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<p>Completely disagree. One can be quite close to the child who is very independent. They are not mutually exclusive concepts.</p>
<p>Secondly, we were not talking about situations where “advice flows freely and is welcomed,” the OP is about the parent “intervening.” Two completely different things!</p>
<p>What are we looking for on this thread? </p>
<p>This is what I do, let me see if it is normal.</p>
<p>This is what I don’t do, let me see if it normal.</p>
<p>What about, just do what you think is perfect for your kid, and lets all pat ourselves on our backs.</p>
<p>I personally think the Vassar sending out wrong admission notification thread is more interesting. Wonder how many parents will intervene.</p>
<p>I still wouldn’t intervene. I would have told our child to call the school and find up what was going on…if they hadn’t done so on their own already.</p>
<p>oldfort, I think parental action will be more based on what a student’s back up choices were. If a student has good ones then a parent may let it go but if they were really banking on Vassar, then they might step in. What a mess.</p>
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<p>It’s hard to intervene when you don’t know there is a problem. My simple point was that is very close relationships, the parents are much more aware what is happening. In a not so close relationship, less communication would leave parents in the dark to any potential problems and the kid would be more apt to handle it alone.</p>
<p>I would intervene, but I would do it to make sure that we would be on their good side - not threaten to sue (wouldn’t do any good) or be a pain. I would let them know what a disappointment it was to have the decision reversed, it is my kid’s top choice, blah, blah, and ask if the school could let us know how to turn it from defer to acceptance.</p>
<p>Why have a thread like this? Because lots of people sit and worry about whether they should do something, and like everything on CC, this is a place where they can hear various points of view and stories about situations that might help them.</p>
<p>I don’t think giving directional advice is intervening. There can be give and take in that process. Dictating to your kid and giving him/her no chance to have an opinion or think for him/herself is likely to cause rifts - and it can lead to intense independence (or estrangement!) just as easily as over-reliance on parents.</p>
<p>What I heard the question to be was if a parent ever stepped in directly to speak with school officials, or other adults, on the kid’s behalf, whether the kid had already tried to deal with a situation him/herself or not. There are lots of different circumstances, and we’ve heard various stories. I think they are helpful.</p>
<p>In my case, we had a kid with whom we are close, but who was going through a rough period. She wants very much to take care of her own problems, and does an OK job for an 18-year-old. But her emotional state at the time caused her to withdraw from us and to sound quite hopeless. I took the invitation to express my concern to an adult at her school, and then left it. It made a big difference to me, and I do think people helped her a bit to pull out of her funk. But I knew right away that the invitation had its limits - no one wants a mommy checking about every little thing.</p>
<p>Our situation is compounded by distance. I also think our approach will change over time - there is a little more extra involvement from the folks at first, after which the she is supposed to be in charge of her life at school. She seems to be doing that fine, now, and while I’m guessing there will be issues that stymie her from time to time, we can probably just act as coaches from the sidelines again.</p>
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<p>And there are very close relationships where the parents are very aware of what is happening, yet do not “intervene.” Rather they give the student advice if asked, or merely allow the student to vent, etc. Or the kid handles the problem, then discusses the whole incident with the parent later. Parent congratulates student on how they handled the situation, etc. </p>
<p>There are also relationships where the parent is constantly intervening on the child’s behalf, perhaps to the point of constantly meddling, knows everything that is going on, but does not have a “close” relationship. </p>
<p>I just don’t agree that the closeness of the child parent relationship is determined by how often the parent “intervenes.”</p>
<p>Emmybet, I defined “intervene” the same way you did. At what point would you contact a person in a position of authority at the school directly.</p>
<p>We did make a call to a support staff - in this case, a dept administrator (not faculty), but it could have been a housing person, RA, etc. On the other hand, D had some major frustration with a prof, and we would not have contacted anyone at the school directly about that. We urged her to talk to him, to talk to the Dean if necessary. If it had been something that affected credit, or cost to us, we might have thought about talking to someone in the U’s administration, but only if she had run out of ways to deal with it herself.</p>
