I often wonder why my students come to me for the most mundane, absurd reasons. Can they not handle aquiring another hamster from the bookstore/petstore on their own? They cause me to lament, "WHY??!!!", while pulling my hair out and refilling my beverage of choice. I really wonder what crosses their minds when they make requests, and how they could even remotely consider that request to be a legitimate one.Here is an example of how our students get to be the way they are.
In Colorado Springs, an easter egg hunt was cancelled. The reason cited for the cancellation: Helicopter Parents. The parents were jumping the barrier and ensuring that their child got easter eggs, as apparently children are now unable to find easter eggs on their own.
Full Article
Quoted from the article:
"That's the perfect metaphor for millennial children. They (parents) can't stay out of their children's lives. They don't give their children enough chances to learn from hard knocks, mistakes."
"I don't see any sign of it abating," he said. "It seems everything is more and more and more competitive, fast paced, and I think parents are going to see they need to do more to help their kids get an edge."
I think I need another drink.
I saw a version of this story, too, Prof B-C, and had similar thoughts. The only slightly mitigating factor is one that parallels the situation in higher ed: apparently more and more kids had been participating, but the supply of eggs, for whatever reason, was not keeping pace, nor was the infrastructure really up to the task (it sounds like it's a small park relative to the size of the crowd, with no places to actually hide eggs). The limited supply of resources doesn't excuse the hovering in either case (if anything, kids who will be competing with each other all their lives need more toughness and independence, not less), but it does help explain it.
ReplyDeleteI can see creating a situation where each kid gets at least one egg. But if one kid has three and another has only one - oh well.
DeleteFor what it's worth, I used to HATE games like this as a kid. Pinatas are the WORST. It's not teaching kids about fairness, work, competition and dealing with disappointment, but teaching them to be brutally greedy if they want anything. The pushiest, most aggressive kids get the most candy.
"For what it's worth, I used to HATE games like this as a kid. Pinatas are the WORST. It's not teaching kids about fairness, work, competition and dealing with disappointment, but teaching them to be brutally greedy if they want anything. The pushiest, most aggressive kids get the most candy."
DeleteAnd therein lies the heart of capitalism. I hated the fucking things too.
Funny stockstalker said that... I was just coming here to note that the overtones of this concept are quite wound up in class and race.
ReplyDeleteI can't speak to the racial issue, but I can to the class issue. I don't see much helicoptering back home amongst my low-class family because they are all too busy working to worry that much about what the kids are up to. Helicopter parents need a hobby or some actual friends. I always have to bite my tongue around my new peers in graduate school with children, because, my god, I can't believe how they are raising their children.
DeleteIs it bad that I want to become a parent just so I can show up these anxious and smug helicopter parents with my well-adjusted children raised with the half the effort?
I think working-class parents are less over-involved with their kids' educations because they're not as hyper-conscious about status, and so not as cut-throat about things such as college admissions and other achievement markers?
DeleteI swear, the way my school's parents behave, you would think that academic success were a zero-sum game.
Oh, and the more wealthy and "helicoptery"the parents are, the more uber-conservative they and their kids tend to be. There's nothing like hearing a "people shouldn't receive any assistance, they should succeed on their own or fail" argument from a seventeen-year-old who drives a Mercedes to his private high school. God love 'em, teenagers are masters of seeing hypocrisy everywhere but in the mirror.
StockStalker, you are an ass. I suppose you're one of those whiny kids who regularly gets your ass handed to you on a plate by the Asian students who set the high end of the curve in all your classes. (Yes, I was one of those nerdy Asian kids that entitled slackers like you hate.)
ReplyDeleteOf course it makes you feel better to believe that people like me made it only because our parents helped us. And they did, by training us from an early age to man up and take responsibility for our own actions.
Here's how real, old-school Asian parents would have handled that Easter egg hunt: they would have sent their kids into that enclosure blindfolded, with one hand tied behind their backs, and been content only if the kids scored in the 90th percentile or up in the number of eggs collected. This, of course, is meant to build character -- something you would know nothing about.
I missed SS's comment, but this made me laugh because it's how my mom treated me, too. :o)
DeleteSS's comment basically suggested that the helicopter-parent phenomenon can be traced to Asian parents. Totally Unfair's comment strikes me as a very effective reply (and more in line with what I've observed in the families of Asian friends -- perhaps some hovering, but also some very high expectations, and little to no coddling/protecting).
