How to Avoid "Hovering"

Most parents don’t want to be helicopter parents. You certainly have better things to do with your time than solve problems for your adult child who is 200 miles away. Parents constantly lament to me “How can he be smart enough to get into college, but he can’t figure this out?” But, if after a few tear-filled calls from your child, you decide to call the college to fix a problem for your child, stop and consider the following.

·               Can he handle this problem on his own? The answer is usually “Yes”, but he just doesn’t know how. Most eighteen-year-olds don’t know how to trouble shoot problems because they simply haven’t had to do it before. Let me tell you a little story to illustrate this point.

Each year, when I worked in residence halls, at least three to ten students would request a maintenance work order for a broken desk light (the lights were built into the desks.) The first few times this happened, I took the students’ word that the light was broken, assuming that they had certainly already confirmed that the light was plugged in and the bulb was not burned out. But, after a few of the maintenance orders came back with notes such as “replaced bulb” I started to realize that students didn’t know how to trouble shoot. They just assumed that if they flipped on the light switch and the light didn’t turn on, then the light was broken. Defining the problem, and trouble shooting the simplest solutions are basic life skills that college students may not have developed yet, but they will definitely need in the future.

As you talk to your child about problems that are occurring in his life, ask him to clarify the problem first and then develop some simple solutions. Offer some suggestions, but don’t solve the problem for him. True, this may require that you have a few, or even several, overly complicated conversations about the same problem, but I assure you that once he has successfully solved one problem with your guidance, he’ll be able to solve many more without calling you. 

Helicopter Parent Epidemic?

What would a blog for college parents be without mentioning the terrible epidemic of helicopter parents? Well, I’m here to inform you that the “helicopter parent epidemic” is a myth. Sure, every faculty member or administrator has a few horror stories up his or her sleeve, but the truth is this. The number of parents who are always overly involved in their children’s lives is extremely small when compared to the entire population of college students. Most parents do an excellent job of letting their children grow and develop through the inevitable failures they experience in college.

Of course there is no valid way to measure what “overly involved” is but, the mythic parent who demands grade changes, and visits regularly to clean Jr.’s room only exists in very small numbers. If they were rain forest birds, they would surely be on the endangered list. We also have to look at so-called, “helicopter parents” from the university’s perspective.

Considering that many professors and administrators are of our generation or older, their only experience with being a college freshman is their own. Like us, their freshman year was about three decades ago, long before tuition skyrocketed, cell phones, social media, and the Internet existed, and parents became keenly aware of serious campus safety issues. If, like us, their only contact with their parents was in the form of an occasional postcard or a weekly call from the hallway payphone, their experience in no way resembles that of a current college freshman. I mean, have you tried to find a pay phone lately? Times have changed, and even though colleges and universities are notoriously slow to change, we need to change along with them.

Most parents who call me with a complaint or question aren’t helicopter parents in fact; they would be horrified if their child knew they’d called. They aren’t trying to solve problems for their child, and they certainly aren’t “hovering” they just want to be informed about policies or situations so they can offer educated advice or guidance. I am much more concerned about the parents who sit at home worrying about what they can possibly do to help their child who has called home asking for academic advice or complaining about a roommate who is using drugs in the room. Yes, ultimately, the student will have to resolve such situations on his own, but from the university’s perspective, a parent who is informed about what resources are available to the student is an ally, not an enemy.