60k+/year, which cater to parents' every beck and call, "high-touch service".
Parents come to expect the same "high-touch service" from college administrators that they enjoyed at their student's prep school, after all, the college bill is even more expensive.
2
Jeez it's a new world. My parents had little interest in what I was doing in college. Probably because they were undereducated racists. Later I completed the last two years on my own. If a professor scheduled a test or I received a bad grade, I told myself that I would have to study harder. I was shocked to learn from a professor that many students came to him and argued for their grades to be upgraded. I believed that professors and administrators should be respected and it was up to me to make the grade. Apparently I was an outlier.
11
As a parent and a professor at a university full of over achieving students circled by helicopter parents: try this.
Try to limit talking to your child on the telephone. Do not text. Do not call more than once a week, and then, only if your child does not call you. Respond, don't initiate. Let them go.
Unless it is a medical emergency, let your child advocate for themselves. Just step back. Or they won't grow up. And that isn't what you want, is it?
Remember, when we were in college we spoke to our parents once a week from a hall telephone, if that!
20
Her title says it all "Director of Family Engagement". Therein lies the problem.
8
I have a degree in higher education and have spent the majority of my career in this field. Dr. Friedman is spot on.
3
My Dad backed up the car to the dorm, we unleaded through an open window (easier than walking around), and he said "see ya."
Thank you Dad for casting me loose. It worked out.
5
Many of our students are "non-traditional" whereby they're trying to find daycare so that they can attend class, and/or struggling to raise a family, make ends meet and trying to get a degree.
The first and best thing we could do is pay for education i.e. invest in our citizens. FEEL THE BERN!!!
2
If you aren't worrying "am I doing too much?" and "am I doing enough?" the answer is probably not good. It's a touch world and the right line to walk to make sure your kid gets what they need to survive is hard. Lack of a little help when you need it can be a killer. Never learning to take care of yourself is a recipe for disaster.
Let's stop bashing parents who are doing their best, though perhaps too much, or too little, at times.
2
When our daughter entered college in Boston in 2006 we attended the family orientation meetings. After about a day and a half the college administration folks announced that is was time for all the parents to go home, and by the way, do not call the professors because they will not talk to you. I thought it was a quite healthy approach
4
This article strikes me as so much nonsense. It's not that I think that parents should be calling about classes but the real purpose of this article is simply for the schools to get kids not to make demands. We can see it in the advice, "some parents tell kids don't take no for an answer paragraph and the linkage between persistence and "being angry"--which is not the same thing. You can persist until you find an answer to your dilemma without once being angry.
It strikes me administrators all too often want to use college kids inexperience against them.
5
The fault lies before these helpless kids show up at college. Hey parents, be involved with K-12. Make the effort to get home from work and get to the parent/teacher meeting. There is a reason they have those in K-12. There's also a reason they don't and shouldn't have them in college. They are, at 18, legal adults despite your best effort. Like it or not, that's the way it is so prepare them for it. And keep in mind that not all high schools are college prep schools. So not all high schools are expected to step in for you. College was not designed for children. And one of the reasons the tuition is high is because they have to fund an Office of Family Engagement to deal with parents like these.
5
Over-parenting leads directly to the delicate flower living in mommy's basement until they inherit the house.
2
I've been a professor for 20 years and have NEVER encountered anything like what was described here. Then again, I'm at a non"elite" university.
2
With all due respect, there should be no Director of Family Engagement at a college.
10
I've worked in higher ed for decades, and the fact is that, if your college-aged offspring needs to grow up, it's already too late, and you've failed as a parent.
Children in middle school and high school can learn how to earn a paycheck (or at least an allowance), how to save or even invest, how to apply for a job and read a lease, and how to set a measurable goal and work hard toward achieving it. Sadly, few do.
Parents need to learn one of the true-isms that kids like me heard often in the '70s: "You're not raising a child; you're raising an independent, contributing adult."
Today those "adults" come to college being less prepared than your average 16-year-old was thirty+ years ago.
7
Warehouse students, overcrowd classes, fill the teaching ranks with low-pay TAs and adjuncts, and infinitely expand the administrative and sports wings of the university. Nice profit margin and ROI, even if it means fielding a few phone calls from distraught or irate parents.
9
Many parents don't understand that allowing their kids to deal with adversity is an act of unconditional love. Fix-it moms and dads are in it for themselves, not their kids. Our role as parents is to make sure our children are safe and loved, not to protect them from disappointment.
13
If I'm paying $75,000 a year for my kid to go to college, you better believe I'm complaining if he doesn't get the classes he wants/needs or if his dorm bathroom has no hot water.
17
@Jen
Is your child really so ill-prepared for college that they're incapable of communicating with the school on their own behalf?
3
Let's not oversimplify. As a parent of children with mental health diagnoses and ADHD, I found that there was insufficient support for my kids (in three different colleges). Assigning advisors not in the chosen major, enforcing random-seeming rules that didn't take extenuating circumstances into account, and zero follow-up with students are NOT a good prescription for any student, but it's particularly egregious for students with special needs. Parents need to step in when mental health and learning disabilities are not being supported. Dr Friedman should talk with parents who've dealt with their child's suicidal ideation, self-harm, substance abuse, PTSD, mental health issues, or physical health diagnosis. She might learn something about how to SUPPORT families, not judge them.
4
@sd Talk to the college's disability services. But even then, your child still needs to LEARN self advocacy. They're not going to be a child forever. Learning disability, ADHD and mental health issues are not the same as intellectual and developmental disabilities. If your child could graduate high school and get accepted to college, then they could do something. No? Or, was it their parents who wrote the college application?
7
Some postulates on comments:
1. 18-22 is not an adult. The only reason 18 year olds are classified as adults is that so they can be cannon fodder for the military. An adult in terms of mentality is determined by maturity of thought.
2. Hindsight is myopic. "I was much more mature at that age." I am not sure there is any evidence to prove that earlier generation were more mentally mature at a give age.
3. I solved my own problems -not. The problems related to college and money (most problem) where not as big generations ago. Today's problems can be the order of $100k or more. That is big in my book.
15
Within days of my eighteenth birthday, I enlisted and spent the next four years as an MP. It wasn’t my chosen MOS but the recruiter (rightly) didn’t care. I saw more 20 year olds with responsibilities greater than any 50 in business whom I know today. They handled it with maturity and honor. My grandfather was pulled from school when he was 12 to put in twelve hour days in a factory. My father left school at 14 and farmed from dusk to dawn seven days a week. People are capable of whatever you expect from them. Treat a 30 year old like a child and that’s what you’ll get.
8
There's a class called Love and Logic which teaches parents how to allow children to experience the logical consequences of their behavior, appropriate to their age. For example, if a child forgets their homework they learn responsibility by suffering the consequences, not by having mom drive it to school. The chances are slimmer they won't forget again.
In upper class social circles it's actually considered good parenting to rescue children and let them escape responsibility. Wealthy parents outdo each other with tales of how they've helped fix their messes, corrected their mistakes, and how unhelpful their kids are with family events. They say, "Let them be kids," but the problem is, they never learn how to be adults.
The result is a society of entitled adult brats, many of which are running this country. We need a revolution in child-rearing so that we can have actual responsible adults for a change.
3
You can be pretty sure they're not paying $80,000 unless the parents are rich or plain vanilla middle class and their child [a] doesn't fit into any of the so-called disadvantaged groups (ethnic minority, single parent or first family member to attend college), or [b] an athlete of some sort (apparently fencing and crew included) or [c] didn't hit the school's SAT threshold...
2
This article was of great interest to me because I have had a very different experience. I have been teaching at a European university for thirty years and have never been contacted by a parent, nor have I heard of parents contacting our administration. Tuition here is subsidized by the government, which probably plays a role.
12
I teach high school seniors in a mixed-income suburb. We have many over-involved well-meaning "fix-it" parents. Their kids are often high-achieving, incredibly anxious, self-doubting students. On the other hand, we also have a number of students who have been abandoned by parents unwilling or unable to provide for even the basic needs (housing, food, transportation, health care) of their 17 year olds. Just today I was trying to find help for a polite, kind young man whose mentally ill mother routinely kicks him out of the house in her routine fits of unprovoked rage. He's trying to cobble together a way to finish high school (including AP and college courses) while working 40 hours a week and living in his car. The contrast between these groups just makes me soul sick. Something is deeply wrong with our society.
92
I sent my third child several states away to college and thought I would get involved in the parent's group to show some support and demonstrate my "dad interest". That ended the first day when the discussion centered on which cell phone service was best and "where can they get change for the washing machines". Honest to God...if my son can't figure that out himself he can wear dirty clothes.
25
I am involved in my alumni group and we do a local student send off for high school kids that are heading to my alma mater. I had a discussion with one mom who was asking about laundry facilities, and I explained the machines and quarters, etc. No, no, she said my child doesn't know how to do laundry, I'm asking about laundry services. I told her there was still time to teach him how to do laundry. But, I later learned that there are laundry pick up services these days.
1
Why on earth does Barnard College have a director of family engagement if they actually want the students to stand up for themselves? And if classes fill too quickly, one way to solve that problem might be to invest less in feel good administrators and more in actual faculty. But if I were even more cynical than I am, I'd guess that office is actually more about extracting more donations out of the wealthier families than they already do.
31
my experience is that a parent who is doing this while their kid is in college will be doing this when their kid is 30, 35. 40 years old. I've seen it in my own family. I have family members in their late 30's and early 40's that can't figure out how to get their electricity turned on, apply for jobs, or how to make a doctor's appointment.
However, this helplessness apparently does not extend to planning complicated extended international travel or scoring cheap concert tickets.
22
I think there issues now that are new to the college scene including:
1) With the high cost and high stakes of a college education, parents are stepping in to advocate for their children: This makes sense, as does having someone with you when you go to see the doctor, particularly in high stakes medical situations. College is now an enormous financial investment
2) As more students with disabilities, particularly neurodivergent students, enter universities, they are obliged to drop what was a significant network of support--much-needed support, in fact. Going cold turkey into a higher-ed institution, which has very little in the way of support for students with disabilities, means (good) parents have to become advocates for their children, particularly in a universe that is not very responsive to or accommodating of neurodivergence (or any kind of divergence).
15
Ms. Friedman advises parents to encourage their daughters to ask: “What can I do to be better prepared for the next exam?” or “If I can’t make up this quiz, is there another way for me to try to understand the material and raise my grade?” I'm not seeing how this grows a sense of autonomy in the young college student. Solicitousness bordering on obsequiousness isn't the ticket. Hovering, over-controlling parents are not always, as Ms. Friedman assures us, acting out of "love," but rather a need to control that can be neurotically miles deep. The student may need to pull herself effectively beyond her parent's gravitational force, not be yanked yet again to some shadow independence.
4
Well.. sure. But I was raised by parents who did not advocate for me. This is not a great scenario either. Leaving children and teens to advocate for themselves does not always result in children advocating for themselves. It often results in kids accepting abuse.
I "went in" when my 14 yo daughter's male teacher was laughing at jokes a boy was making at her expense, inadvertently encouraging the class to laugh too. (I learned about this the week the Harvey Weinstein case hit the news and it made my blood boil.) A kid's harrassment she could handle, but when the authority joins in, it's not ok.
Up until then I had advised my daughter to ignore the boy's jokes (which sometimes included jabbing at her, breaking her pencils, on a couple occasions leaving bruises) (and in some cases being charming or funny and making her laugh) or move away. In school you're not allowed to move away. Because of alphabetic seating, she was next to him in three classes.
She was not comfortable advocating for herself against a teacher or the entire class. At a certain point a parent goes in.
28
I worked for a community college district. I took a call from a woman who insisted that WE had GIVEN her son failing grades and NOW he couldn't get into Baylor. It was OUR fault. I informed her that, if her son was not a dependent minor, I was prevented from talking about him in any way but hypothetically. He would have to make his own inquiries.
It turned out, her son had failed to drop 3 classes that he'd never attended. Her logic was, since he didn't actually GO to class, he hadn't actually EARNED his Fs.
I asked her if her son had done any of the coursework? No. Did he take any of the tests? No. We'd already established that he'd not attended any classes, so he couldn't have gotten any credit for classroom participation, could he? No. So, in fact, her son didn't meet the minimum criteria to pass the courses, so he did, indeed earn his Fs.