DeleteThanks, CC. I see why that would be considered objectionable, especially since it shows no knowledge of Asian culture (helicopter parenting is invasive and interfering, a kind of parenting that disables the student from being able to act on his or her own because parents do it FOR their children; my experience with an Asian upbringing is the complete opposite).
Delete"Can they not handle aquiring another hamster from the bookstore/petstore on their own?"
ReplyDeleteOf course not, but it's high time they started. I tell these students: "I'll need to leave this to your discretion. You'll need to find out yourself what works best for you: everyone's mind works differently." And that is all I say.
I know, it makes many of them miserable and confused. They need to learn to deal with it. The alternative is to describe, in excruciating detail, what exactly they will need. This doesn't work at all: the specs they require need to be so exacting and so long-winded, they never read them.
P.S. Naturally, I have tenure, so I can do this without fear of the inevitable reprisal on their ridiculous end-of-term evaluation, "Prof is unwilling to answer my questions." This prof is willing to answer thoughtful questions, however, and he is long past the stage of naively thinking that "there's no such thing as a dumb question." (One of my dumbest students last semester insisted this loudly: I just smiled.)
DeleteThis prof is willing to answer thoughtful questions, however, and he is long past the stage of naively thinking that "there's no such thing as a dumb question."
DeleteFrod, I finally realized that working on copiers. I'd have assemblies out of the machine, with both arms deep in the cavity trying to replace a part or get a shred of paper out, and invariably someone would walk up and ask, "Can I get a copy?" Even lawyers would ask. Not having anything like tenure to save me, I'd have to choke back a brilliant (to my mind) comment and say, "Not right now."
A comment was removed earlier. Unfortunately it also required the followups to be deleted as well. Sorry I couldn't keep them, but it's impossible to zap one by itself when it has replies.
ReplyDeleteStockStalker is a gadfly and a knee-jerk contrarian. I wish we wouldn't get so worked up over his comments.
ReplyDeleteHaving your parent hand you an egg is in no way as fun as finding it yourself. But if the eggs weren't even hidden, but all in plain view, then it's just another version of the pinata and not much fun for anyone. However, even though I was a shy kid and not at all aggressive, I always loved the pinata. I knew I wouldn't get as much candy as the big greedy boys, but I also knew that I'd at least get *some* candy. Anything that involved me getting some free candy was fine by me, I wasn't particularly bothered by other children scooping up more. Then again, I never expected life to be fair in any way, so with no expectations of getting as much candy as all the other kids, I wasn't particularly disappointed. Also, I wasn't allowed to have candy at home except on holidays, so even one piece of candy was pretty exciting. Also, the adults running pinata parties usually evened things out, from what I recall, if there was a tiny shy kid who didn't scoop up any candy, they'd make sure that kid got some extra so there wasn't a huge discrepancy. I am a little surprised that a pinata party could ever result in kids being disgruntled because some other kid got more. But I can see that some kids are too shy (or not greedy enough) to enter the fray.
ReplyDeleteHaha, yes. The trick with the pinata is to focus on that one type of candy you really want, and if you manage to get even one piece, success. It also helps to favor a candy that the other kids think is gross, so that their greedy little hands might hesitate long enough for you to nab it.
DeleteThe trick to pinatas is to grab the stick after the candy falls on the ground. Then you call the shots.
DeleteI used to hate how tough my parents were on me. I'm grateful now. I get the worst feeling in my stomach when I see parents "organizing" events for their youngsters.
ReplyDeleteWhat worries me is that not only are students unable to act on their own, but they're fearful to try new things unless someone guarantees that they will succeed. They drop a class if they aren't getting an A right out the gates. They drop a class if someone is "mean" to them. They drop a class if there's too much reading or they don't know where the bookstore is to buy the book for the class. They don't try new activities or learn how to think. It's scary to me.
ReplyDeleteI'm seeing more of this kind of behavior in just the last few years, well after others reported it. I haven't had anyone drop for such reasons yet (at least not that I know), but I'm having to get gentler and gentler in correcting any mistakes students make in class, because even being told "not quite" (my usual way of correcting something -- finding something that they did get right, then pointing out what they missed/misinterpreted) apparently makes them hesitant to ever speak up again. It's a good thing I have them doing a lot of small-group work.
