Overprotective parenting

[Monello]

I've always been a bit of a risk taker when it comes to matters involving personal growth. I'd rather do something and perhaps regret it later than not do something and then regret not doing it.

I was the same way with my son. I gave hit quite a bit of rope when he was young. If he faltered, I was somewhat close by to get him back on track. At the age of 17 I let him take a train by himself in a foreign country. He got to where he was going and there were people there to pick him up when he arrived. This was before the time when everyone had cell phones. When he got back everything was fine. Years later he told me that he had actually boarded the wrong train. When they checked his ticket on board he was told that the train he wanted was behind him. He needed to get off the next station and board the next train that came in the station. The trains were running behind that day so he was where he needed to be at the right time. Luckily it all got straightened out in the end.

I'm also amazed by many parents that absolutely won't let their kids go anywhere without them. Students are heading off to college but have never had a chance to make a decision for themselves that didn't include consulting with someone in the family. I don't think kids should be feral but they need to have some degree of independence. Reading this story made me cringe a bit.

I was a first-generation college student and we didn’t yet know that families were supposed to leave pretty much right after they unloaded your stuff from the car.

Shortly after arriving on campus, the five of us — my parents, my younger sister, my abuela and me — found ourselves listening to a dean end his welcome speech with the words: “Now, parents, please: Go! We thought we all needed to be there for freshman orientation — the whole family, for the entirety of it.

My family followed me around as I visited department offices during course registration. They walked with me to buildings I was supposed to be finding on my own. They waited outside those buildings so that we could all leave from there and go to lunch together.

The five of us wandered each day through the dining hall’s doors. “You guys are still here!” the over-friendly person swiping ID cards said after day three. “They sure are!” I chirped back, learning via the cues of my hallmates that I was supposed to want my family gone. But it was an act: We sat together at meals — amid all the other students, already making friends — my mom placing a napkin and fork at each place, setting the table as we did at home.

The whole fam damily

 

[DEEKAYPEE8569]

I've always been a bit of a risk taker when it comes to matters involving personal growth. I'd rather do something and perhaps regret it later than not do something and then regret not doing it.

I was the same way with my son. I gave hit quite a bit of rope when he was young. If he faltered, I was somewhat close by to get him back on track. At the age of 17 I let him take a train by himself in a foreign country. He got to where he was going and there were people there to pick him up when he arrived. This was before the time when everyone had cell phones. When he got back everything was fine. Years later he told me that he had actually boarded the wrong train. When they checked his ticket on board he was told that the train he wanted was behind him. He needed to get off the next station and board the next train that came in the station. The trains were running behind that day so he was where he needed to be at the right time. Luckily it all got straightened out in the end.

I'm also amazed by many parents that absolutely won't let their kids go anywhere without them. Students are heading off to college but have never had a chance to make a decision for themselves that didn't include consulting with someone in the family. I don't think kids should be feral but they need to have some degree of independence. Reading this story made me cringe a bit.



The whole fam damily

When $$ comes up, are you now, or are you going to be the same way; or are you going to question where and why every dime he has or earns on his own goes?
This question asked by you with the thought process, 'if you screw up I/we can't bail you out.'

 

[PJumper]

I've always been a bit of a risk taker when it comes to matters involving personal growth. I'd rather do something and perhaps regret it later than not do something and then regret not doing it.

I was the same way with my son. I gave hit quite a bit of rope when he was young. If he faltered, I was somewhat close by to get him back on track. At the age of 17 I let him take a train by himself in a foreign country. He got to where he was going and there were people there to pick him up when he arrived. This was before the time when everyone had cell phones. When he got back everything was fine. Years later he told me that he had actually boarded the wrong train. When they checked his ticket on board he was told that the train he wanted was behind him. He needed to get off the next station and board the next train that came in the station. The trains were running behind that day so he was where he needed to be at the right time. Luckily it all got straightened out in the end.

I'm also amazed by many parents that absolutely won't let their kids go anywhere without them. Students are heading off to college but have never had a chance to make a decision for themselves that didn't include consulting with someone in the family. I don't think kids should be feral but they need to have some degree of independence. Reading this story made me cringe a bit.


I guessed I'm the same way with you on our kids. When my son was 8 years old, I let him fly from San Francisco to Hawaii to meet with our ship on a Tiger's Cruise. There were other people on the plane with him meeting the ship and he said that they did take care of him on the plane. Then when we were stationed in Japan, I let him and his friends explore the country riding trains (he did learn how to speak Japanese by that time and was able to read Kanji). Same thing with our daughter. She's on the school's basketball team and they travel all over Japan competing with other schools both DoD and local. I believed it help them mature and become responsible.

 

[vraiblonde]

To me this is more a story about how this girl was NOT ready to go to college. She apparently didn't even speak fluent English, although she was born in the US and presumably was educated in US schools. I'm wondering if she was cocooned in Little Havana her whole life and didn't really interact much with white students. The book she wrote, "Make Your Home Among Strangers", is about how alienated she (portrayed as a fictional character) felt among whites because she firmly identified as Cuban.