Her son's age at the time? 27.
10
Embroiderista - oh no! Your story tapped into my reoccurring nightmare: I was signed up for a class I didn’t know about and now I have to take the final or fail! And of course the final is in Russian or French. I try my best but alas....
1
I have three children who've graduated from highly selective schools "out East" (we reside in the hinterlands of Minnesota). Every school pandered, more than nurtured, my kids. They need to take some hard knocks as they transition to adulthood. Fewer lattes; more life lessons...fewer club/athletics/social
activities; more minimum-wage, regular folk, real jobs. And, most importantly, more humility, less "Masters of the Universe" attitude (thanks Tom Wolfe!).
7
"Director of Family Engagement"? There was no such thing as Director of Family Engagement when I went to UCLA in the 1960s. The university would not disclose a students' grades to their parents nor to anyone else. And that's what I liked best about the university: they were treating me like an adult. Unlike most of my high-school teachers, my professors treated me with respect, which made me respect them. As a professor from 1980 to 2014, I occasionally got calls from parents, but I always (politely) refused to "engage", explaining that I could only discuss such matters with the student herself, and referred them to my department head or a dean. Apparently, the deans and department heads supported me, because I never heard from any them again. I guess those were the good old days.
9
Bigger classrooms or letting students sit in the aisles would solve the overenrollment problem (a third or more won't show up for anything but the exams, so in practice a classroom can fit many more than its nominal capacity).
If there weren't an "office of family engagement", parents wouldn't be making these calls. Get rid of it, along with the diversity and title nine offices and other parasites that don't contribute to education, and reduce tuition accordingly.
4
Colleges want it both ways though. Parents are another source of donations and colleges actively invite families to parent weekends which are getting more elaborate every year. Even on Barnards website: “At Barnard, we believe parents and guardians are our partners as we work together to empower students to make the most of their college careers and chart their own paths”. Barnard is not alone here.
19
The cost of the college is not relevant to this article. Its point is that the skills problem-solving students need to practice themselves -- being collaborative, understanding how to negotiate hierarchies, using diplomacy, learning from failure or even from obstacles -- are skills they will need to be successful. Demanding to be the exception to the rule or even to the structural problem is not a skill that most employers seek in their employees. But hey, if you pay $80k a year and don't like the school, switch schools. You'll have to peel your Barnard sticker off of your car, though…
11
The parental behavior described here does not seem to differ from the media reaction to immediately report the results of the Iowa caucuses. WE ARE ENTITLED to have what we want, when we want it, right now. Yes, Barnard, and many similarly situated colleges, are very costly. But when you apply and then enroll, you know what you are signing up for. The process of education is not instantaneous or without hurt or fear or failure. This should be part of the learning process, and to take this away from a child is not working for the child, the family or the community.
4
@Karl When you are paying the kind of tuition Barnard charges, you ARE ENTITLED to get into classes. The first example the author gave was a father expecting the college to offer his student a seat in a desired class, and to open a new section if necessary. He was simply asking to get his money's worth. Not an unreasonable expectation. Where is the accountability on the part of the college.
I agree students in college should be treated as adults. So, when financial aid forms are filled out, the student's income should be the only one considered. Where would colleges like Barnard be if that were the case?
10
@Mary No, you are not entitled to get into a class. Some sections of courses are reserved for majors; other seats go to seniors, who register first. Just because you want to take a course as a first-year student doesn't mean that you are entitled to get into it. Most schools make good faith efforts to ensure that students who *absolutely* need classes are served, but in order to ensure quality of instruction, course caps need to be respected.
9
I taught high school for 34 years. This is what I saw. It was more important to many kids and their parents to be accepted by a school than to actually attend. As summer turned to fall, the “oh, boy” morphed into “oh, god”. Then there was, “you actually expect me to read all that”. There’s a big difference between an 18 and a 20 year old. Two years a local community college and then a transfer helps ease a kid into that big change in scenery...and it’s cheaper.
11
I hope these parents realize that coddled children often do not make very good employees. Perhaps the plan is to send them to graduate school?
7
The main point is kind of hidden in the middle of the article. We who are parents will, if we and they are fortunate, die before our children. We need to prepare them for that, early and often.
4
As soon as I saw the headline, I knew this was going to be an op-ed written by an administrator at an expensive college. Of course they don't want parents demanding what they pay for. What better than to charge obscene tuition and boarding costs and then shame parents into not scrutinizing their purchase. Not me. I pay, I get what I pay for. You don't like it, dean? Charge me less. I encourage you to.
15
As an employee of a decidedly not expensive community college and a former high school career and tech ed. teacher, I can assure you that the problems related in this article are real. The parents either do all the talking and making of arrangements or they are neglectful. Either way we end up with lots of young people who are not the least prepared to be adults. And by the way, just because you paid for something doesn’t mean you get to tell the people that run the place how to do things. Don’t like it? Go somewhere else. The worlds not here to satisfy your or your child’s every whim just because you paid.
17
What you say is probably right. has it occurred to you that parents who pay attention to their children's schooling notice how unfair and arbitrary much of it is, from class assignment to grading?
5
@Kevin Unlike you, I don't submit to institutional power just because it prefers that I do. When you pay for a first class seat, do you settle for coach because the airline would prefer you do so passively and without objection? I guess you must. I, on the other hand, expect to get what I pay for. Higher education is a commodity now, not some sacred, sacrificing, realm of altruism. They want to charge $65,000 a year for college? They better expect those paying the bills to demand their money's worth. And let's be clear: When someone pays $60,000/year for college (that's $130,000 in pre-tax earnings), that person is a customer, not some bumpkin coming to the college with hat in hand asking for a favor. The colleges established this situation when they jacked up tuition 3x the rate of inflation over the past 3 decades. It's a business. Stop being subservient to it.
10
While obviously many parents go overboard in sheltering and protecting their nearly adult children, there's no doubt that the kinds of mistakes kids can make today can prove enormously expensive, not just for them but for parents who may be worried about not having enough money to survive retirement and old age with our crappy health care system. We could wrangle all day about whose fault this is are, but my point is that worries about consequences are real and parents don't always have good strategies or options for dealing with them. And my hat is off to you, Ms. Friedman, for saying parents are motivated by love.
6
My parents never intervened in my college education, regardless of bumps along the way. What they taught me, long before college, was that actions (and inaction) have consequences. Make a stupid mistake like not registering for a class early enough or not properly preparing for a test? Suck it up, buttercup. Take the hit and learn from it.
College was my chance to learn to soar on my own, while still having the parental safety net. That "Hey, I CAN do this!" feeling was one of the most glorious experiences of my life, and I'm grateful to my parents for giving it to me.
8
Well, buttercup, I think you leave out of the equation the fact that college has outstripped inflation by three or four times since you and I went to college. There is much more at stake now, when most kids simply cannot pay for their tuition without their parents' help.
6
The fact that "director of family engagement" is even a position is ridiculous and a testament to how much of a problem lawnmower parenting is. I'd imagine working in said office is unimaginably frustrating.
1
So funny. Your piece EXACTLY describes me in my recent dealings with my son's school. I'll forward the article to him and my wife. They'll get a big kick out of it.
3
The top colleges prioritize admissions for students with curated skills in athletics, music, volunteer experiences, etc.. which require active parental supervision and financial support. Their lives, relationships and schedules are driven by the quest for excellence in these specialty skills which are organized and paid for by parents. As long as colleges send the signal they want students with such parent driven achievement they will have a student body with limited experience and confidence dealing with real life challenges and parents accustomed to hands on involvement in every detail of life. Under this system, "perfect" applicants are not going to be resilient applicants.
When colleges signal they want independent resilient curious students the parents will fall in line.
28
@Chuck Lacy exactly! The top colleges aren't interested in the kid who babysat his little brother and worked at McDonald's during high school. They want the kid who spent hours studying to ace the SAT and win the national debate tournament. Who's going to be more independent when he gets to college?
4
I've worked in colleges for the past 30 years. Everything you say is true. Still remember the first year teaching at a college in CT and getting a call from a parent in Indiana wanting to talk about her kid's paper. Unbelievable.
9
You know what's really really refreshing about poor kids? They are self reliant. They need help navigating the systems we have set in place to keep them out of places like Barnard (and there are many), but they do know how to speak up, they know how to work, they know how to do laundry and cook and clean. They would never complain about the water pressure or a roommate who smokes or not getting the class they want. They figure stuff out because they have always had to. They know how to take the bus and how to look after little kids. They have done these things their whole lives. The affluent? Not so much. Trust me when I say that working in a poor, urban high school is all the more satisfying because my students do not call mommy when something goes wrong because Mom is working overtime, and dad or grandma or an auntie are without the resources or transportation or vocabulary to help them out in this way. And that is actually a good thing, because most of them have survival skills and resilience that some affluent kids may never develop.
41
@Eva Lockhart Good point Eva. Self starter --- self reliance - pre-requisite to success in any endeavor. Learn to cut the cord.
2
Two thoughts. First, integrity has to be at the top of every university's/college's list. The recent admissions scandals have largely faded from public view. What are the academic institutions doing to ensure that it will not be repeated?
Second, at some point a child has to become an adult. Can she/he profit from some guidance? Certainly. But the moment the parents helicopter or snowblow, the opportunity to become a self-sustaining adult who can best learn from his/her mistakes is, at a minimum, deferred.
Parents: when will you let your children develop effectively and serviceably?
Colleges/universities: maybe it's time for you to offer some online training for parents to assist them in their cord cutting.
1
Overcoming the negative feedback via a poor quiz grade at the start of college or a semester is critical to later success. Such early negative reinforcement can result in a student repressing this experience and avoiding the needed study time; because, the coursework becomes a very negative experience instead of a more positive learning opportunity.
With a poor start, it is harder to garner positive reinforcement from such a class; and, skimping study time on this course quickly and repetitively has a very small, yet misleading short-run opportunity cost in terms of self-actualization, which is used to earn self-esteem for the student.
[02/04/2020 Tu 12:07 pm Greenville NC]
I'm a college professor; have been since 2000. Parents who act this way aren't acting out of love for their children. They are acting out of their own narcissism -- they project their own sense of self-worth onto their children's lives. If Buffy doesn't get an A on that history quiz, that means I'm not the perfect parent, and then what will everyone at the country club think of me?
9
Failure is better then winning. That's right let me say it again failure is better then winning. I've failed and will continue to fail but will also continue to grow, learn, adapt and work on my weaknesses to improve as a human. Too try new things is to fail. Too limit a human from failure, from the pain of it is to deprive them from the greater possibility of success and joy of success. Parents, I implore you, let your kids fail and fail often. Encourage them to get themselves back up, dust off and try again, again and again.
4
Is there a chicken / egg effect going on there? Parents of students at elite colleges that cost $50K to $80K a year want to make sure their kid gets the most out of the experience and are afraid of squandering their investment. Kids whose parents have helped them run the gauntlet to get into an elite school--a feat no typical teen could manage without help-have already ceded control BEFORE they get to college. The pattern's established.
Plus, FACULTY bear some responsibility for some of the parental angst, eschewing the survey classes that exposed me to a broad range of literature, history, philosophy, etc. in the 1970s in favor of classes on topics that suit their research agenda, but yield students with a narrower education.
Placing the blame on parents and students when the schools and faculty also play a role by charging too much, failing to define a core curriculum that exposes business and science majors to the critical thinking skills students gain in liberal arts classes, and allowing faculty to offer esoteric classes that make parents question what they're paying for.
9
Full disclosure: I am a snowplow parent.
I admit it. If I could, I would protect my beloved daughters from and and all pain. If I could, I would hand them life on a sliver platter.
I wish my parents had tried to smooth the way for me more than they did. I wish I had had their full-throated support. But that's not how our family worked. I'm trying to do it differently and yup, I go overboard.
The truth is, I want my daughters to avoid making the same mistakes I made. I'm trying really hard to let them make their own mistakes but it's painful to watch.
Luckily, they only rarely listen to me. And they do not allow me to speak to their teachers!
7
I'm the exact same. Thank you for your honesty.
1
It's a comfort to read this professional perspective and know that we've been doing right by our kids. Thank you, Ms. Friedman.
