<p>'rentof2, if you home schooled your kids you’re NOT a helicopter parent . . . by definition</p>
<p>being involved doesn’t make anyone a helicopter parent . . . by definition</p>
<p>it is a fact that SOME parents are so over-involved in their kids’ schooling that they have lost their moral sense for differentiating between their work and their kids’ work</p>
<p>pretending that demarcation is impossible, or that “helicopter” is just an epithet without any substance, or that the goal of college justifies any intervention are all signs of a parent that doesn’t appropriately value autonomy in their children</p>
<p>a friend in adminstration at a local 4 years college recently found it necessary to task some orientation student workers with the job of gently keeping parents out of student-only orientation sessions; this recent action was needed because more and more parents did not respect the college’s demarcation lines </p>
<p>with rare exceptions the parents’ jusitification was that they wanted to hear what their kid was learning . . . they were literally putting their own needs above their childrens’ </p>
<p>that’s something other than just being “involved”</p>
<p>Megpmom, as a person who did a lot of helicoptering of my kids, my own own childhood experience was precisely the opposite. My parents were completely uninvolved with my education, recreation, and everything else. Homework, tests, school events, grades, college admissions tests, applications, financial aid, etc. was entirely up to me. Some on CC maintain this makes a student more independent and of tougher mettle somehow. Yeah, I guess I was independent enough, but my parents did me no favors and many doors remained closed to me because I grew up in a small town (as did my own kids) and just didn’t have the perspective to know what was possible or how to execute ambitious goals.</p>
<p>I did better by my own kids who are having academic and cultural opportunities now I never dreamed of.</p>
<p>My whole philosophy of education is very different though than the school model, which is partly why I took my kids out of school and partly developed because of experiencing their education outside of an institution.</p>
<p>But was I very, very involved? Hovering, even? You bet. And they are now growing into splendid, productive young adults who don’t seem to have suffered for it. And having closed that chapter of being a homeschooling mom and now being mom to two kids away at college, I look back on it all with tremendous satisfaction, while also being excited by moving onto new things.</p>
<p>I guess my main point is, that while of course texting a kid answers to a test is ridiculous, there’s this unpleasant trend of parents criticizing other parents for being too involved with their kids. It’s almost like a pop-culture sport these days. I think it’s sad. Truthfully, it’s not about the degree of involvement, to me, it’s about the quality of the involvement. And even then, who the heck am I to judge another family in whose shoes I don’t walk? Maybe it’s fun to take potshots, but I just wish people were less defensive about their own degree of involvement so they didn’t feel the need to tout that everyone who is more involved then they are is a “helicopter parent” (I’m so sick of that term!) and everyone who is less involved is a negligent parent. It all feels very judgmental and at the same time defensive.</p>
<p>Nobody really “needs” to be called a helicopter parent and nobody really “needs” to be told they aren’t invovled “enough”…</p>
<p>Most parents are reacting to what their kid needs at the time. What looks like backing off can be just as conscious and involved as what looks like over-involvement. What looks like over-involvement, depending on where the kid is at at the time, could really be backing off and letting them handle a few new things.</p>
<p>We really never know what is going on in someone else’s house, no matter what we think.</p>
<p>'rentof2 said: “there’s this unpleasant trend of parents criticizing other parents for being too involved with their kids. It’s almost like a pop-culture sport these days. I think it’s sad.”</p>
<p>I think we all agree that such cattiness is a bad thing, tearing down others who takea different approach to parenting. That kind of behavior is at the very least lacking in humility.</p>
<p>But it’s foolish to pretend that “helicoptering” and "being involved " are the same things, or that because someone uses it as a weapon it fails to describe something real going on, or that “helicoptering” just doesn’t exist.</p>
<p>I read a post a couple years ago where the poster told a story about a mother who stayed in town for 10 days after moving her daughter into her freshman dorm. This was a Chinese family sending their first child off to college. In fact, the mother stayed in the daughter’s dorm room for a couple days until her roommate arrived.</p>
<p>From all the wailing on these boards about it, you’d think that mother should have been stoned and that the daughter was bound to be a weak, disabled wreck of a person.</p>
<p>Now, would I do that with my own daughter? No. Can I pretend to tell this family what works for them? No. Even if it doesn’t work for them, it’s between them. Families have different styles and they don’t need judgement from people who don’t live their lives, own their issues, their backgrounds or their responsibilities. If some behavior is not working for one or more members of that family, then I give them enough credit to work it out themselves over time without my judgement of them.</p>
<p>Progress reports here get mailed home, so parents always see them. I, for one, am grateful to get a heads up when needed. Much better than finding out there’s a problem at the end of the semester when there’s no time for corrections.</p>