But she had to have had something going on because she got into Cornell, and is now an English professor at UNL. I just don't think some poor kid from the barrio with limited command of the language gets into Cornell. But I could be wrong.

I'm smelling a rat with this woman.

 

[Monello]

When $$ comes up, are you now, or are you going to be the same way; or are you going to question where and why every dime he has or earns on his own goes?
This question asked by you with the thought process, 'if you screw up I/we can't bail you out.'

Well I should be the last person giving financial advice. Well not really but looking back there are times in my life where I could have been a bit more prudent when it came to spending money. With that said, at this point he's on autopilot with a decent job and has been making fairly good life choices so far. Money was never actually discussed. It was more about choices and responsibility. Money and financial decisions would fall into the category. Your choice, your decision, live with the consequences.

He did talk to me when he bought his car. It was his first time dealing with high pressure sales people. He didn't pull the trigger and instead went somewhere else that better fit his negotiating style.

I think this answers your question. I stopped being the first national bank of dad years ago.

 

[Monello]

More on this subject

There is something truly terrifying about a generation of younger people that craves more adult intervention into their lives. Yet that's what everyone from teachers to employers reports: a rising number of kids who seek to be tethered to their parents, and don't seem to know what to do unless Mom or Dad is hovering nearby.

The upper stratum of the Trophy Kids really are going into college expecting to live in a sort of Nerf universe where nothing ever really hurts, and there's always an adult to pick them up and put them back on track. And they're coming out into the workforce expecting the same sort of personal concierge service from a world

Not that I blame the kids. Their parents are the ones who did it to them, hovering over them every spare minute — and in those rare moments when they have some time off from the endless commute between soccer practice and enrichment activities, calling the cops on anyone who leaves an 11-year-old outside to play basketball for an hour, so that their parents will have to hover too.

All this helicoptering is supposed to help the kids. Yet raising kids who have never experienced a serious setback isn't helping them

Opinion I

A study published recently in the journal Education + Training found that there is an important line to draw between parental involvement and over-parenting. “While parental involvement might be the extra boost that students need to build their own confidence and abilities, over-parenting appears to do the converse in creating a sense that one cannot accomplish things socially or in general on one’s own,”

The study showed that those college students with “helicopter parents” had a hard time believing in their own ability to accomplish goals. They were more dependent on others, had poor coping strategies and didn’t have soft skills, like responsibility and conscientiousness throughout college, the authors found.

opinion II

 

[GURPS]

there was an article in the last 18 months,

helicopter parents, moving the entire household to whatever town was neatest to the college their child got into

 

[PeoplesElbow]

My school had a two day orientation in the middle of summer, they separated the parents and the students. They talked to the parents about things like money, the free tutoring service, student insurance, and they talked to the students about sexual assault, STD prevention and treatment, AIDS counseling, rape counseling etc, an the free tutoring, suicide hotline etc.

When I was in college there were a few cell phones but most didn't have them, later in grad school when I was a teaching assistant I did have a parent contact me about a grade I gave their kid. I explained that it wasn't a bad grade at all and if they wanted a 4.0 that they should probably change their major because it just doesn't happen very often with students getting engineering degrees.

 

[Monello]

when I was a teaching assistant I did have a parent contact me about a grade I gave their kid.

What parent does this? If you change the grade nothing changes. I guess Johnny feels better about himself but deep down has to know the grade isn't the grade he deserved

I knew a guy that was always calling his kids teachers when the kid was in high school. Sometimes grades got changed. I guess it was easier for the teacher to change a grade than it was to have to deal with an aggressive parent.

 

[kwillia]

What parent does this? If you change the grade nothing changes. I guess Johnny feels better about himself but deep down has to know the grade isn't the grade he deserved

I knew a guy that was always calling his kids teachers when the kid was in high school. Sometimes grades got changed. I guess it was easier for the teacher to change a grade than it was to have to deal with an aggressive parent.

I know parents who actually do their kid's school projects, research papers and essays so that they get higher grades than what the parent thinks he/she would get. Yeah... great parenting right there...

 

[Monello]

I know parents who actually do their kid's school projects, research papers and essays so that they get higher grades than what the parent thinks he/she would get. Yeah... great parenting right there...

When I was in the cub scouts they gave us blocks of wood to carve to make a racecar. I ran my dull knife a few times over the wood. Hit it with some sand paper for about 30 seconds, slapped some paint on it then crookedly nailed on the wheels. Race night some kids showed up with machine made replicas of NASCAR stock cars. Mine was closer to what would be entered in a VFW demolition derby. Boy were those the days.

 

[PeoplesElbow]

What parent does this? If you change the grade nothing changes. I guess Johnny feels better about himself but deep down has to know the grade isn't the grade he deserved

I knew a guy that was always calling his kids teachers when the kid was in high school. Sometimes grades got changed. I guess it was easier for the teacher to change a grade than it was to have to deal with an aggressive parent.

