1 in 5 parents edit their kid's college papers

Parents Forum
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<p>I think “flow” is the most important step in editing.</p>

<p>Frankly, I would be thrilled if my kids asked me to edit – My rising 10th grader hasn’t let me see homework or reports since 2nd grade when I has to initial off on homework. My rising 4th grader only told me of long term writing assignments. I had no idea how much writing he had done on his own until after all the folders came home at year-end.</p>

<p>I have no issues with proof/editting. I prefer kids who seek help to those who do not. </p>

<p>I do think the writing center is more appropriate than parents. </p>

<p>I question the stat of 1 in 5 – that seems very high to me.</p>

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<p>For me, it´s all about the learning. While I improved my writing in college thanks to my best friend majoring in journalism who looked over my papers (and got me to read her bible, The Elements of Style) I really became much better and more fluent once I was working in a writing job. It is never too late to learn and get better at expressing your own ideas. I suspect the vast majority of college students could benefit from continued editing from a good writer, so long as they pay attention to what is changed and think about why. But even college writing centers, I imagine, don´t offer such intense revision.</p>

<p>For some parents at least, I believe the point is not to help the kid get a higher grade on the paper, but rather to offer feedback that leads to the student raising his skill level, which is what any schooling is about. I have always emphasized to my kids that grades were not nearly as important as the learning that actually went on in their classes, so although I have not been asked thus far at the college level, I would not hesitate in giving suggestions to help my kids become stronger writers .</p>

<p>I don´t think getting feedback from one’s parents in an area where they may be knowledgeable is necessarily a sign of co-dependency, it may be a sign of maturity and deference to their particular strengths. I really like Hanna´s description of her family dynamics and would love to maintain such a relationship with my girls.</p>

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<p>“I don’t view this dynamic as reflecting family closeness. I view it as reflecting codependency and reflecting a lack of confidence and assertiveness on the part of the student.”</p>

<p>Ugh.</p>

<p>Leave the psychiatry to Lucy’s 5 Cent stand in Peanuts.</p>

<p>You don’t want to review your kid’s essays. Fine. You don’t think it is appropriate. Fine.</p>

<p>The dime store psychiatric analysis, however, is presumptuous and judgmental.</p>

<p>Those attitudes by parents, by the way, when inflicted on a child can make the child judgmental and presumptuous, or perhaps create codependency and a lack of confidence and assertiveness on the part of the child.</p>

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<p>GorgesDad, my analysis comes from having a doctorate in psychology and doing some professional work involving codependency. I am not saying that parents who review their kids college work are highly dysfunctional. But I do think that they have a relationship with their kids that is codependent, and I have the right to that point of view. My belief is that by the time they are in college, students should be independent enough not to turn to parents for that kind of help. </p>

<p>My younger son was a very shy child, just as I was when I was a kid. He was one of those kids who used to hide behind a parent when meeting a new person even when he was in early elementary school.</p>

<p>Shyness, interestingly, is a trait that the continuance of depends on how parents react. If parents react to kids’ shyness by speaking up for the kid and doing other things for the kid, the kid is likely to continue to be shy. </p>

<p>If the parent teaches the kid assertiveness, using role modeling, practice, and other things to help with that, the kid is more likely to stop having the kind of shyness that is crippling.</p>

<p>Consequently, S – who as an 8th grader didn’t want to apply for a job at the public library because he might have had to answer the phone – at age 22, just finished a summer job of doing customer service over the phone. He got to this point because when he was in 8th grade, I not only gently forced him to apply for the job, but also had him make the phone call to apply for the job. We role played before he made the call. </p>

<p>He got the job, and learned how to handle telephone conversations with strangers.</p>

<p>When someone backed into my car the other day when S was driving and I was a passenger, S calmly also made the phone calls to the police and insurance companies. Since he’d never been in an accident before, he asked me what to do, but he didn’t expect me to make the calls.</p>

<p>He is neither judgmental nor presumptuous. Several people – including his peers’ parents and a person who interviewed him for the merit aid S got at college – have commented to me about S’s calm confidence that is not arrogant. </p>

<p>Incidentally, I was not present for S’s merit aid interview. S went to the college for the interview completely on his own. I learned about S’s performance at the interview when - -during orientation – S introduced me to one of his interviewers.</p>

<p>In terms of assertiveness and self confidence, S is far ahead of where I was at his age, and I think that’s because when I was young, I was coddled by my mother, who’d do assertive things for me that I was afraid to do for myself.</p>

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<p>Agreed. Golf is much more important than that. </p>

<p>More seriously, as a couple of Nicklaus’ kids have tried to make a career out of golf, it’s hardly an EC. Similarly, if a college kid has a writer for a parent and wants to be one himself - should he not show that parent his college writing and ask for input? To what end? I think that you view college as some sacred passage - into what I don’t know. My viewpoint is college is merely a means to an end. </p>

<p>Btw, did you miss me?</p>

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<p>

This!!! And my son is proud of his work now, has sent some of it to me after grading because he wants to share it.</p>

