Helicoptering or Helping?

Parents Forum
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<p>WoundTooTight

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<p>Why she doesn’t understand this is because of your past history with her. She should have learned in middle school if you drop the ball, you fail…when grades and transcripts don’t matter. Parents really need to learn that lesson too. She is PAST the time by about 10 years that she should have learned this and this is likely her last chance as a school kid to learn this hard lesson. When she gets her first job and misses an important deadline, will you step in and punish her for that? You are months away from this now with her, when do you stop? I would rather have her go an extra semester or have to take one last class over the summer then get fired from a job, don’t you think? Stop checking the hand book, stop talking to her about this, let HER take care of this. You really need to back off and let her deal with this.</p>

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It’s not so much that the OP shouldn’t intervene. It’s more an issue of what intervention is effective. As many of us have learned, both from our children and our spouses/SOs, nagging rarely works.</p>

<p>Learning that she may not get the interview or the job if she doesn’t follow through tends to be much more effective.</p>

<p>And calling the offices oneself to find out what the consequences would be? Least effective method.</p>

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<p>I’d suggest that WoundTooTight should look at the information about completing “Incompletes” on the school’s web site, find out the deadline, and send that date to her daughter, then stop. </p>

<p>Speaking as a college professor, I have observed that students sometimes (maybe often) don’t read published or web-accessible information that they should read. Some of my advisees don’t know whether they are on track for graduation or not, or how many more of what classes they need. In a related anecdote, one of my colleagues said that he recently posted a sign on his door that said, “You can pick up your exams from Ms. Name-of-Secretary in Room X,” and still had students knocking on his door to ask to pick up their exams (in Room Y). </p>

<p>At our university, Incompletes must be finished by the middle of the next semester of enrollment. My university has gone over to a different transcript designation (rather than the old default “I”) for cases where the professor leaves for a conference at the end of the semester and fails to file the grades. However, some universities don’t do this, and it wouldn’t apply precisely to the current scenario, in any event.</p>

<p>I place less stock in the idea of having the student learn a lesson when she doesn’t get the interview or job. If the student doesn’t get the job, there are so many reasons why a student might not get a job that an I on the transcript may have nothing to do with it. On the other hand, if the student gets the job, it makes the mom look like a worry-wart.</p>

<p>The conversion of the I to a grade on the transcript is the one thing that will surely follow according to the University rules. Most universities with which I am familiar will not permit an I to remain on a transcript in perpetuo. There are overrides sometimes to extend a grade correction beyond the deadline, but one can’t count on that.</p>

<p>My standpoint with respect to my colleagues, spouse, children, parents, and other relatives is: “When you need it and I can do it, I’ve got your back.” If I would give a colleague, parent or spouse a particular kind of help, I wouldn’t withhold the help from a child to permit a lesson to be learned.</p>

<p>Edit: I see that WoundTooTight has looked at the student handbook, without finding the deadline date. I suggest looking on the web site of the university. Possibilities for the location of this information would be the Registrar’s Office site, the online catalog, and the online academic calendar. This must be published information. The Registrar doesn’t want to field calls from all of the students with Incompletes.</p>

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<p>Never in all of my interviews did a prospective employer ask to see my transcripts. Is this a common practice now?</p>

<p>OP: I feel your pain but I can relate to your daughter as I remember being that way in my early 20s with an “everything will work out” attitude. It almost always did :)</p>

<p>Perhaps her real life lesson will come when she’s paying for that extra semester.</p>

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<p>If I let my kid do an extra semester, the cost would be about 28K. There’s no way a student can pay that on their own without a parent co signing loans. I guess they could take time off and work for as long as it took to earn the money. </p>

<p>I know a 21 year old is an adult, but if I’m paying tuition, that adult is wasting my money. With one semester left, I’d rather nag my (adult, yes, I know) kid and have her finish on time than potentially waste 3 1/2 years of tuition. If she has bad habits on a job, then those consequences are entirely hers, not mine.</p>

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<p>My D finished up one class at the local college during the summer after her Senior year. Hopefully it is a class she can pick up at another college.</p>