The kid got a B too, I was actually brutal in my grading pointing out every mistake they made, but in the end the final grades were assigned on a "curve". Since it was an intro class anyone that did all the work and obviously tried got a B, then there was a clear separation between the A's when everything was added up at the end of the semester. I think I gave out one C to a kid that I caught copying the homework.

 

[PeoplesElbow]

Forgot to mention that I know a couple that have an app on their daughters phone (she is 20) that tracks her at all times and they regularly check where she is at.

If I had that in college I would have left my phone at home.

 

[vraiblonde]

Forgot to mention that I know a couple that have an app on their daughters phone (she is 20) that tracks her at all times and they regularly check where she is at.

If I had that in college I would have left my phone at home.

I'd "accidentally" leave my phone in a crack house.

 

[GWguy]

When I was in the cub scouts they gave us blocks of wood to carve to make a racecar. I ran my dull knife a few times over the wood. Hit it with some sand paper for about 30 seconds, slapped some paint on it then crookedly nailed on the wheels. Race night some kids showed up with machine made replicas of NASCAR stock cars. Mine was closer to what would be entered in a VFW demolition derby. Boy were those the days.

my cars looked like yours too.... blocks with wheels and others had custom drag racers.

 

[Bann]

I know parents who actually do their kid's school projects, research papers and essays so that they get higher grades than what the parent thinks he/she would get. Yeah... great parenting right there...

Yeah, I've seen some of those Science Fair and History Fair projects! (when Thing2 was in MS) They didn't look like they were done by middle schoolers.

 

[Concern4Calvert]

I've always been a bit of a risk taker when it comes to matters involving personal growth. I'd rather do something and perhaps regret it later than not do something and then regret not doing it.

I was the same way with my son. I gave hit quite a bit of rope when he was young. If he faltered, I was somewhat close by to get him back on track. At the age of 17 I let him take a train by himself in a foreign country. He got to where he was going and there were people there to pick him up when he arrived. This was before the time when everyone had cell phones. When he got back everything was fine. Years later he told me that he had actually boarded the wrong train. When they checked his ticket on board he was told that the train he wanted was behind him. He needed to get off the next station and board the next train that came in the station. The trains were running behind that day so he was where he needed to be at the right time. Luckily it all got straightened out in the end.

I'm also amazed by many parents that absolutely won't let their kids go anywhere without them. Students are heading off to college but have never had a chance to make a decision for themselves that didn't include consulting with someone in the family. I don't think kids should be feral but they need to have some degree of independence. Reading this story made me cringe a bit.



The whole fam damily

When I went to Clemson my parents purchased a weekend lakehouse on lake Keowee 20 or so minutes from the college. I would catch them there once or twice a month when they would come down for long weekends. Even that was enough for me.

Every family is different. The above scenario is a little weird/borderline creepy in my opinion, but I don't knock anyone's parenting styles. You know your kid better than anyone else.

 

[PeoplesElbow]

My parents arrived a couple hrs early for a visit one time only to find a naked girl in my dorm room, that was the end up showing up early unannounced. That was probably when their realization occurred to make sure I wanted them there first.

I watched many freshman crumble in the first month or so and go running home, that was back in 1992, I can't imagine how much worse it is today.

 

[Hannibal]

I think my parents did a balanced job. I played baseball throughout college so my folks would travel for "big" games but other than that, it was pretty limited to special events. My first year, they came along to get me settled in. By the next year, I was heading up a week earlier and setting things up myself. I was on my own but if I needed a hand, I knew they were just a call away.

In my own parenting of young kids, I am dealing with this on a much smaller scale. When my kids are out front, I am typically sitting in a lawn chair in the driveway keeping an eye on things. Or if the wifey is running errands, I usually make the kids hang out where I am (outside if doing yard work, etc). I am starting to transition into letting them run around outside while I am inside or out back. Or even letting them hang out inside (to play with toys) while I am working outside.

It's more that my oldest (6) is of an age where he would recognize a bad situation and would be able to quickly get my attention. Or more so, wouldn't let the 3 year old start playing with electrical outlets. They seem to be OK with small segments of time without direct supervision. Still makes me nervous though.

 

[Hannibal]

My parents arrived a couple hrs early for a visit one time only to find a naked girl in my dorm room, that was the end up showing up early unannounced. That was probably when their realization occurred to make sure I wanted them there first.

I watched many freshman crumble in the first month or so and go running home, that was back in 1992, I can't imagine how much worse it is today.

As a senior in college, I was expecting my mom for a visit later in the evening (dinner time). Around lunch time, I was sitting back in my chair watching something on TV. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone walk up onto my front porch (our front door opened up into the rec room I was in ....... and had lots of windows to the front/porch). It was my mom. She was early ..... very early. So early, in fact, that the bong sitting on the coffee table in front of me hadn't found it's proper "parents are visiting" hiding place.

I have no idea how I successfully managed to hide it while in full view of mom on the other side of the window. Perhaps she knew but simply elected not to bring it up? You know, the whole "masturbation" scenario but in a different format.