Why Kids Need to Separate from their Parents

[mountainhiker]

<p>Here’s a link to an interesting article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, written by an English professor at Stanford:</p>

<p>The</a> Case for Breaking Up With Your Parents - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education</p>

<p>It’s a bit long and rambling, but there are some really interesting nuggets in the article. Here are a few of my favorites:</p>

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"Starting at an earlier age, students feel that their free time should be taken up with purposeful activities. There is less stumbling on things you love ... and more being steered toward pursuits.”

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The "helicopter parents" who hover over nearly every choice or action of their offspring have given way to "snowplow parents" who determinedly clear a path for their child and shove aside any obstacle they perceive in the way.

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Once matriculated (there's an interesting word), most students saw frequent parental contact and advice-giving as normal: A third of Harvard undergraduates reported calling or messaging daily with a parent.

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<p>She then goes into a very long section on a literary critique hypothesis, examining the orphan-narrative, and ends up at Kant - try to slog through it, because there’s more good stuff at the end . . . </p>

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Parents, in my opinion, have to be finessed, thought around, even as we love them: They are so colossally wrong about so many important things. And even when they are not, paradoxically, even when they are 100 percent right, the imperative remains the same: To live an "adult" life, a meaningful life, it is necessary, I would argue, to engage in a kind of symbolic self-orphaning.

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<p>So - here’s a question for current parents of children at BS: how often are you in contact with your kids? Many times a day? Daily? Weekly? Less frequently? And is that a quick text, or a longer phone conversation or skype?</p>

[wcmom1958]

<p>Great post, Mountainhiker. We often talk about how much better off our kids are away from our nervous and watchful eyes. We get “think” time when hearing things that we want to “react” to. It allows us to feel more like the parents we want to be, and when the kids are home we can enjoy them without the day-to-day discomfort of nagging. As for your question about how often we hear from them, there is no pat answer. Certainly we hear from them less often as time goes on, but there are times when they need a sounding board and we hear from them more often. Generally, younger child calls every night, older one a couple of times a week at most - on average. </p>

<p>It’s been interesting to listen to our local friends face the college transition. Their kids are going through these transitions much older, and one could argue about who is better off in the long run. What I do know is that the sense of self-efficacy and confidence that comes from navigating the mundane details of boarding life (laundry, alarm setting, getting work done, printing boarding passes and buying food at airports, for example) is palpable and a HUGE difference between kids who go to college from home and those who go from BS. </p>

<p>Love “Snowplow parents” – though it pertains more to high school parents than college. At the college level FERPA laws provide at least a partial filter. More college professors need to avail themselves of FERPA language to help them navigate the increase in hovering that technology and a more competitive economy have created.</p>

[MDMomofTwo]

<p>My child calls weekly- maybe. Texts occasionally for triumphs ( won her tennis game, medal in National Latin Exam), and emails for funds. We are kept very much at arms length while she is at school. She is much more touchy feely at home, but she LOVES her independence at school.
I initially misinterpreted her silence as unhappiness and “delicately” questioned her about wanting to come home for the rest of her education, only to be met with outrage LOL!
Not allowed to helicopter parent even if I wanted to :/</p>

[ChoatieMom]

<p>Same here, @MDMomofTwo. DS calls maybe once a week; we never seem to be able to connect via phone if we initiate. And that’s it, no e-mail or texts. When he does call, we have a grand time, but he clearly doesn’t need us in his daily life. I’m having a hard time distinguishing BS from college; he’s on the same schedule and only home for (part of) the summer. As far as he’s concerned, he’s “launched”. Barring unforeseen circumstances, never again will he be a permanent resident of our family. Ouch. Really didn’t expect this level of independence so early.</p>

[MDMomofTwo]

<p>Feeling your pain @ChoatieMom!</p>

[GMTplus7]

<p>ChoatieMom, it’s comforting to learn that your DS is also as infrequent a communicator as ours. Was thinking that everyone else’s kid skyped daily.</p>

[classicalmama]

<p>Kids are so different in terms of how much they like to get guidance and advice from parents (and other adults like advisers or teachers for that matter). Families are also different in how they communicate.</p>

<p>Rather than tallying the number of calls, it might be better to look at what’s happening when we talk. Is the relationship primarily supportive, with lots of active listening, or pushy, with parents trying to direct their children’s life? Or is it somewhere in between? I see my role as 75% listening and supporting and 25% pushing my kids to extend their boundaries. On the other hand, I suspect there are parents out there that can helicopter their kids into Ivy League frenzy with a cold, once-a-month phone call.</p>

<p>Anyway, here’s how I unabashedly continue to helicopter my kids. When I see them beginning to act in a way that goes against our family’s core values (do your best; be kind; pursue challenge, not easy reward; try not to judge), I won’t hesitate to jump right in and start giving all sorts of unsolicited advice! At some point, I’m sure I’ll back off, but not yet–teenagers are, in my opinion, a long way from being grown.</p>

[ChoatieMom]