1
College is adult education, not extended high school. I tell my students on Day 1 that they are their own parents now and must "adult" themselves. Those who have been taught how to "adult" usually do just fine. Those whose parents provide them with excuses not to fully "adult", or who have done all the adulting for them often fail. Time management and independent work are essential elements of the college education process, and vital to students' future success. I won't deprive them of that experience.
And according to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), college instructors are not allowed to disclose information about a student's grade to anyone outside the institution - including parents - without written authorization from the student.
The main reason I have refused to apply my talents in the K-12 area is the parents described in this article, and all the other parents who think they themselves aren't nearly as bad.
2
I agree with most of the Op-Ed, but I think there is one glaring omission: Parents absolutely need to advocate for their children re: sexual assault on campus (which should be handled by the criminal justice system anyway, but that's a separate matter). Administrators have shown themselves over and over to be either willfully inept or intentionally obstructionist, and it's difficult enough for a 40-year-old independent adult survivor to navigate options, let alone a 18-22-year-old who has never lived independently or navigated the criminal justice system, the civil court system, or a large bureaucracy before.
Mom and Dad certainly shouldn't call the school to negotiate Sally's grade in an intro bio course, but, if Sally is raped by a classmate, sexually harassed by a TA or professor, etc., she shouldn't trust any administrator as far as she can throw them and should certainly obtain all the outside help (including Mom and Dad) she can get.
15
Speaking as someone who was seriously under-parented, I’d say the answer lies so where in the middle. Don’t throw your kids to the wolves, but don’t coddle them, either. If your child reaches out, be available. Let them fail, but don’t let them drown.
In the uber competitive confines of a prestige university (every parent worried that their child isn’t getting what other students are getting), the kind of parental interference described often seems to be more about parental ego than overprotectiveness. It is a unique environment. But out in the wide world I see too many parents allowing their adult children to live at home for years — not paying rent or paying for groceries, not cleaning after themselves, living in a kind of extended adolescence. These overgrown children — self-centered and entitled — lean on parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles for cash handouts, free lodging for vacations, clothing, and medical bills. One mother I know purchased a truck for her adult son (who still lives with Mom, of course) when his vehicle and all of its contents were stolen...because he had not bothered to lock the truck or unload his tools when he came home late. That is rewarding immaturity and irresponsibility.
Parents call this coddling love. I call it enabling.
5
Unfortunately, it takes years of concerned, sensitive, and loving parenting BEFORE college to convince your child to share with you ANY mental health struggles that they might be experiencing.
The majority of college freshmen are 18 or older and, therefore, adults in the eyes of the college and the law. The college will not contact you without your child’s permission if the administration has serious concerns about how your child is or isn't functioning in the stress cauldron of higher education.
Seven and a half years ago I got a call from my son late on the very first night of his college experience. When I saw on the phone that it was him, I thought to myself, geez it was months after matriculation before I made my first call to my parents. He was calling because the fellow freshman in the room next to his on the 14th floor had jumped out of the window.
8
I teach at a U. My kids have had problems and other faculty too. We know the system and kids had issues! Regular parents have no idea what is going on or what to do. Some get in a death spiral (bad grade upon bad grade) and don't know what to do. Teaching to to the test in HS does not prep them for college. Some tips:
1. Kids are more stressed today than you were! It is about money. For me college was cheap, so I could take or retake classes. If a problem drop and retake. I took classes did not even need for grad because I felt like it! Lets one explore-what college meant to be.
2. GO TO CLASS!!!! Not believe how many kids miss class.
3. Get on a weekly schedule (HW, gym, study, work etc) knowing what will do everyday. Having a unknown Sched. adds stress.
4. DO NOT CRAM. Start studying small amounts of matl week before exam and repeatedly review the matl. You cannot help remember. If you cram you soon forget it.
5. Make cheat sheet b4 exam. Not used on the exam, but the process of summarizing and writing the matl. helps one remember.
6. Psychologically need to have some successes to build confidence. Kid having problems at the U. Pulled out and sent to CC for a year for "rebuilding". Take courses need to improve on (even repeat some if needed) and anything else of interest ($1k a year). Today, cannot afford this at at the U-$30K. Sorry for writing-word count.
9
I worked as an adjunct many years ago at a large state university. Parents did contact me when I failed their kids who mostly never went to class, missed tests and exams and showed zero interest in learning. I told the parents every single time that there was nothing on the planet they could do to get me to change their kid's grades. I only taught for a year and never again. I can't imagine how bad it must be now. The best thing these kids can do is to get a job and learn personal responsibility.
3
My perspective is colored by the fact that my teen has Asperger's, but step one is always to encourage him to contact the right person to address a school issue himself. If he is unsure who that is or how to frame his concern, I will advise. I only do it myself as a last resort. I do find that he's more independent and self-reliant at this point that many of his peers who do not have special needs.
8
I'm intrigued at how much Dr. Friedman generalizes typical parental gender responses. The male response is solution-oriented and exasperated. The female response is inquiring and compromise-oriented.
I would describe this gender essentialism as problematic. Dr. Friedman isn't winning any hearts and minds within the student body. That's for sure.
However, like any bad stereotype, there's a grain of truth to the false assumption. I can hear my mother's voice appealing to grade school administrators in exactly that same tone. "Can't you make an exception?" or "What can I do?"
Unlike grade school though, college administrators obviously want nothing to do with the conversation. The children are adults, or so they say. No beer for you. Lights out. But you can vote if anyone bothers to explain politics to you. And by the way, the military is always hiring. Hmm...
This opinion is becoming more problematic by the minute.
2
@Andy Friedman, Genuine question, not an attack.. When she speaks of Dads and Moms, Friedman clearly indicates she's describing tendencies. There's nothing normative there. Where's the gender essentialism?
I went to college in 1979. The article and letters here are mind numbing to me. I suppose the whole “tossed into the water, you sink or swim” approach has left the building with Elvis. On my street there are three families who have college grad children living at home. They aren’t even looking for jobs. It is hard to imagine such a situation in my upbringing...of course, there are a ton of cars everywhere in the neighborhood. They all have three or more cars. I just can’t imagine living at home at 25. It’s rather sad. A generation of cuckolds?
2
This is wise advice. However, parents do need to step in when dealing with issues around finances and payments, especially when there are problems with the billing etc. I don't see that as comparable to the issues discussed here.
4
Perhaps Barnard would have more money to hire professors and could open more sections if they eliminated overhead like..say..the Office of Family Engagement? Sorry to be so blunt, but as a parent paying full freight at a very expensive private college, I have a very jaundiced eye toward all the "Deans', "Assistant Deans", "Vice Presidents" and "Assistant Vice Presidents" whose jobs seems tangential at best to the learning mission of the University. A bit rich for the head of an office of family engagement to complain when a family in fact engages in a way they don't approve of.
25
My son is a freshman at a state school. There is no "Office of Family Engagement" where he attends. When he recently experienced a mental health crisis I waited on hold for 15 minutes with Student Mental Health, then hung up and called his academic adviser and left a panicked message which got no response. What this author describes in her article is outrageous behavior by both students and parents. I don't know anyone with a child in a state school who is able to gain access to professors or "Family Engagement Staff" in this manner...parents, go ahead and listen to your kids and don't be afraid to respond and demonstrate your commitment to their mental health. If the author is tired of snowplow and helicopter parents of snowflakes, she needs to quit Barnard and work at a state school.
15
The title of the position that the writer has, “Director of Family Engagement” is, itself, a parody of the very problem about which she writes. Maybe if college administrations did not create such positions, dependent 20 somethings and their “helpful” parents would figure out that the students needed to solve things themselves. My parents would never have thought about calling Boston College on my behalf in the 1970’s. It was up to me to make and solve my own problems. All I knew is that if I screwed up college, they’d pull the plug on my tuition payments. That was good enough incentive for me to figure things out.
9
I think by college it's really too late to rewire a child (or the parents!) whose parents' every action have telegraphed: "you're helpless, you can't handle this, you're a loser, let me do this for you." I've watched it with younger family members who are now 30ish and who are still being propped up. It's the norm for them and I would guess they can't imagine another way. I worry for them 30 years from now when the parents are gone. I imagine life will be very harsh at just the wrong time.
7
Good suggestions.
Thanks, Ms Friedman
"Helicopter parents,
PARK the helicopter !"
It's so expensive when a student needs a class they cannot get in to!! Sometimes we are talking tens of thousands of dollars, because then it pushes everything else back. You better believe I am going to call someone for that. I work really hard for my money, and don't love throwing it away. It can mean one extra year of work for me.
7
I've spent the last 16 years working in higher education, and I was blown away the first time a parent called me. Unfortunately, it is quite commonplace. College is a good time for students to learn we don't always get what we want-be it our first choice of classes or a spot in the "best" dorm.
I work at a very expensive, but not particularly selective private university. Our last president was one of the highest paid in the country, while the university was laying off staff and hiring adjuncts instead of tenure track faculty. There is certainly a great deal of bloat at the very highest level of leadership. I did get a $25/month raise though so I guess I'm overpaid and overworked.
8
The advice at the end of this article is great. However, the example of parents' responses when students don't get into classes they need does not make a strong case against parental interference. When I was in college (a seven sisters liberal arts institution similar to Barnard), tuition was a fraction of the price and there were no requirements except for the major. It was rare, if ever, that students couldn't complete the major in time with required classes. Those good old days are gone. Now colleges and universities have allowed internal politics to dictate massive gen ed requirements, and departments often don't accept transfer credits for the major. Students find it difficult to get the classes they are required to take within four years. Parents are right to be up in arms about students not being able to get into a class. Taxpayers also should be helicoptering to complain to provosts, deans, directors of parent engagement, et al., since students, funded by Pell grants and loans (that some candidates argue should be forgiven and covered by taxpayers), find it more expensive and difficult to graduate with a degree.
11
@Retired educator Your post spot on. My pet peeve is seeing kids and grand-kids go to Jr. College, take classes that are "transferable" to a 4 year school and then be told that - yes, they are transferable, but not to your planned major. Repeat the class at State College - expensive, adds to total time in school. Critical that Junior College and 4 year schools get on the same page. Strongly suspect that not transferable to a major answer is to keep up faculty count. Sucks.
3
My take on this is based on 30+ years of teaching at a large state university as well as a good and very enjoyable relationship with my students. The points I'd stress are (1) parental involvement rarely solves anything; the folks in charge will need to talk to the student (2) the best student response is to take responsibility for glitches--especially less-than-stellar grades. When a student approaches a consultation with the attitude that the instructor gave them a bad grade, I immediately steered them toward the point that THEY EARNED the grade in question. The issue is what THEY can do better/differently next time. Most students know this, but it is well worth repeating!
3
Students need to learn to advocate for themselves before they are college age. Having a summer job or part time job in high school, dealing with a coach and their teachers in high school would help. Talking through a script is a good idea, but the student must learn to advocate and also seek Guidance from other adults Such as counselors.
I have a unique perspective. I got my first undergraduate degree in the early 90's, and now I'm back getting another one. I'm also an employer that hires 20-somethings.
Kids today rely 100% on their gadgets: phones, tablets, etc. They're all badly, badly addicted (like most of their parents), and literally panic without them. They can't remember things without their phones, they need to be in constant contact with everybody they know, and they can't find anything in the real world without their phones. They cannot stand time without any noise pumping into their ears. You will be hard pressed to find college kids walking to class without things jammed in their ears. As a result, they have no time for any sort of internal monologue, or deep thought. Every waking minute needs to be filled with some sort of entertainment, or approbation from their online friends.
Kids growing up today with these things are profoundly, profoundly crippled.
The helicopter parenting seems to go hand-in-hand with this device addiction. This constant, driving need for both attention and entertainment is making helpless, self-absorbed, thoughtless children that turn into equally damaged adults.
62
@Frank Thank you. My observations and deep concerns are validated. Now we just have to come up with a solution. There may not be one!!
2
@Frank Hear! Hear! I have taught college for many years and remember when I'd enter the class amidst a sea of constant conversation among the students about anything and everything.
Over the last decade, I now enter the classroom with absolutely NO sounds from any students (sounds are so rare it actually makes me take notice). They're all on their phones. The silence is broken only when I start to talk, and I often feel as if I'm interrupting them. It's scary and depressing.