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<p>^^^That’s great… my son still not in the sharing mode and mood just yet… if you find out how my son’s essays read, let me know will you?</p>

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<p>I think it comes down to whether the parent is editing or revising. Having someone edit the essay seems fine, but revising the essay is going to far when a student is almost done with highschool and applying for college.</p>

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<p>cb0616, I have to believe a double-digit percent of parents would end up suggesting to their kid some form of revision during the editing process, and a certain percentage of kids would make those suggested revisions. Having said this, is this “worse” than a teacher, sibling, or friend doing the same thing? Probably not…</p>

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<p>In basic composition classes at our little college, forty percent of the grade is in-class writing to control the help students get out of class. I would guess that many colleges do something similar.</p>

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<p>Asking a parent for a proofread and feedback re editing is not getting “help” in the same way a 5th grader gets help on an essay. At the college level, the student should already have mastered the basics of english grammar and punctuation. Professional writers have others proofread their work (I’ve had two books published, and am happy to say that my editors did a terrific job).</p>

<p>My d. wrote a 90 page thesis as part of her degree requirement. She researched hundreds of books, lived and breathed that task her entire year – she even took a lighter course load so as to leave plenty of time for the thesis. And yes, I read bits and pieces and drafts, her father read parts, her boy friend read parts, her thesis advisor read parts, and for all I know half the other seniors in her department probably were asked to weigh in, and certainly the others students in her senior research seminar must have had a peek.</p>

<p>My daughter wouldn’t dream of writing anything important without soliciting a ton of feedback – its just the way she works. My daughter learned how to read and write at age 4 – she is constantly correcting me and other family members on grammar and usage issues – it’s not “help” – it is part of the writing process that mature, capable writers routinely follow. </p>

<p>And I think anyone who follows my posts would know that if my daughter were any more independent of me, we wouldn’t know each other. My d. spent a semester living abroad in high school – after she returned home I rarely saw her. She traveled by herself to all her college visits, attends college and now has a job on the opposite coast. She spent two summers during college, a full semester, and the spring break of another year living and traveling abroad. I can go weeks without voice contact with her – proofreading generally is something that happens via email in the dead of night. For the thesis there were bits and pieces and different revisions of different pieces of different chapters circulated among different people. </p>

<p>And guess what? While my daughter was writing her thesis, she was being paid to edit a book a professor was writing – I think my d. was responsible for getting the bibliography done properly. </p>

<p>Here’s a real life peek at the “help” my daughter got on her thesis, pulled from one of my chat logs. She emailed me a 64 page document, 17,000 words, and asked me to look at chapter 2, beginning on page 28. </p>

<p>And hour later sent back a single comment via chat:
I can’t figure out what this sentence means - is there a word missing? </p>

<p>5 hours later she responded:
no. i don’t see the confusion</p>

<p>8 hours later I messaged back:
As written, the sentence says that the EVENTS reported the newspaper: 'these events were reported daily newspaper". Maybe you meant to say that the events were reported IN the newspaper?</p>

<p>So-- she sends me a doc with 17,000 words, and over the course of 14 hours, I expressed confusion over an omitted preposition. And some CC parents are worried about codependency.</p>

<p>Frankly, if my d. hadn’t been asking for feedback on her writing, I would never have heard from her at all. My d. has been cooking since age 4 and doing her own laundry since she was 12, … so there’s not all that much for us to talk about if I must be relegated to discussing womanly, maternal things. So sue me… I’m an intellectual, and this happens to be how I relate to my kids.</p>

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<p>Re post #130. At least at the college that I went into debt to finance, they don’t teach “basic composition”. There is a mandatory writing seminar for freshman, but I know from what my daughter did there that the purpose of that course is to indoctrinate the students into writing turgid, verbose, polysyllabic stuff with a pretentious academic tone, rather than the clear and concise style they might have previously developed. </p>

<p>Maybe at other colleges… but I if my d. had needed a basic composition class, I would have saved my money and sent her to the local community college, where they are good at that sort of thing.</p>

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<p>After all this discussion I can’t help but think this is another advantage that upper income families have over lower income. I think the writing centers are there to be a leveling influence for students who may come in not as polished (or just plain rough).</p>

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<p>Several posters have commented on “peer editing assignments.” Some have offered that an instructor (either college or high school) who insists on having students get (and do) peer editing for each other have de facto opened the door to allowing anybody do the editing for said students. Others have talked about the inherent inefficiency in peer editing—the peer editors know no more, and often less, than the student writer and can offer really bad suggestions on what to do to improve the writing, etc. Hence it’s more efficient (from their point of view) for the kid to ask his/her parents to proof-read or edit.</p>

<p>These comments bother me because they completely ignore several purposes behind peer editing assignments. Here are several I can think of right off the top of my head: </p>

<p>To get the students in the class to see what level their peers (the other students) are writing at so they can be more honest about their own writing level;</p>

<p>to get the students to start learning how to * critically * evaluate the whole of a peer’s written arguments so that they might better learn how to critically evaluate their own writing in a more sophisticated fashion during the drafting, revising, and editing processes;</p>