<p>Totally agree, @classicalmama. However, I have no way to judge his behavior at school beyond grades and term reports. He clearly hasn’t done anything that raises any flags with the school or his advisors (or the police), so I have no reason to give any advice. I just love him as much as I can over the phone and count the days until he’s home. Of course, once he’s under our roof again, I’ll have plenty of time and reasons to be “mom” again but, while he’s away, I have no basis for evaluation or intervention. He is definitely in his own world at BS. His calls tell us all is well in that world, but it is a world apart from us where we have no immediate role. I’m OK with that. In fact, on one level I’m very pleased and impressed with him, but as this school year comes to a close (can you believe it?), one of my takeaways is how my/our role in his life is changing. It’s all good, just bittersweet. I hear strains of “Sunrise, sunset…”</p>

[classicalmama]

<p>Choatie Mom: And then they find really good, rewarding things to do in the summer that involve camp or travel for weeks on end…and before you know it, home’s just a place to visit. Sniff. </p>

<p>They ask for what they need, don’t they?</p>

[Charger78]

<p>Charger S is going off in September to school for first really extended time away. This thread is very instructive; a thank-you from us anonymous readers is always implicit. Am thinking, as I often do with these . . . why not just print it out and have him read it straight up, with whatever conversation ensues as value added. </p>

<p>CC does the job in so many ways, and I wonder when I will reclaim my life from it?!!?</p>

[SevenDad]

<p>We probably only talk to SevenDaughter every 2 week or so. As noted by another parent above, it never works if we initiate the call.</p>

<p>Facebook and text work for us in fits and starts. Some days there is a lot of back and forth about various topics (including admin as well “what’s new in your life” stuff) and other days (or for a few days in a row) nothing. Zip. Zilch.</p>

<p>People can say all they want about cutting the cord, but when it’s your firstborn, it’s definitely a weaning process…in our case, perhaps more for the parents than the child.</p>

[Periwinkle]

<p>I found the article from the Harvard magazine article the Stanford professor cited more interesting. In the midst of describing Harvard undergrads’ frenetic lives, the writer did find a contrary viewpoint:

Goldhill, educated at London’s venerable Westminster School, where discussion and debate are the warp and weft of the school day, marvels that, at Harvard, “there are so few intellectual discussions outside of classes. I try to take at least an hour for lunch with friends. There are days, though, that even when you want to go and hang out, everyone else is in their nonstop mode.”

[Super-active</a> students are over-scheduled | Harvard Magazine Mar-Apr 2010](<a href=“http://harvardmagazine.com/2010/03/nonstop?page=0,3]Super-active”>http://harvardmagazine.com/2010/03/nonstop?page=0,3)</p>

<p>Does frequent contact with the career coach (a.k.a. mom n’ dad) make up for a lack of social interaction? that is, social interaction which doesn’t adhere to Robert’s Rules of Order?</p>

[classicalmama]

<p>Interesting article, though I think it’s making (as many helicopter parent articles do) some leaps in logic that are not well supported. For example, maybe the girl who called to ask her dad which way to turn at the subway was overly dependent on her parents for guidance; maybe she just made a quick call because she knew her dad knew and it would be the fastest way to figure things out. Maybe cell phones, more than tiger parents, have changed the way we problem solve. And I remember plenty of McDonalds or bowling alley birthday parties when I was a little girl…is ChuckE Cheese really different? </p>

<p>And this paragraph–though completely off topic and not Periwinkle’s point at all–really stuck out for me:

“STUDENTS ARE VERY CONSCIOUS of what it will take to get into graduate school or to get a job,” says dean of freshmen Tom Dingman ’67, Ed.M. ’73. “I regularly have conversations with freshmen who say things like, ‘This summer, I have a chance to go back to the yacht club where my family has been involved, and I would run the sailing program. But I don’t think I should do that. I should be doing an internship in an office somewhere so that next summer I can build on that, and maybe ultimately get an internship with Goldman Sachs.’ But they’re not paying attention to the things they really enjoy, and not seeing the opportunity to develop themselves holistically—it’s more strategizing about how best to build a launch pad.”

This hardly seems the realm of parents who want their kids to get the leg up that they didn’t have, as the end of the article suggests.</p>

<p>I’m remembering why I stopped reading parenting books when my oldest was four…</p>

[Periwinkle]

<p>I gather the argument is that the behavior becomes ingrained. If you’re always busy, you don’t know any other state. </p>

<p>Mind you, I don’t know if that’s true. I think the kids who end up at Harvard are very good at doing things and winning prizes. Thus, the students at Stanford and Harvard (etc.) could be select populations of outliers, the kids who really internalized the lifestyle of “more accomplishments are better accomplishments.” It’s like trying to judge national physical fitness by a nation’s Olympic athletes. It’s not a random sample. You’d probably find a better population at the local Starbucks. </p>

<p>Now, if you’re considering colleges, if the student cultures at certain colleges encourages frenetic activity rather than contemplation, that’s good to know.</p>