I occasionally cite to them the need for all of us to "disconnect", and to take in the sights and sounds all around us, and not to be afraid of being alone with your own thoughts. I might as well be talking only to myself, as their behavior never changes one iota.
Parents - THAT's where you should be intervening. However, your children are simply modelling the behavior they see in most of you.
7
So, as an administrator at a university, I will say this. The call from the parent works. The email or call to the President's Office works. And if the call is from an overly anxious parent...most of the time they are receptive to having a little more information and putting the ball back in the child's hands.
5
"Their actions are motivated by love."
This is nonsense. Many many people grew up with parents who didn't know what the heck their kids were up to, never ever ever did anything on their behalf, and they turned out fine. I.e., they loved their kids too. I am not buying this: "I am raising a weak kid with no real skills to deal with the real world of pain and sorrow, challenges and problems, because I love her/him," routine.
It is narcissism of the parents, it is psychotic control they want to have over every interaction, every outcome of every interaction, their kid has with his/her environment. They are showing up at job interviews for goodness sake. It is self-absorption of American parenting in the extreme, it is reactionary and enervating to a similar extent. There they are, jockeying on the first day on campus, stocking the kids' rooms, glad handing for their Instagram moments. There they are cheering for every game (no one but parents in the stands). What it has produced is a nation with a growing segment of whining, self-involved weaklings.
It is no accident that the tough subjects on campus has fewer and fewer native born Americans, and vigorously pursued by hungry, self-sufficient, gritty foreign born students fighting for advantage.
6
There are exceptions to when a parent needs to advocate fo their child. My daughter was raped and later physically assaulted. The trauma she experienced made it hard for her to self-advocate and the university administration was not helpful when she at first did try to advocate for herself. I needed to step in. Later she told me I probably saved her life. She is now strong again and has emerged as a powerful leader among her peers.
9
@Reality Check : nobody here means kids who are victims of crime, sexual abuse, violence, etc.
We are talking about kids who skip classes, or can't figure out how to do laundry.
Not the same thing.
2
I am a private independent tutor of college and adult English, often with the kind of students described here, whose parents are going to school for them. Let me respond to this parent's comment: when I explain that no one is available to teach an additional section, the common response from dads is, “Well, then you need to hire more instructors.” Right now I am working with one such boy in a large mid-western college where the school did exactly that. The boy's freshman composition course is being "taught" by some grad creative writing student they found- the teacher has no syllabus, no schedule, and a wildly off-base sense of what kind of writing a 19 year old can produce. The boy is weak as it is, but this situation makes it impossible. He can't tell me what's expected, what's coming next, how the class is structured or graded, because the teacher doesn't know herself. This is as bad as it gets, and I'm left to try to help the kid manage (parents are non-native speakers) in the chaos. So dad, please don't wish this solution on your child. Your kid will get poor training, and though he may get a good grade, he still won't know how to write an essay or a research paper, which he will need to do in future classes. And then you'll hire me again for the next course because he still can't tackle his research project. (I just met one of them too, in a different college on the west coast.) As the article says, hands off, let your adult be an adult, and learn like we all did.
1
This would be more forceful if colleges themselves were not complicit in the coddling of an entire generation of college students apropos:
"Remind them that this is O.K.: Rejection is a part of life. Too many parents have a “don’t-take-no-for-an-answer” mind-set, and their children adopt the same attitude. This approach rarely works for self-advocacy."
On college campuses across America, the reality is the converse of this.
2
In trying to deal with the Columbia/Barnard administration kids should get all the help they can, including from their parents—it's nearly impossible.
Seriously, the author might consider that the problem isn't with the kids, it's with her and her colleagues.
8
Kids can handle a lot more than many parents give them credit for. When their fathers died young, both my grandfathers had to quit school after 8th grade to support their families. They developed broad shoulders, learned confidence, and did fine in life.
I'm not bragging here or suggesting that we put our kids on the street when they finish junior high. I'm just saying that when they take non-fatal risks, we need to swallow our unease and let them take charge. Of course like their parents, occasionally they will make a mess of things, so we commiserate and hand them a mop with maybe some suggestions on how to use it. Very few ordinary risks teenagers take are life threatening and the life lessons in coping are crucial to making their way in the world.
7
Food for thought. Perhaps the most important role teachers have is to imbue in students the ability to think for themselves, and able to express those feelings with prudence (for what's right, however difficult), and mature in the process. Otherwise, we may see 'Yes-men and yes-women 'a la Trump', willing to sell their souls if the price is right. And given that we, humans, are corruptible when no one is watching, a climate of cooperation and integration -while paying close attention- becomes essential. This explains why some professions (teachers and nurses come to mind) are the most noble 'callings' one can think of. This, recognizing that 'parents' are innate teachers as well (at least, ought to!).
1
Several years ago I gave an F for an essay a student had submitted, due in part to the very poor quality of writing in the essay. Upset by this the student telephoned her father. He asked her to email him a copy of her essay, the one with my marks and criticisms. Her father owned a law firm. After reading the essay the father rang his daughter and told her that the writing was indeed quite poor and that if she had been an employee in his firm and submitted such poor quality work, he would have fired her. The student came to see me to tell me all this, and that her father had given her a very grown up bit of advice. From then the student put into her written work the effort needed and did well in the course. I have had a few parental telephone calls, but always explain that federal privacy laws and university policy prohibit me saying anything about their daughter or son until I get the student's written permission. Many college students, I think, maybe 25 percent, would have done themselves a favour by taking a gap year between grade 12 and first year college studies, thereby getting some space from their teen years and making a good start of their adulthood.
36
I think parents need to adopt a different attitude from the start. My mother was of the mind that we did not belong to her, we belonged to the world, and she was just borrowing us for a time. How that played out was that we were responsible for our schooling from day 1. She never took credit for the good things we did and she never took blame for any mistakes we made. It took out the need to be rebellious because we knew we were hurting only ourselves. I take the same approach with my children. I try to guide them to self advocate right from the beginning. I tell them to talk to the teachers directly. To ask questions for themselves. I had one instance where I thought to help and I will say that it backfired. Letting them make the choices and deal with the consequences is painful but sometimes very necessary.
4
Part of the problem is the poor organization of degree programs. I studied science in the UK and the program had a set structure. It was laid out - certain core courses were non- negotiable and were pre-requisites for other courses. There was never a question of the courses being “ full” .
It isn’t or shouldn’t be for the beginning undergraduate to know which courses are necessary in any program - that’s why we pay the big bucks. That is the University’s job.
My son is a physics major - the course director’s job is to determine the requisite courses and to coordinate them so that the level of mathematics required aligns with the physics being taught...and to ensure that these courses are available in a logical sequence.
It’s easy enough to pontificate, but one should also recognize that universities have become businesses rather than learning institutions. Why blame youth for being confused by a confusing system?
16
What nobody seems willing to address is the fact that in this ersatz meritocracy, the stakes are getting higher. And the competition is getting stiffer. All parents are afraid that their kid is going to be stuck as an overeducated barista.
11
Oh, the other advice I'll give: College administration is a mandatory 3 credits for students every semester. I spent as much time, if not more, learning how to navigate the college catalog and the course schedule than I did with any class.
I'd learn department hierarchies and establish relationships with the people who signed waivers. The enrollment override waiver is mandatory for on-time graduation. The prerequisite waiver is helpful more generally. The hard part is tracking down signatures. You need to know who is signing the waiver and provide a good explanation as to why they should sign it. See the point about relationships above.
I got to know the registration office very well.
This attention to bureaucracy allowed me to graduate with two different majors from schools in three different states with a semester abroad, a semester off, a free summer semester, and I almost finished with two minors on top.That's before two college jobs, one as a teaching assistant. I was enrolled in two other schools as well but the course timing unfortunately failed.
In short: Planning is essential. Pitching the ideas to my parents were an after thought. "Why exactly are there typhoid vaccines in the fridge?" I'll tell you when you're older dad...
3
Students having to do an extra year at high priced private college has come up frequently in these comments and was my two son's experience. It also happened to a friend's son. As I was talking to various administrators at both schools, they commented that this is a problem, and they wished they knew what to do about it: One thing might be: offer more sections of classes students need! But beyond that, it is an issue that I wish the colleges would address--and be prepared to offer a free fifth year too. That would motivate change!
10
As a biology instructor at Salt Lake Community College, no parent has ever contacted me. Is this an elite school problem?
5
@Lori PhD Yes. Maybe you are teaching the silent majority?
1
@Lori PhD Yes, the problem may be more frequent with elite schools, but it also may be the case that you have a clear syllabus and an accessible manner that allows your students to approach you directly with questions, requests for help, etc. Good for you!
I have worked in the college I am currently in for 23 years and I am amazed and saddened at how parents have infantilized their young adult offspring and it's getting worse. The worst are the mothers with their sons. All I can think is "you are raising a man who is going to be a crummy husband." It's sad.
6
@MMNY One relative always told a story about her brother who was never married. She said her mother always said it was a good thing he never got married, he would have made some poor woman miserable.
I guess this is how societies fall apart, when they are incapable of reproducing and maintaining stable families in their mid 20s
1
And I have dated several of the gentlemen bootstrapped by this type of parental behavior. It ain’t pretty, folks.
11
The first move that colleges could make to address this ridiculous dilemma is to get ride of your job. Parents should not be able to call the college, at all save for a true 911 emergency.
2
It is a waste of time to try now to raise adults. Most people shove their kids into a cult when they are young children and have not yet developed a sense of reality. So, adulthood will never happen. They will always be child-like and susceptible to any magic talk their politicians and corporate overlords spew at them.
People don't want their children to be adults, they want them to be good subservient serfs to the corporate overlords.
3
Also, let your college-age child to manage their own health. They need to learn to exercise to keep their stress down, eat well, and get enough sleep. And when, inevitably, a virus goes through campus, they have to figure out how to lower their risk of getting it. Or when they're sick, they have to learn how to get through it as quickly as possible, without making it worse.
3
Oh for the good old days. One left for college with a couple of suitcases and a ride from a friend.
The parents were too busy taking care of the other 4 kids left at home and were glad to get one out of the house. It was also a lot cheaper back then
6
All of these suggestions are good, but they need to start much earlier than college—more like middle school.
6
I did not take up "thru-hiking" — hiking one of North America's, or the world's, long trails for hundreds or thousands of miles while carrying everything you need on your back — until later in life. But I've become an avid enthusiast in my 50s.
"On trail," it's a whole new world. Though not (yet) as racially diverse as it could be, thru-hikers come from a remarkable diversity of backgrounds when it comes to skill level (nearly half who completed the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail in 2019 had previously not backpacked for more than 3 days, and nearly 20% had *never* spent the night camping — see 2019 hiker survey at TheTrek.co), education, age, religion, political beliefs, nationality and more. All those differences wash away out there.
That said, the median age of thru-hikers is quite young (30, per the survey), with the biggest clump in the late-teens to mid-20s age group.
Having spoken to hundreds of hikers, both on trail and off (for stories), I've come to have such deep respect for young hikers. It's just so invigorating to watch someone start the trail with great hopes and little (or no) skill and knowledge, then run into them a hundred or a thousand miles on and find a mean, lean hiking machine, self-confident, adaptable and strong.
Some parents may feel their little darlings should be cushioned from life's challenges. But all those 20-something thru-hikers reveal just how silly and unnecessary such coddling is. Treat them as competent and most will bloom.
5
Now there’s an Office of Family Engagement? We paid tuition bills - that was enough engagement for me.
8
It helps to start with the money.
When our daughter (who is now a professor at an Ivy League institution and could write a treatise on self-sufficiency) was a teenager we gave her a phone for safety purposes and a credit card so she could always get gas for her car. What that taught her was that life was free. So when she ran up a multi-hundred-dollar phone tab and then treated ten of her nearest and dearest friends to dinner on our nickel, we came up with a game plan to try to reverse the damage we had done.
What we ended up doing was setting up her own bank account when she went off to college, wire traversing specified amount of money into it every month, from which it was her responsibility to pay her bills (beyond the big ones of tuition, room and board). We put the credit card in her name (with us as back up with the bank, though she didn’t know that) and did the same with her phone. And we taught her how to make a budget, pointing out the need to plan for bigger, less recurrent expenses like plane tickets for holidays.
