The Legacy of the Helicopter Parent

Yesterday, I read a story in the Wall Street Journal about helicopter parents on Facebook.  And it made me think of the effect helicopter parents have in the college classroom.  Helicopter parents come in many types -from those who just hover quietly in the background assuring the well-being and safety of their children to those who aggressively play savior and jump in at the slightest provocation to make things "right."  A recent example of the prevalence of helicoptering is the outcry of parents against President Obama's speech to school children.

Thousands of parents, without foreknowledge of the contents of the speech, were instrumental in schools disallowing the speech or insisted that their children be excluded from the viewing. Parents question the content of school curricula, sometimes getting books banned from the classroom or school library.  And parents go to extraordinary lengths to make sure theire children are treated fairly, often becoming violent with coaches who don't allow a child enough time on the playing field even when that child has no sports ability whatsoever.  When kids get in trouble, these same parents have been known to step in and take care of things - paying for damages, interceding with authority figures, and sometimes just yelling loud enough and often enough that they get their own way.

And this is how helicopter parents have an effect on the college classroom.  Even those parents who have given up on helicoptering once their children move away from home and into a dorm have often already taught their children that they are never wrong and that when things go awry, it is the job of someone else to fix it.  Students who have spent their in-class time having private conversations with their neighbors or snoozing in the back row, suddenly want to know why I gave them a C, as though I had played a nasty trick on them.  They then want to know what I can do about it.  In case you haven't noticed, nothing in these questions admits responsibility on their parts.  The problem is mine, and they want me to fix it, as their parents have been fixing things for them. 

In one of the worst situations I had encountered, a student took an incomplete in a class, but failed to complete the work.  The work that had been done to that point had all been late and far below par.  I began to wonder how the student had been admitted to the school in the first place, but perhaps it was the student's prowess on the paying field that helped with that.  The student failed the course, and then proceeded to work up the academic ladder.  The program director, the department head, the adviser (who phoned me and told me step by step how to change a grade with that tone of expectation in her voice) and, finally, the dean were brought into the issue by a student who had to face the reality that the athletic scholarship would be lost with a failing grade on file.  At one point, the student even confronted me openly in the library insisting that I had to do something because I had promised I would. 

Luckily, I keep e-mails, copies of assignments, etc, and it was evident to administration that the student had not demonstrated knowledge and proper use of the course material.  However, the insistence of this student that we make it right cost countless hours and aggravation on the part of people who were in no way responsible for what were the student's failings.

Perhaps parents have to helicopter a little more than we did when our kids were children.  But if parents want to make children into free and independent thinkers who can take responsibility for their own actions, who can discover their own strengths, abilities, and talentss as well as their weaknesses, and difficulties, then those parents need to interfere a lot less and quit fixing things.  My question is: do parents even want free and independent children, or are they, as evidenced by their fear of the possible partisanship of the Presiden'ts speech, merely growing clones of themselves.