<p>to learn how to offer useful advice to others on * what * to revise (but not * how * to revise it) so that students are less likely to cross the line between “proof-reading/editing” and “rewriting” in the future when they are asked by other students for help on written assignments;</p>

<p>to learn how to * evaluate * suggestions—you don’t change your writing just because someone tells you to write “blah, blah, blah” because he/she thinks that’s what you mean or because he/she thinks that’s how to clean up the grammar. You evaluate the suggestion and you make changes if legitimate suggestions have been made and you stand your ground if you believe the suggestions will not strengthen your writing.</p>

<p>I have no strong feelings one way or another about the appropriateness of parents editing their kids’ college papers. I simply want to point out that a writing instructor may have well thought out objectives for peer review/editing assignments and that if an instructor says that a paper must have a peer review, the instructor might not mean to give carte blanche for students to ask for editing help from parents, roommates, or any other person who is either great at editing or simply handy.</p>

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<p>There are many teachers who do not have the time, the inclination, or even the skill to correct mediocre writing. This is true at all levels of education, up to and including college. I proof my children’s papers, red pen in hand, with no qualms. I edit to teach, supplementing what they are learning in school, which is rarely enough. Learning to write well is a process that spans years. As long as I can impart knowledge—and they are open to receiving it—I will proof anything that comes my way.</p>

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<p>re: NSM - “GorgesDad, my analysis comes from having a doctorate in psychology and doing some professional work involving codependency. I am not saying that parents who review their kids college work are highly dysfunctional. But I do think that they have a relationship with their kids that is codependent, and I have the right to that point of view.”</p>

<p>And that’s exactly what it is - your point of view. And you do have a right to it, but don’t justify it by a degree that you’ve done “some” work with. I know many people that have PhDs in psychology and have done “some” professional work who would never base such a broadly sweeping diagnosis of codependency on posts such as those in this thread.</p>

<p>I sounds like you have a great son. And I’m glad you’ve been so lucky in your child-rearing efforts. However, the many psychologists, psychiatrists and pediatricians that I know never attribute their children’s successes (or failures) largely on their child-rearing techniques. I can take my background in education and child development to voice my opinion that you may be overcompensating for your impression that your mother coddled you.</p>

<p>All children, parents and relationships are different. As many other posters have stated, it’s wonderful to be able to have a real, adult relationship with your children. This should include the freedom to discuss things and advise each other without being judged or labeled as “codependent”. There is never a one size fits all and I applaud those who have relationships with their kids where both children and parents are teaching and learning. When kids are young it is innapropriate to be their “friends”. As they become adults it is appropriate and, in my opinion, something to strive for.</p>

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<p>"
And that’s exactly what it is - your point of view. And you do have a right to it, but don’t justify it by a degree that you’ve done “some” work with. I know many people that have PhDs in psychology and have done “some” professional work who would never base such a broadly sweeping diagnosis of codependency on posts such as those in this thread."</p>

<p>Codependency is not an official diagnosis. It’s not an insult and it’s not a diagnosis. It’s a description of behavior, and what I gave was an opinion that I have every right to have just as anyone else here has a right to have a different opinion. The only reason I mentioned my doctorate was that you compared me with Lucy in Peanuts, and there’s a big difference in what I said and what that comic character does.</p>

<p>I believe that for our culture, college is the time when students get the chance and are expected to appropriately separate from their parents. Relying on others beside parents to check and help with their college assignments is an important step in that process.</p>

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<p>I’m sorry - I don’t mean to be rude - but I cant resist the irony. I think you needed a proofreader for your last post. Wasn’t me that brought up Lucy…</p>

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<p>My mother is the president of a volunteer association. Sometimes, if she needs to send an email that has something “controversial” or unpopular, she will run it by me or my sister to get our opinions on how to word it properly. I think that’s perfectly appropriate. </p>

<p>My H often asks me to review business letters he writes. </p>

<p>I’ve asked my sister, who is an HR director for a major insurance company, to help me word particularly tricky performance reviews. </p>

<p>I think making full use of resources is smart.</p>

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<p>I’m also a college professor and I’m uncomfortable with the process of parents editting, particularly when the students in question are young, such as freshmen. I had one situation where a student came to me with a paper that her father had editted the heck out of. It was in the social sciences and her father had professional experience in the field, and he had inserted a lot of advanced ideas that we had not yet covered and the poor student was just more confused and out of her league as the result of dad’s editting. Many parents don’t know when to stop and they do go overboard. I’m equally concerned about a situation where the students don’t learn to develop and express their own ideas about the material because they’re censoring themselves for the parents who are editting (i.e. student prefers a Marxist interpretation of historic events but reigns it in since MOm will be editting the paper).</p>

<p>Here’s my take on it – If you’re not embarassed by playing this editting role in your child’s life and your child is not embarrassed either, then you shouldn’t have any problem with having the fact that you edit your child’s papers be public knowledge. I always ask my students to include a sentence at the end which says: "The following people have assisted me by editting my paper . . " </p>

<p>And for the record, I’d like to see a similar sentence at the bottom of everyone’s college admissions essay too.</p>