When she had to start paying her own bills, she suddenly started treating the money in her account as her own, and she saw life wasn’t free after all. Being responsible for her phone, gas and other expenses not only taught her she could manage her own finances, it seemed to give her a platform for assuming other self-responsibilities as well.
Good for her, but I can’t say it was easy for me.
5
It begs the fundamental question "Do you trust your parenting to date" If so, be involved with them, be a coach for them but let them sort it out. Have a little faith in your parenting.
2
I work at a private university. This semester one of my grad students informed me that he didn’t have time to come to class because he’s too busy with student government. He also had not completed any of his class projects, some of which involved teams with other students.
4
It takes a lifetime to master the complexities of life in the real world, which college life provides one brief sample. There are no simple nostrums of becoming a mature grounded person. Just follow the example of the current president to discover what not to do.
4
Higher Ed is a mess to be honest:
1. Firstly, it is an ungodly amount of work for high school students to get into good colleges while universities literally sell seats to rich foreigners to fund rising expenses. For an American kid, a 1500+ SAT and a solid B+/A- average doesn't even get you into the top 100 universities. The admissions process demands perfection and it's only certain students (not necessarily the most qualified) with a certain mindset get in.
2. The fees are crazy. Paying 80K-100K a year for good universities literally has turned the education system only for the rich. Don't complain if your kids simply don't understand regular America!
3. The Alumni networks are self-serving. Rather than serve the country as a whole, they end up taking care of their own when it comes to hiring and business opportunities.
We complain about America turning into an oligarchy and we wonder why!
11
@Linus What is wrong with sending your adult offspring to a community college and then, if their grades are good enough, to a public college? And please cite your sources regarding the 'rich foreigners' claim. Thank you in advance.
6
It is a sad commentary when a school needs to have a 'Director of Family Engagement'
18
Don't wait until they are off to college to teach them responsibility and how to take life's hard knocks. When I was an English teacher I had a curious episode with one of the parents. One of my students, was about to graduate from high school. With three weeks of high school left in the school year, the mother came in and demanded her daughter be placed in the special education program. The young woman was an International Baccalaureate student. "She is going to need extra help in college, and special education will provide that," the mother insisted. We pointed out it was far too late to start the paperwork for such a reclassification, and asked why she wanted this. Well, it turned out the mother did all of the young woman's homework. The mother read the books and wrote the papers. (They weren't that good. The girl never got above a C on any of her written work.) The young woman didn't know how to handle anything like that, because her mother had hijacked her chances to dig in and get things done. Hence, the young woman didn't get past the first semester of college. She couldn't handle it. That mother had done a gross disservice to that child. Life can be tough, but let them live their lives. Indeed, let them have their lives. Be there to advise (if asked) but in the end it is their responsibility and right to figure things out for themselves. I hope that young woman - who is now in her 30's - is doing well. I also hope she can forgive her mother for the smothering.
16
The last time I stepped in for my daughter was when she was harassed by a boy classmate in fifth grade. No, I take that back -- I proofed her college essay. She's spending a semester in France now. She basically arranged everything with some help from her school, but all her parents did was convince her to take British Airways instead of a cheaper airline that nobody's ever heard of, plus we gave her a little help with getting a visa.
My daughter is not Supergirl. She has problems and challenges just like everybody else. But you gotta let them do things for themselves, or they won't be prepared when you the parent are either gone or too far gone to help. I sometimes offer unsolicited advice to my daughter; sometimes she hears it, and sometimes she ignores it. That's the way it should be.
There are inherent risks in life. We can't (and shouldn't) try to remove all of them. Prudence is a virtue, but smothering your kids is bad for them.
9
While this article makes some good points for some families, for the 33% of students who are suffering from mental illness, and others who have underlining or hidden problems are not addressed or acknowledged. It is too easy to lump all college kids and parents of college kids into a bucket. Sweeping generalizations are never useful. Please dig deeper and stop assuming, “here comes another helicopter parent”.
15
Director of Family Engagement? No wonder private universities' tuition is so high. You are encouraging the kind of behavior you deride. Why not retitle your position "Customer Complalnts?" or just eliminate it entirely and save your families some money, time, and aggravation?
12
Mother-smothered.
5
@Gordon Agree, but as a college employee, we have had a number of rabid fathers. While fewer, they are worse.
4
Stop waking your teen up to get to school on time.
Stop driving your kids to school when you live within a 20 minute walk.
Stop making their breakfast and lunch if there is food aplenty in the kitchen.
They'll figure it out.
38
@Richard Scott : better even that those good suggestions...Buy a cheap plastic hamper at Target or Walmart.
Put it in your kid's bedroom, with their name written on it in permanent ink.
Now all their laundry goes IN THE BASKET and THEY WASH IT THEMSELVES.
Not one big communal laundry hamper that mom washes (in-between cooking and cleaning and her paying job and everything else).
Teach any kid over 10 to do his/her OWN LAUNDRY.
3
Please, no more student emails about how to rescue their final grade. Read, attend class, stay engaged while in class, review material after class. The recipe hasn’t changed that much.
17
My son is at a college similar to Barnard (except the all-women thing, obviously). Despite bumps, I've never contacted anyone on his behalf. When he encounters some problem--unhappy and wanting to transfer; not getting a class he needs; dispute with administrators; yadda yadda--we talk things through with him as much as he desires, but ultimately leave him to work it out. And he does.
That said, I get why some step in. I look at his tuition vs that of another kid at a public university, and it's hard not to think that my private-college kid shouldn't face things like oversubscribed classes or forced triples. I don't like thinking about it this way, but: You charge that much, don't be surprised when those who pay expect the experience to proceed as advertised.
Second, intervention works. My son once asked us to intervene regarding a housing request. When I hesitated, he said this is what his friends were doing, and he needed to do it too in order to live in the same house as them next year. He even forwarded (at his friend's urging) an email exchange between the friend's dad and admin, explaining why this housing situation was necessary. I declined to intervene, and indeed my son watched his friends get the preferred housing while he was left to scramble for leftovers. Families learn that parental intervention gets a response. I don't agree with this and remain hands-off, but admins shouldn't complain about parental intervention when they reward it.
106
@mm W I truly admire your decision not to intervene—and would also suggest that anyone can get an excellent education at a public university for a fraction of the price, especially if in college to study, not to socialize....or learn disturbing lessons about pressure, special pleading, and entitlement.
1
Dear Parents,
Please, involve yourself, but please do not interfere. Give them the time and space to grow into their expanded roles. If you speak to them as a child and treat them as such, do not be surprised by their mirrored responses during moments of interaction. If you treat them as an adult, they will respond as an adult. But parents, do not argue with them, but do listen to them. And listen carefully. Kindly restrain from being critical on the onset. Allow them to adopt and adapt. They have responsibilities. You at home remind them of that. In the studio I remind them of that. Trust them to figure out this messy complex world we created and occupy. It all takes precious time to navigate this stuff. And it is never easy.
Signed, A college professor
4
College at Barnard costs $80,000 a year. It is not surprising that parents are exasperated if their kid doesn't get the class they want. What do the colleges do with all that money?
351
@brenda beiser
They hire more and more administrators at ever higher salaries, along with football coaches who make more than college presidents. Meanwhile, more and more faculty members are adjuncts with no job security and no benefits.
280
@brenda beiser Barnard looks a bit extreme, but the stated cost of a private undergraduate education is not a serious number. A quick, perhaps incorrect, internet search suggests that the average 2014/2015 cost was $24,000 and the average aid per student was $45,000. Costs are too high, but part of that is because people choose private colleges partly on the basis of amenities, so colleges are caught in a bind to provide amenities to attract students, which raises costs. Where I work virtually no one pays the stated price and many pay little more than room and board.
24
@brenda beiser pay "family engagement" administrators like the author to reassure this type of parent.
45
One of the best pieces of advice that my mom ever gave me about good parenting was, "The hardest thing about being a good parent is 'letting go'; it starts right from the beginning and gets harder over time because the stakes get higher." In other words, a parent's real job is to help children to become independent adults. We do our children no favors by always jumping in to solve their problems and steer their lives.
12
This advice can't wait until the child anticipates college. This advice needs to be applied in appropriate ways as soon as the child begins formal school. This is so because what we need to do is train our children in an ethos (habit) of doing, self-directing, and interdependence. And children are capable, even at young ages of learning this.
305
@EWood
Something tells me your kid goes to a private school. In our public high school, that would never happen - the college meetings are with the kids, who do a phenomenal job of their college searches.
23
Exactly! The behaviors described in this op-Ed are so very similar to the parental behavior I observed in the last few years of my career teaching high school. Learned helplessness is epidemic. I suspect the ability to immediately text one’s parents out of panic is exacerbating the problem. In the past, when we had to wait to get to a land line phone to make a call, or wait until we got home, that delay allowed us time to process things and cool down.
Now my husband, who is a professor and department chair, sees the same behaviors. The failure of pre-college schools to encourage self advocacy and responsibility is now rearing its ugly head in university.
I am perplexed at the author’s statement that these parents are acting out of love for their children. They are robbing their children of valuable growing experiences and crippling them as a result.....and, embarrassing them.
227
@Cousy In the public high school I went to, those meetings don't happen at all. I suspect your local school was a lot better resourced than mine.
7
I have been teaching at university for 30 years, and I love undergraduates. There has been an abrupt change from the millennials to the Gen Z kids, who are woefully underprepared to deal with college emotionally and academically. What is striking about them as a generality is their need to be told what to do all the time and their fear of failure. This op ed needs to be taken seriously by parents, who must allow their kids to do badly and make mistakes or be inconvenienced. They need this to build inner resourcefulness. I recently advised a student who will be in college another year because his father registered him for all his classes. The dad ignored his son’s academic program of study that we put together for him, and messed up the prerequisites he needed for his major. It was not only a very costly mistake, but it also held back his son’s ability to learn how to manage his own decisions and problems.
325
@M. Gerard
34 years in college classrooms - your comment is spot on. I find myself repeating instructions constantly especially since few students read the syllabus where everything is spelled out in exquisite detail.
57
@M. Gerard I also teach, in year 35 now, and while I see some differences, I don't see many in the current freshmen vs those from the 1980s. I do encourage my students to take risks and to fail; I don't penalize them for these assignments which are graded complete/incomplete. I talk to them at the beginning fo the semester about the importance of taking chances and failing, and that it's part of the learning process. It's a good thing. But I don't then leverage their motivation with a grade for those assignments, which are many. Once the risks are taken, the failures assessed and new work undertaken, whether it's a revision on writing assignment or a creative works project, then the final result is evaluated and the grade assigned as that is required by the university. In the meantime, I coach, encourage and give feedback. My students always feel they can approach me at anytime. I wish more of my colleagues would use the complete/incomplete approach but they tend to be mired in the extrinsic motivation of the grade.
18
Parents didn't teach Gen Z fear of failure; the winner-take-all market did.
45
Director of Family Engagement? An entire office of staff devoted to "family engagement?" How many full-time people is this?
Parents who call and complain about things their child should have taken care of on her own should remember this: an ever-expanding fleet of administrators for positions that didn't exist ten years ago is why college has become so expensive.
579
@HT
Yup.
On these very pages:https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/opinion/sunday/the-real-reason-college-tuition-costs-so-much.html
22
@HT Hahaaaa! My very first thought as well when I read the article! Office of Family Engagement? Institutional enabling of the very problem they are seeking to mitigate!
37
@HT It's a pretty common office. Students are adults and there are laws that protect their privacy, even from mom and dad, unless they explicitly give permission. Many schools have started such an office to deal with families calling in to avoid such legalities and help already overburdened faculty. It's been a complete blessing for me -- I've never had to deal with families, whereas friends at schools without an OFE have had all sorts of ranting parental issues because Suzie didn't get her A, or because Robbie looked at Steve wrong. Faculty don't have time for it, and shouldn't have to deal with it. It's not their job.
44
As quoted multiple times in The Coddling of the American Mind, by Lukianoff and Haidt, "Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child".
We parents almost always have urges to make life easier, but need to balance the short term benefits with long term goals. Do you ever want your children to be self-sufficient?