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<p>I asked my high school seniors how they would feel if I called the school to ask about how they should make up an Incomplete–they both said they would be MAD if I did that and by senior year in high school a student should be MORE than able to handle this themselves----not to mention college.</p>

<p>One more class will NOT cost $28K.</p>

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<p>There’s no need for anyone, including the student, to call the school to find out the deadline for making up an incomplete. This must be a matter of published record. It just needs to be located. Having “rules” that anyone needs to call the Registrar to learn would be a nightmare for all involved.</p>

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<p>No, another class will not cost 28k, but at least one poster said they would let a kid repeat a semester if necessary. </p>

<p>I would not call the school but I would nag my kid and let her know I expected that part of my investment in her education was expecting her to graduate on time.</p>

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<p>“She is PAST the time by about 10 years that she should have learned this and this is likely her last chance as a school kid to learn this hard lesson.” - These comment may not fit the case of OP, but I’ll post then in case helpful to other readers. </p>

<p>There are a few very bright kids (more %-wise on CC threads than in the real world) that whiz through ms brains on alone. They don’t get the chance to learn the hard lessons in ms and forge good study skills. The failures come later in tough AP/IB hs classes or in college.</p>

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<p>This is, of course, what my D would say, too. And she would say that she knows it is her responsibility to follow up, and bad things will happen if she doesn’t. But just because she can say these things does not mean that she actaully will do them. And the idea that if she had failed a quiz in middle school, then we would not have this problem now is just laughable. She failed <em>many</em> quizzes in middle school because she was not paying attention in class (she was reading a book she liked better instead), but she managed to learn the material well enough in the end. (As I am typing this, I am thinking about some of the posters who suggested ADD; I have no idea even how to start with figuring out if that is part of D’s problem, but it might be worht investigating . . .).</p>

<p>I think to some extent, most of us can avoid thinking about the consequences of something we don’t want to do. I managed to forget/be too busy to call the dentist for an appointment every day last week, and just called today after I left a big reminder sign on my computer last night and resolved that I would not log on until I had called. I think D’s situation is somewhat the same–she knows she needs to figure out how to turn in the paper and get the grade changed (the way I knew I needed to call the dentist all last week), but she can put it out of her mind. I don’t know what will get her to the point of deciding, okay, I am going to do this now.</p>

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<p>Am I missing something here? It would take just a phone call or an e-mail to resolve this, right? I am having a difficult time understanding all the hoopla and analysis over one measly phone call.</p>

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<p>colorado_mom–It has nothing to do with how smart someone is and everything to do with letting your children discover information on their own. I am sure that EVERY child at some point missed and assignment because they were sick, at the orthodontist, or just plain forgot. When that grade shows up as “missing” the CHILD should talk to the teacher about how to make it up, not the PARENT. Again, this is NOT an uncommon in MIDDLE SCHOOL where this lesson should be learned…not SENIOR year in COLLEGE.</p>

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The latter part I agree with. She should know the expectations. </p>

<p>The nagging? Has that really ever worked for you, prefect? That’s my only point.</p>

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One suggestion–how you ask her can make a big difference. Thus, if you say, “Have you done anything about that incomplete yet?”–she will definitely take that as nagging, and will be resistant, even if she knows she should do something. I would suggest wording it more like: “So, what did you finally do about that incomplete from the summer?” This wording doesn’t suggest that she did nothing (even if that’s what you think is most likely). It allows her to respond that she’s still working on it. Resist the urge to ask a lot of followup questions.</p>

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<p>I was just reading some great threads and thought this BRILLIANT…</p>

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<p>Sometimes the parents have a hard time letting go…
sometimes its the students…</p>

<p>:)</p>

<p>imho</p>

<p>IF
we are doing something that inhibits our sons and daughters from being independent…
and keeping them from learning from their own mistakes,
keeping them from negotiating through their own issues with grocery budgets, roommates, professors and assignments etc…
then yes we are helicopters.</p>

<p>IF we are advising for say a legal contract, landlord/tenant issues so they can handle it on their own…with a bit of wisdom, then its helping.</p>