<p>It would take an earthquake for us to contact a prof, an employer, or anyone in that capacity, in lieu of our kid. We will offer any and all advice they want. I think for a bit we will be available to step in in legal/financial situations (like leases, car purchases, insurance issues) if a bad situation arises. </p>
<p>I’ll just say, again, that my general philosophy was always that there is no place for a parent on a college campus, except in an “audience” role. I had to adjust this slightly for a kid who was in significant danger of real emotional problems, and I would have gone further if her problems had worsened. There’s philosophy - and then there are situations that override it.</p>
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<p>Absolutely.</p>
<p>About the contacting professors thing - I’m still a high school senior, but my parents don’t know what classes I’m taking, forget about what grades I’m getting, and they would NEVER ever contact a teacher/professor on my behalf.</p>
<p>That being said, they are completely involved, helped-me-with-my-college-search, give advice freely type of parents.</p>
<p>It just confuses me that a parent would contact the school for simple things like arranging classes or grades. That might make sense, possibly, only if the student had already tried something, and the parents needed to intervene in an unfair situation. At least in high school, some teachers will be extremely dismissive towards students in situations where the student has a point, but will listen to their parents.</p>
<p>People shouldn’t feel guilty when they override it. </p>
<p>This reminds me when our kids were little, we read in some books or our well meaning family and friends tell us that our kids must go to bed by 8pm, be fed every 4 hours, sleep by themselves, tie their shoelace by age 3, and if we didn’t do those things then some how our kids were developmentally delayed or we were not good parents. </p>
<p>Our young adult kids are very good at letting us know if we are butting in where we don’t belong - they would just stop sharing information with us. How often do we not tell people stuff when we do not want their opinion?</p>
<p>Problem with a lease would have cost us $$$$$. We stepped in on that problem and got everything sorted out. </p>
<p>Son was charged about $40 last year (roommate too) for stain to carpet and cleaning costs. I saw the carpet when they moved in and it had lots of stains then. We just paid it last year and did not fight about it. This year son has some furniture in the room with writing done in a permanent ink on the inside surfaces. We took pictures of the entire room including this furniture. If my son is charged for damage to the room again we will step in.</p>
<p>I work very hard to treat my son respectfully and speak to him like an adult about his business dealings. I try to speak any advice to him in the same tone and with the same type of phrasing I would use with another adult. Also, if he has stuff under control, I don’t make suggestions. I think this has made him feel more comfortable coming to us for input as things come up, and sharing information. He knows we are going to treat him like an adult and not lecture him like a little kid.</p>
<p>I mention this because I had to work hard to get to this place myself. It has made a big difference, and it was my problem, not my son’s.</p>
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I have adjuncted for years, and if a student came to me with a request like this my response would be “umm, nooo…” I don’t know why a faculty member would have suggested that she could continue to work on material or redo material after the semester ended, simply because she didn’t do well.</p>
<p>If it were a matter of a couple of points making the difference between an A and a B, I might be willing to look over all the work to see if I could be more generous with partial credit, but that’s about it.</p>
<p>Called S1’s advisor once, as S1 was returning after a LOA to give the advisor a heads-up. (I had S1’s permission.)</p>
<p>S2 had some issues last semester, called us to tell us what was happening, we discussed various strategies, but ultimately S dealt with his advisor, the dean, the profs and got through the semester relatively unscathed.</p>
<p>Both guys call us and ask us for advice or to bounce ideas off of us. I’m glad we have the kind of relationship where they feel they can do that. S1 may negotiate a lease, but he asks DH to review it. Both kids ask me about health care, 401(k) and insurance issues, as this is my professional area and I have a lot of experience as a consumer, too. I would much rather they come and ask rather than making a costly mistake (for which they will bear the consequences).</p>
<p>Do I still ask if they have taken care of X, Y or Z? Sure. I’m still their mom!</p>
<p>With the talk about contacting professors, I would add that it is against privacy laws(FERPA) to discuss a student 's grades with anyone without written permission.</p>
<p>FERPA actually says if a student is a dependent, can be claimed on parent’s tax return, and parent is paying for the tuittion, then the parent could have access to a student’s grades. You could go on the gov education site to read the fine print.</p>
<p>Our college’s policy is not to talk to parents, even of minors, without written permission. Guess the college powers that be need to read the fine print. Although, most college students are not minors though a few are. Neither of my kids did/will start college as minors.</p>