And perhaps some parents do not want that. Misguided love, ego, or desires for control can distort or prevent a healthy transition from child to adult.
6
"As a parent of college students, I solemnly swear that I will never contact their universities. If one is in need immediate medical attention, I will call 911. If one is missing for 3 days, I will call 911. I do this because it is not, and never was, my job to raise children. It was my job to raise adults from children."
6
I work for a university and I take issue with the writer's nonchalance about classes being full. I am frequently confronted by students who are very upset, and very worried that they cannot get into a certain class. Sometimes classes are only offered once per year, and they truly need that class to graduate. Don't tell a student paying $50,000 a year for school that "you don't have another instructor." I know all too well that you can pay an adjunct $3000-4000 and open another section. But, the school would rather charge a student another semester or year of tuition, because the student can't get that class in order to graduate.
89
@Jen And we have not addressed the issue of adjuncts getting paid close to the minimum wage with no promising career track
7
@Jen "Finish in Four" program at my son's SUNY school had his department waive required coursework. He had to accept it, and also go with a different subspeciality than the one he enrolled for as transferring with two semesters left would have been insanely expensive. Nothing like bait and switch.
6
Parents wouldn’t do this if they weren’t rewarded by the administration bending the rules “just this one time” to make the annoying parents go away. Modeling is best parenting. If you see your parents actively advocating then children do also. I’ve never seen the reverse. Parents who are modest and timid, while children who request things for themselves.
3
@An Opinion If an 18-year-old cannot deal with frustration, inconvenience, boredom and neglect, that’s a problem too. Deal. Adapt. Take a different course. In the arts, in a language, in environmental science. You might just learn something.
3
If your child is in college and needs you to advocate for him or her (except in the most egregious of situations such as campus assault, etc.) you have already failed in you parenting duties.
10
Parents need to learn how to teach their children, for sure. But, there is an irony that places like Barnard have a "dean and director of family engagement."
3
Contrast with Alabama...kids dropping out of community college to get a job because the parents need help paying the electric and water bills. Or dropping out because they are too exhausted and sick after working their night shift fast food job to come to class.
The inequity in this country makes me weep.
192
@BamaGirl
Well said. Very well said.
Sometimes, the house is not so divided as many believe.
5
So, so true. I taught at two expensive name-brand campuses for 35 years, and saw all these behaviors and more. My favorite, still: the mother whose son ran out of conditioner. Did he walk twenty yards to the campus convenience store and buy more? Ha. He whined to his mother, 1800 miles away, who FedExed him an abundant supply. When he said the school had only scratchy pillows, ditto. When he refused to clean out his dorm room at the end of the year, because of course only losers and peasants do that, they hit the roof. ("Don't you know who we are?") The housing department murmured that a European royal had lived in the same dorm that year; the prince not only lugged his belongings down three flights to the storage area but helped other kids carry their stuff too. The moral rolled right off the Scary Parents, who kept repeating variations on "How dare you inflict this indignity on our very special child?"
32
@Erica
That is crazy!
As a child I learned early on that complaining was forbidden if not evil because we were so fortunate to have what we had.
At 14 our father told us to "get off our necks" and go out and get jobs. Cleaning toilets and bagging groceries can do a world of good to start building confidence, character, and empathy as you progress through the world.
Thank you God for my Mom and Dad.....depression era children themselves.
10
Long time college professor here- parents, your interference is counter productive. Students whose parents call to "advocate' for them are seen as weak and unmotivated.
23
No wonder college is so expensive - all these babysitters!
7
When my sons were in college, parents couldn't call and intervene. Apparently the credos of higher education was to do what this advice is touting. it would never occur to me to call and 'talk' for my sons. How do today's parents not know this????
6
Why did the author only use "daughters" as examples of that parents over-protect? I know just as many parents of sons who call the school to try to get a deadline or grade changed.
1
@Marlene
The author works at Barnard, which is a women's college.
6
@Marlene Barnard is a women's college.
7
As an 18 year old kid in the 60"s during the Vietnam War I had a very strong authority figure guiding me: he was a boot-camp Drill Instructor.
7
Just another sign that the entire country has become more infantile. There used to be “kid world” and “grownup world,” each separated from the other.
Boomer parents told their kids to go play outside and don’t come home until supper, have fun playing sports at school but don’t expect mom and dad to be there cheering at every game, the dog or cat is your responsibility, if a bully pushes you around you’d better fight back, study hard at college and we’ll see you back home whenever, you’re eighteen now so good luck, see ya.
Parents being overly involved with their children is a sign of the atomization of society, a turning inward. Bowling alone, indeed.
14
@Doug
More than atomizing we are infantilizing. In the pursuit of a caring, sharing, and risk-free world we have stripped people of autonomy and confidence.
And sometimes being alone, especially relying on yourself, can be a very positive attitude.
8
If the student is over 18 do not take the call to the college except for medical emergency. Problem solved. Tell mommy and daddy to call Madison or Atticus themselves.
4
A university has an administrator with a doctorate whose title is “director of family engagement.” Yikes.
16
I am completely unsympathetic to parents trying to fix roommate/social problems or convenience issues like food/water pressure dissatisfaction for their children. However, the example of "there are no more spaces for that class" is a very real and very serious one that I think is not unreasonable for the parent, who may be paying through the nose for his child's education, to call the school about. NOt getting into a required class in sequence can mean needing to stay an extra semester at the school at immense, unnecessary expense of time and money. Often the student has scheduled irresponsibly; often the school has scheduled irresponsibly.
I'm a lawyer and I'm currently back in school at almost 40 years old. I'm constantly flabbergasted at the haphazardness and opacity of the class registration process and the weird scheduling of classes that seems to take into account professor convenience over that of dozens (or hundreds) of students (who should also be known as clients).
Of the 20 students in my first year chemistry class last semester, only 3 were able to enroll in the second year class. This is because the second year class was totally full since more senior students register first and took the spots, and the more senior students took the spots because it was full when they were second years. The school needs to hire more professors.
40
@Big Cow
And pay them properly!
6
My kid goes to college in Europe. There is no hand holding. They cook their own meals, do their own cleaning, etc. The academic counselors don't typically meet with parents - only the students. In case of mental anguish you are told to call your medical provider. You are basically treated like an adult.
She is very happy and growing up fast.
34
Most of the parents I see (including my ex wife) who fall into the categories here confuse doing for the student with the more difficult listening to the student. Fixing problems is seen as easier that addressing the kids’ problem solving deficiencies. It’s easier. It takes less time. Most of the folks commenting have probably experienced it at the workplace. Interns are fun to have around, but they take a lot of energy to manage. It’s easier to do things yourself than to teach and mentor. Kids are like life interns.
11
I've been reading the comments here, and I'm struck by all the helicopter parents who are looking for reasons to argue with this article. Clearly the article is talking about young adults being able to navigate typical obstacles. They should be able to handle these things themselves. Obviously if a student tries to handle something or something large like sexual assault happens, the author doesn't seem to be talking about those issues.
12
In 1981, I traveled 200 miles from home to attend a state university. When I arrived, I found that while other students had adult, professional guidance counselors, I was going to have a peer advisor. Further, this was a program of the school’s humanities departments, when I intended to major in science. Of course, my humanities peer had no idea how science classes worked. I had to scramble to pick up the required lab during the semester. But it got worse. When the biology department would not give me useful credit for an AP class, the department head used my mess of a schedule as evidence that I wasn’t serious. I notice that I am the second person just in these comments to relate a similar experience.
When an 18 year old needs to negotiate with a 48 year old college administrator, who has the advantage? A college student can’t rent a car. Most can’t buy alcohol legally, or, in NY, cigarettes either. The law says they are not adult enough to do these things. But this college administrator wants you to believe they should be wholly responsible for an education costing tens of thousands of dollars a year. The rental car costs less. Telling parents not to be involved is simply a way for these older, more experienced adults to take advantage of younger adults. It was the only way my university was able to walk all over me.
42
I can’t help but wonder whether it might have been budget cuts that prevented the university from assigning a proper professional advisor to this student, as ought to have happened—often state universities are so strapped for cash that they’re not able to afford to hire enough staff for necessary purposes...
1
@M Bodin
So, so true! It is ridiculous - if an 18-year old can't drink or smoke (as bad as that is for them) legally, or rent a car (but can join the Army!), and a family is paying thousands of dollars in college costs, why the heck can't the more experienced adult step in and deal with a situation that may end up costing them thousands of dollars, say, if a class that is needed for graduation is filled, etc. It is COACHING, not infantilizing - hey don't all those 18 year old on the football field have a coach? Can't they just play that game themselves, without any help?
2
What happens when one’s child gets in to real trouble: they are sexually assaulted (statistically this is one out of four college women), carted off to a hospital for drinking too much during New Student Week, or find themselves so depressed or anxious that they are suicidal or can’t function? Where are the colleges with the infrastructure to immediately support students in these crises? The point of this article is well taken but it does not seem to jibe with the needs of many college students and their families. It is well enough to tell parents to stand back—but where are the visible, available, and committed grown ups able to support students (and I don’t mean dorm RAs), especially as many leave home for the first time?
14
@Wondering Parent
Real world - your daughter is more likely to sexually assaulted as a non-university woman that she is as a student.
Real world - your daughter son will get better and more prompt mental health support in a university than they would if they were working.
Short of locking them in their bedrooms for the period 19 -32 they will be better supported and looked after at a university.
5
"After one anxious dad contacted the college president’s office to voice concerns that his daughter wasn’t registered for the “right classes,” I followed up with the student directly."
THIS IS THE PROBLEM. I SAY AGAIN, THIS IS THE PROBLEM. The parents call, which is out of line. So what do you do? You follow up with the student! No doubt because someone higher up told you to.
It's not a problem that students are lazy. It's not a problem that parents are overprotective. It's a problem that universities indulge them. We all know the deal--it's about money. If you anger these folks they will take their money elsewhere, and this is a business.
6
No one wants to think of himself or herself as a helicopter parent. Yet, we are of a generation of parents that is hyper involved in our kids' lives compared to my 70's / 80's midwestern upbringing.
And it does start young. When my eldest was in 3rd grade, she asked to walk the mile home from school. I mulled it over and realized I was resisting it. Why? I walked home from KINDERGARTEN in 1975 all by myself six whole blocks and my stay-at-home mom was at home!
So, I let my 8 yr old walk home with a group of kids that peeled off and she walked the last 4 blocks alone. I held my breath. And she did it. And I listened to so many parents voice their concerns that my kid was walking home from school - I got calls from parents telling me they had spotted her walking, a knock on the door to tell me she was on her way, and numerous people told me she needed a phone.
Resisting that pressure - to NOT allow her to walk - was not easy. And I'm sure I've caved to that social pressure in other ways, but nevertheless, we persist in our efforts to give emotional and physical independence to our kids.
27
@Kelly
Agreed - my kids walked to school across busy streets and a railway crossing and it was just fine.
But things get trickier when kids get older. My kids are now teenagers and cannot navigate everything on their own.
(Little kids, little problems. Bigger kids, bigger problems!)
2
My sisters school actually banned her kids from walking.
3
@Cousy Right, my kids are older now, too, and it is harder in some ways and easier than others.
My high schooler recently had a problem with a teacher and while I coached her at home and talked it through at home, I did not call school.
Could I have called school and maybe have gotten a quicker and better outcome for my kid? Yes. I do believe that is true. But I didn't. I resisted. I kept on my reminding myself that the process was more important than the outcome. Hope I'm right.
If institutions want to discourage helicopter parenting and encourage student independence, they must reverse their current incentives. When I was in college, I had parents who were barely involved, so I handled issues myself, but mostly encountered administrators and bureaucrats who ignored me and treated my concerns as irrelevant. But my fellow students who ran to their parents every time they had a problem got satisfaction almost immediately. You get what you reward. Stop kowtowing to helicopter parents and start treating students with respect and students will start to solve their own problems.
89
@Bill K I think you make a valid point re: how students who do try to handle an issue themselves may be railroaded. And as an adult, I think I have a much better sense of just how disinterested or even antagonistic many admins may be toward my child, and how easy it can be for the adult who is motivated to do so to completely bury whatever the student's concern may be. Yes, I know out in the jungle of life young folks will have to learn to fend for themselves, but when I'm the one paying the college 80K, I expect better.
1
@Bill K This is true at the high school and even elementary school level as well. As parents, we were relatively hands-off and tried to stay within the established channels set by our school district, trusting that our kids could navigate mostly themselves. This, only to find, over and over, that other parents, who complained or otherwise went outside of or around the rules, got lots of opportunities that were denied to the kids of hands-off rule-followers. Being over-involved was rewarded, quite blatantly, and consistently. The result for us was determinedly independent kids with a hugely critical, cynical view of the school administration and authorities in general. Not sure that’s a total win.
5
@Bill K I also attended multiple colleges where The Powers That Be did nothing for students unless their parents had a building named after them or hired lawyers. I had advisors who refused to advise, instructors who cancelled class without warning, and and a instructor who gave no feedback and changed a B to an F with no warning and no explanation.
If you tell students that they need to advocate for themselves, and advocating for themselves gets them nowhere, they'll find someone else to do it.
There is a real conundrum here. Upper middle class parents spend their children's senior year of high school very involved. They are visiting college campuses, paying for SAT/ACT tutoring, reading potential college essays, completing FAFSA forms, discussing possible choices etc. The current system forces the involvement. Kids just don't get in naturally to high profile colleges--they are groomed. Most of all, these parents, for the most part, PAY tuition and living expenses. They want something for their money!
In a world where 18 year olds are eligible to vote and enlist but unable to drink until 21(due to immaturity), and parents still financially supporting their kids, expecting a total parent/child separation is unrealistic. That said, the process needs to begin. However, most young adults these days don't truly grow up until they are fully self supporting and in many cases that doesn't yet come with the first job either. Our society has witnessed delayed adolescence until about 30.
28
My youngest son went to the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. On induction day he arrived with the clothes on his back, his wallet and his phone. These were all taken away from him. In the first 8 weeks we got to talk to him 3 times total. Some of these calls were heart wrenching: "I don't think I'm gonna make it." Some were upbeat. Throughout the next four years when he had problems we listened. The military culture was foreign to us. We told him we loved him and were confident he could figure it out.
He is now a 2nd LT in the Marine Corp. and is utterly unfazed by the difficulties life throws at him.
20
@Jon Tolins
The military academies tell you what to do.
You grow up the way they tell you.
It's not the equivalent of civilian university where you are expected to advocate for yourself. At the USNA, that's how you get expelled.
Andrew
5
@OneView Actually, advocating for yourself will not get you separated ("expelled") - midshipmen advocate for themselves and their team all the time. That's part of becoming a leader. There are rules, as there are in all walks of life. The difference between "Not College" and College is if you break the rules at USNA, you do tours from 1715 to 1800 every night. A midshipman is completely responsible for himself and completely accountable to his classmates.
3
@OneView The service academies don't tell you what to do, they teach you to be leader and how to live a life of honor.
The article was about helping kids grow up. Our 22 year old 2nd LT has a job with benefits, a retirement account, 2 cars and a fiancé.He has enormous amounts of responsibility in his work leading Marines in the defense of our nation. I would say that he is grown up.
2
I agree with the author on most of the suggestions she made to parents.
But there are two things that give me pause. First, Ms. Friedman is the "Director of Family Engagement". Her position is designed for families (actually parents) to communicate with the college (the very scenario she decries). Barnard (and every other selective college) can't complain about that parents contact an engagement office if they don't think that parents should engage.
Second, selective and expensive schools, whose bills are paid by parents not students, disproportionately enroll private school children and international students. These kids, and their parents, are accustomed to seeing education as a consumer good. They expect their needs to be serviced. Something tells me that if Barnard accepted more resilient and independent public school students, they would not have this problem.
146
@Cousy Your second paragraph is spot on. In many of those schools the normal distribution does not exist -- no one is below average. My wife taught French in one of them. She was told by a 12 year old that the reason he had missed several verb conjugations on a test was because she did not know how to teach it properly.
27
@Cousy
You don't see a parallel between the Director of Family Engagement and the Emergency Exit on a plane - they are both labeled with descriptive titles but neither is for parents who are really... really... in a hurry.
4
As a retired college professor, I agree with all of Dr. Friedman's recommendations.
The only thing that I would add is that, unfortunately, there are some professors who do intimidate students. When students go to professors who intimidate them, the students find it harder to go to professors who, like I was, try their best to be as helpful and supportive as possible.
10
I volunteer with 5 & 6 year old girls in Sparks for Girl Guides (like Daisies in Girl Scouts). It is usually their first foray into an organized activity outside of school.
We are there to help them learn small, foundational things, to have fun and to build confidence in themselves. And by and large, the parents just let it happen -- even the dad of the girl just diagnosed on the autism spectrum, though I see the fear in his eyes every time he drops her off. But the girls know Sparks is a safe place that isn't school, where they can be themselves.
I know programs like this have fallen out of favour, and we all know why. But non-competitive, skill-building activities have a role to play in development of confidence and capacity.
The tiny triumphs of a first camping experience or building a special project help shape a mindset of self-belief.
Ms. Friedman's advice on self-advocacy is good here, but it is the parents of younger children that should take heed on the 'stepping back and letting them practice.' If it starts small and early, it is maybe not so scary (for parent or child) when it's time to to head out for college.
47
Good advice in this column. And as someone who teaches university students I would emphasize one point: When your student is dissatisfied in a class, he/she should go and talk with the instructor, in person. Emailing a complaint to the department chair or (yes) the president of the university is much easier but it's not how adults solve problems.
48
@Steve We just had a School meeting and discussed this very topic -- apparently a student or two went to HR instead of the instructor when they had a concern! HR does not want to field those questions! Our process is talk to the instructor first, then the chair or area head, then if that all fails, file a formal complaint (this is for non-Title VII or IX issues). And always talk to the instructor in person, not by email. I've been teaching for 35 years, and my students know they can always talk to me. I make sure they know this on the first day of class.
7
@kmarker Same at the college I work in, but instead of HR, they usually go right to the president. When I was an undergraduate I didn't even know colleges had a president. It's really sad, and parents have become so needy and so dependent on their children's need for them.
3
Some of the blame for these students not being prepared for the rigors of college life rests on the shoulders of the institutions themselves. Incredibly high standards, such as numerous AP classes, good GPA (heaven forbid a C in a class), good SAT score, varsity sport or some other comparable athletic achievement and numerous leadership positions in clubs are just the basics to be considered for admission. When are these students "allowed to fail" before they go to college?
88
@CAM They aren't. If they fail at anything, ever, and even if they recover from it, they won't get into Barnard, that's for sure. "Failure" of any kind is not allowed in college admissions.
35
@CAM Sadly I think those failures are used to weed out candidates in the admissions process.
8
There are great majority of colleges and universities admit students with all sorts of non-perfect transcripts, including ones that show all sorts of failures. These colleges & universities tend not to be Ivy League, but still offer a very good education. The tendency on the part of parents to want their kids to get into Ivy League or comparably selective institutions is understandable—who doesn’t want the best for their child?—but it goes against the basic reality of the numbers. Namely, there are millions of students applying to college each year, while most Ivy League or comparable institutions just aren’t physically large enough to admit more than one or two thousand new students each year. Parents need to start thinking more realistically, rather than demanding of both their children & colleges that they do the impossible.
9
for the most part, i have encouraged my kids to do all this alone. however this year, one of my children was ill, and showing signs of depression and anxiety. we stepped in at the end, when we realized she was in no condition to do so. i would like to think that sometimes university personnel can tell the difference.
63
@LF NYC Of course we can. It's the moms who call to argue that their darling deserves an A because they tried so hard and are very sensitive to criticism that gets on our last nerve.
7
@LF NYC
There is a BIG difference between someone who needs real help and someone who doesn't like their grade.
2
I'm the youngest who went to college. My father was an old hand by the time I went off. He helped carry my trunk upstairs. He left me with a cake and said, "Do well, introduce yourself to your professors, and stay out of trouble." That was it. He shook my hand and left.
As much as we ever seriously discussed college again, the conversation boiled down to: "Are your grades good? Are you on track to graduate in 4 years?" My parents politely asked about classes and interests but only because they had no idea what else to talk to me about. I can't imagine them ever calling the school to fix a problem.
The advice about introductions was helpful though. There's value in establishing relationships with professors. I went to a relatively small school. There were only a handful of tenure professors in each department and they often overlapped.
The key to academic success was generally simple. You'll do better taking classes you don't like with professors you do. Your life is a lot easier when you identify the personalities and teaching methods that make you a successful student. That's more important than getting into a specific section of photography or cryptology or whatever your friend is taking.
If you don't respond well to the teacher, you're going to have a harder time doing well. Sometimes there's no choice. Statistics 201 was a lesson in self-torture. When you have the choice though, I find you'll be happier taking it. If you're not sure, try RateMyProfessor.
45
@Andy
Good for you and good advice. My son has figured it out that he needs good instructors and comes home raving about how great his professors are, because he likes them and they have great teaching styles. Looks like your father knew what he was talking about.
1
@Andy This is why I chose my classes in college partly by sitting outside in the hall, listening to one of their classes before the semester in which I'd need to register. I have recommended this successfully to many students, most of whom thought I was nuts, but those who tried it swear by it.
1
at a university i know very well some parents call to complain if their student can't find a parking spot (why does a freshman need a brand new BMW?) when he/she arrives 5 minutes before class starts.
17
Maybe college admissions should focus less on students’ SAT scores, padded resumes, and “meaningful” voluntourist summer vacations and look more closely at their emotional maturity and independence. That would quickly obviate the “office of parental engagement” (good grief). A student who is afraid to approach her professor is not ready for college. If the parents and the students don’t realize that, the college should.
29
@Darcy And how would you suggest they assess this quality? Learning to approach a professor is perhaps one of the many social and life skills learned in college. I've taught for 35 years and love to watch the often insecure freshmen blossom into confident adults over the four years they are in my classes.
7
@kmarker
Yes! My sister was so shy when she left for college that even I (at 13) was worried about her. Four years later she was a different person. College is as much about social maturity as it is about intellectual growth.
Fall, 1991. My parents dropped me off some 300 miles from home and said "Do your best. We're proud of you." Even though they helped with tuition, college was mine to navigate on my own. Part of growing up.
To be fair, they did help me sort my dorm room a bit.
12
@Midwest Josh
Fall 1991 - My parents dropped me off after driving 2 days from our small prairie town at my dorm at the largest university in the largest city in our country.
They hugged me, reminded me to call my aunt and uncle who lived in a neighbouring city, and headed back home.
I was overwhelmed by everything when I arrived and I won't lie -- there was a lot that was hard. But then it was OK. And then it got amazing.
I don't think I could have got to 'amazing' if I hadn't been dropped in it as I was. My academic and career path were nothing like my parents'. Had they been allowed to shape it, I would have ended up miserable.
I am glad they trusted me, and life, frankly, and let me figure it out on my own.
4
Many commenters snarking that Barnard is 80K a year and has an office of family engagement. That’s why people send their kids to expensive schools (and why they’re expensive), the desire for ever more services. Hire more instructors = pay more tuition. Multi-layered safety nets, accommodations, academic help centers, free laundry, excellent food, the ever increasing demand for counseling services to combat anxiety. We parents want all these things for our kids, and it costs. Then parents are obsessed with ROI, not whether their kids are getting educated - taught how to think - or maturing through the process. The young aren’t the only ones with anxiety and misplaced priorities. Colleges and universities shouldn’t be faulted for having an office of family engagement, it’s what the parents demanded.
38
@Greg as someone who works in one of these Offices of Family Engagement at a private university, I couldn't agree with you more.
5
American universities are bearing the brunt of the negative changes in American society--dropping or stagnating incomes that cause colleges to be under financial stress as parents can't possibly pay tuitions and, more than that, the choking fear I believe most parents feel that we no longer live in a society that will give our children a fair chance. When everything seems to be for the rich, who can buy their way in, we ordinary mortals get more and more frightened that our children won't get part of the small amount of possibility that is left. If our society would become more equitable again, parents would back off. Often, however, if we don't insert ourselves into the picture, our children are left behind.
That said, as a parent of three recent college graduates, I did take a (largely) hands off approach--which I am afraid may have lead to my two sons needing an extra year of college to graduate (expensive). Overall, however, I hope my method was for the good. This is a wise article, but I believe that until our society changes, this situation won't change.
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@Roger Reynolds This is hands down the very best comment on this article so far. Thanks for not shooting the messenger -- on either side. Both colleges and parents are stymied, and the students are caught in the middle. There are larger issues involved in this problem, and you hit the nail on the head. Thanks for your wise and reasonable comment.
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@werrit Thanks very much for that response.
College, universities are not for every child. What is your child good at? This is where they should find how to pay their own bills. They may love a different area, but they can keep that area for their own time. Instead of setting your child up for failure, look into the areas where the skills they are good at, where they have the opportunity to succeed. Helping them find that job, that opportunity, whatever, is time and money much better spent. Using what they are good at, will guide parents love for their children to help them learn how to navigate the real world.
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@Suzit
Better still let them find it themselves.
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@carol goldstein High School's are not for teaching our children everything. We have decades of experience in the real world and we can help them get there, but remind them that it is their job to keep it.
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I have never contacted the Universities that my children attend. But, the lesson I learned from this article is - If the college parent contact is unwilling to help out your child, go directly to the president to get results.
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This process needs to start WAY before college. We encouraged our children to speak up in class and ask questions of their teachers starting in 4th grade. Neither of us are good at math, so we made sure our kids understood the assignment and how to complete the homework assignment before they left school that day, which usually meant going in for extra help during a free period. We also told them in their sophomore years that we would pay for 4 years of college tuition, to the best college they could get into on their own. Our belief was that if they were not capable of traversing the admission process on their own, they would not be successful in college. We never helped them fill out the forms or write their essays. We took them on college visits they arranged themselves, and other than Swarthmore, insisted they attend in-state public colleges/universities ( they chose Miami and Ohio U., as well ) so that we did not go into debt. Two graduated in four years, and 1 graduated in 3 by going year round to summer school at our local community college. When he received an Incomplete for one summer course because the computer lab was being updated, even though he spoke with the professor ahead of the class to make sure that portion of the coursework would not be required since he didn't have a computer . . . he wrote a very articulate 7-page HAND-WRITTEN letter to the president of the college, she agreed with him, and changed his Incomplete to a grade.
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Re students not getting into a preferred class: there may also be an 'up front' issue, too. I'm a long way past college, but I do remember working to be one of the first in line to register for classes I wanted. I imagine the whole thing is online now, but is the student making a real effort to get those classes or getting around to trying in her own good (and too late) time. This comes down to a matter of going after what one wants, making an effort to schedule the registration in a personal calendar, and taking charge of her own education.
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@Anne-Marie Hislop It's not that easy. I have students waiting online for registration to open, and they still can't get into the class. It's like trying to buy tickets to the Rolling Stones for some classes.
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Many parents jump in to their kids problems in order to create and continue dependency, to keep the student involved in their lives and attached to them. How do I know this? Simple observation. Having created and nurtured such a relationship, they later complain when the student is out of college and turning 26 or 27 that they aren't independent enough, not taking responsibility for themselves.
When our daughter was at College of Charleston, one of the more ridiculous practices I observed was the parents helping the student move into the dorm or apartment...for the entire four years they were in school. The students would, not infrequently, go off to see their friends or attend a party, the parents would lug boxes into the building. They had turned themselves into servants for their kids. Does this make any sense?
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@Doug Terry And I know of parents - mothers, specifically - who visit their child at university on the weekends to do their child's laundry and clean their room. That is a serious problem.
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@Doug Terry
I can see doing it for the first day of the first semester, but after that...? I would leave them and their stuff on the curb and say "see you in 3 months"
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@it wasn't me My ex-husband's mother did this in the late 80's. The result was someone who never did learn to pick things up and put them away.
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That Barnard has to have a "Director of Family Engagement" shows just how bad things have gotten. Speaking as the chief academic officer of a midwestern community college, I can affirm that, even at the 2-year level, parents are intensely involved in their student's business and do not hesitate to call me or--worse--the college president to complain about attendance policies, grades on essays, and similar things that students are perfectly capable of handling on their own. In fact, learning to handle such matters is one of the skills we expect our students to acquire as undergraduates.
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It’s a balance.
Helicoptering in is certainly not good.
But neither is just tossing them in freshman year and letting them fend for themselves alone. Especially in a big school.
Always good to give space but monitor. Trust but verify. Ask questions, answer questions.
Freshman year is a doozy nowadays. It is hard core. It moves fast. Freshmen do need help and support. The schools are unable to provide all of it.
Usually by mid sophomore year the kids have figured it out.
The parents too.
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Parents get a lot of conflicting info from the NYT alone! Just last week after another tragic suicide a parent commented about her "hands on" experience which ultimately saved her child's life. Death by suicide is a risk for today's teens and young adults. I think the suggestions in this article were good but there's no need for the shaming. Parents are doing the best they can.
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@ego As a psychotherapist, I can assure you that parents are not doing the best they can. Many of my patients still come from homes of abuse or neglect, and some should have been sent to therapy as teens but were not.
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Suicide among college students is rampant. Schools such as GWU have had to surcharge tuition to try to build up woefully inadequate and overburdened mental health departments (as reported in NYT) and the levels of depression and desperation among students is shockingly high, perhaps epidemic.A serious mental health crisis is occurring in our teen to young adult community and our schools do not have the resources to support a large percentage of their students. While some good points are made in this article, the terror parents experience when they see what is happening and here of multiple classmates at universities are taking their own lives excuses some excessive involvement in my opinion. If you do not acknowledge this serious health crisis As part of the same problem and realize that many more things than parental concern are part of the problems faced on campus, you are feeding into this epidemic.
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@Dr. Gregg Bannett But there is a gaping chasm between the suicidal undergraduate and the undergraduate whose greatest concern is that she can't get into the class she wants. These are two very different phenomena that both require huge amounts of time and resources from faculty and staff. The easiest problem to solve are the pampered students - wouldn't it be good to lessen that burden so that more efforts can be focused on those who are truly in need?
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@Dr. Gregg Bannett
Students are killing themselves more because of the loss of the feeling of competence and control that Dr. Friedman is talking about in this column.
The problem doesn't lie with colleges and universities, it lies with parents (and high school administrators and teachers, and communities) who stifle young adults' independence and make them rely on their elders for everything, thus setting them up to fail at coping with their new colleges' normal requirements and standards.
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@Dr. Gregg Bannett I am curious to know if you believe that the style of parenting (helicopter, bulldozer...) contributes to this mental health crisis.
If children have no experience using their resourcefulness and resiliency starting from a young age, does this not contribute to a feeling of powerlessness and hopelessness when they are older?
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The U has a moral obligation to ensure public and individual health in its domain as well as a business obligation to ensure that what it has contracted for is delivered. Food service serving undercooked food, ignoring students who make them aware of the issue as well as students who become ill enough to see a doctor? College not working with town to establish safe corridor in areas adjacent to campus that students must pass thru to get to housing, plus no procedure to quickly and easily involve actual emergency responders when blood is let? Janitorial service not maintaining sanitation? These things are all middle and high school issues too; hiding behind the ivy wall labeling parents as helicopters is irresponsible and frankly not the behavior expected in a First World country.
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You are missing the point. The author explains that parents are now doing things that their children should be doing for themselves in college.
And, college students are adults. The college cannot legally intervene...the student must take responsibility.
I do get the impression that some parents expect a country club instead of a an institution of higher learning...and tuitions rise as schools provide those expected amenities.
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@Wendy the writer is not necessarily missing "the point." Elite college administrators and professors often think they are always right. Our kids came from another country and were completely overwhelmed, and then did everything the U told them. They are brilliant and had done very well in High School and the community college. They are living at home to save money. But by the time they got to the state university, the advisers repeatedly told them to take the wrong classes, are unable to explain how to get good summer internships, and have them graduating an entire year late with less substantive experience and contacts. They told them "it's just crazy to work while you are studying," causing financial problems since they didn't work during the summers and having to be rescued, which will not help them in the work world. I have tried to help them but the system is truly byznantine. It's frustrating for parents to be able to afford all their contradictory and confusing advice. Maybe my situation is unique but I have done as advised in the column and really wish their advisors would open up to me. Also, the person posting is talking about serious health issues, and the U does have responsibility. Look at how much they needed to change to prevent sexual assualt. Or racism on campus. Just my own lived experience but we have to take all situations into account instead of punditing and speaking only to elites as this column does.
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Providing a sample brief intro to asking for clarity or help is a great way to help a kid — or anyone — learn how to open and navigate a potentially awkward discussion. But in my decades of teaching and working with college students, I don’t recall any asking for help understanding the material. When my students come to me, or when I overhear students talk, the focus is entirely on how many points they can amass.
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@Pnick everyone knows that the ‘Easy A’ is all that matters.
When I went away to college in 1978, I was excited to be moving to a big city (Seattle) and finally being independent. Then, on the first day, homesickness and fear hit me like a gut punch. I was on the phone daily with my parents. Little by little, they pried my fingers off the nest. I had to do it (mostly) all by myself. Talking to professors was agonizing because I was shy. Missteps were common. But in the end, my parents did the right thing—teaching me to be more confident and self-sufficient. (As a side note, the notion that my parents would call the university to “help” me is laughable.)
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Some great advice. Hearing or reading a thoughtful email from a student matters to this Professor. At times, the student might be speaking for others who didn't have the courage to speak up.
However, this article runs counter to the fact that by law, Colleges cannot tell parents anything about their kids!
This is unconscionable. Students who have mental health issues, drinking, grades, etc. are known to the school, but the parents don't. Here's a heartbreaking NYTimes article titled: "His College Knew of His Despair. His Parents Didn’t, Until It Was Too Late," about this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/12/us/college-student-suicide-hamilton.html?searchResultPosition=2
After reading it, I know that when my kid goes off to college, my wife and I will be intimately involved in his experience.
We won't leave it up to the College.
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Professor,
Your college-age "children" are adults.
If they choose not to share information with you, that is their right. The college is in no more position to overrule their choices than your bank is, were they to call the bank and ask how their inheritance is shaping up in your accounts.
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Whoever pays the bills should be able to see the grades.
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@Elizabeth
Why?
Should students who are awarded a merit scholarship have to show the donor their grades?
Should my Mom on Medicare have to show other taxpayers her health reports?
Should the President of the US have to show us his tax returns- I mean, we pay his salary?
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Another way to support young people is to not describe human interactions in a way that ascribes some behaviors to women and others to men. What was your goal in categorizing the actions of moms vs. dads?
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@Mo she was just reporting her anecdotal experiences
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@Mo Because their approaches are different. Or is that not allowed to be said nowadays?
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Research? I pressed the link in this article (a wide range)- "Three hundred and forty-three undergraduate students, from a mostly White and female sample, completed questionnaires online to measure the extent to which students felt that other people expected perfect performance from them"
I have read Steven Pinker's interpretation of research about parental influence in outcomes of their children that involved twins and siblings separated at birth or when very young and raised in very different environments by different parents.
According to Pinker, a renowned evolutionary psychologist, such research suggests very little consequence of most parenting strategies and that "experts" recommending the "right way" to raise children are, more than anything, part of a multi-million dollar industry.
The true main influence of outcomes for our children? Pinker suggests it is mostly about a child's peers and genes, both responsible for about half of "destiny" for a child.
More than anything else, WHERE and NOT HOW a parent raises a child is significant- the culture of the neighborhood that children pick up and pass on to each other.
Hellicoptering may result in some harm, but we need research with scientific standards to accept it as a major problem. Parents already agonize too much on parenting strategies, partially because of love for our children and partially for our need to feel very important to them- that all our work leads to some kind of result.
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And teach the girls that they too have a right to request explanations, assistance, and direction from the adults around them. To question the "no"s they will constantly get but to do so by seeing how the boys around them are being treated, and to get your help when they see a discrepancy.
If girls get to grow up expecting to be able to make the same demands and expect the same results as the boys around them, that will help many girls who are thwarted from self-directing as they grow up from becoming the powerless-feeling young adults who believe nothing is negotiable and therefore need their parents' help to move every boulder.
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In my experience teaching high school for 27 years, the girls were far more capable at communication and self advocacy than the boys.
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