DeleteI've been wondering why this is only showing up in my classrooms now, when others have been reporting it for some time. Looking at the comments above, it occurs to me that the economic downturn might be one reason: we once had a higher proportion of first-generation college students, but we're now getting more middle-class students whose families can no longer afford out-of-state tuition and/or board in addition to tuition. The already-middle-class several-generation Americans do, indeed, tend to be more coddled. On the other hand, apropos of Monkey's post above, the ones who have been in the military take criticism better regardless of background.
YES! the two students I have from the military right now are all about "tell me what I'm doing wrong so I can correct it now, please... Ma'am." I'm working with one on his thesis and no matter how harsh I am, as in "This is crap!" not a blink, not a whimper, not a groan. He simply says, "You're right; I'll fix it," and he does. I love it!
DeleteThe others, though, I'm finding the same kind of challenge you are with feedback (how to tell them they're wrong without completely demoralizing them). I banter with students, and they feel free enough to say, "Dr. CC, that was a stone cold put down!" when my comments in class are too "harsh." Apparently, saying "not quite" was a "stone cold put down." I'm not sure how else to say "TOTALLY WRONG." I have tried the children's game of "you're getting warmer" but that just seems silly to me.
Last week, a student dropped her book in class and it made a HUGE bang. I was writing on the board, but I turned to say, "You OK there?" just to acknowledge the sound. After class, the student claimed to others that I had totally humiliated her by calling attention to the fact that she had dropped her book. Um... what? Their sense of dramatic hyperbole makes them seem even more like teens than adults (everything is inflated beyond the norm; so criticism is THE.WORST.EVER and a simply "good job" is THE.BEST.EVER. The generation gap gets wider and wider every day.
This is the point I was trying to make the other day when I recommended military service as a requirement for young adults. I mean adults in the chronological sense.
DeleteI've read and heard that the part of the brain that assesses risk doesn't fully form until about age 25. I'm beginning to wonder how much of that is biological and how much environmental. I cannot envision people of my parents' ages(WWII generation) acting as flaky as the young people I see today and read about on this page. My wife teaches Computer Science and I see her roll her eyes when grading and ask, "Why don't they read the instructions?"
I've actually experienced a semester where I had students begging with angst for me to tell them where the bookstore is. It was a tiny campus too!
DeleteMy brother and I experienced an interesting phenomenon with my parents that I think is probably rather common.
ReplyDeleteWarning: big ol' anecdote ahead...
My parents did not go to college.
I was the older child, left to my own devices mostly, and I stumbled over a few hoops in the application process. I wound up with a great scholarship from a not-so-great school. I made it work though. I took relevant courses at other schools when I could and applied for many jobs and internships in my field. My parents trusted that I was doing what I needed to do.
My brother is a few years younger, and my well-meaning parents pretty much carried him through the hoops that had tripped me up. He's now at a decent school, in a much bigger and stronger department than I was, yet so far he's accomplished less than I had. He does very well in his courses, but as far as I can tell, he's pretty much waiting for everything else to fall into his lap. He does not pursue connections and opportunities as readily as I do. And he does not deal well with set-backs.
Our parents are not in the same league as the worst helicopters. They would never confront a professor or attend an interview on their child's behalf. Yet I can't help but feel that even their mild hand-holding in high school has negatively influenced my brother's approach to college and life in general. And based on what I've read here and elsewhere about undergrad students, I think my brother is still one of the good ones.
Matilda, have you ever thought that it is the other way around? Your parents realized that you didn't need that extra help, but your brother did. That is why he received it, but you didn't. Just an idea.
DeleteIt's hard to assume how much guidance my brother would have needed. He does care about his classes and works hard. He does well because he has the aptitude on top of it. It's just that his intrinsic motivation does not extend beyond his grades. Maybe he just isn't a go-getter and would be the same either way. But go-getter or not, he doesn't *need* my dad to find him a summer job. He is perfectly capable of going online and scouring listervs in his field for internship positions, like I did. But he doesn't, and when I ask him why not, he shrugs like it doesn't matter. I think he knows that if it's really important, our parents will step in to see that it works out. So far they have.
DeleteI know our parents took steps in high school to make sure my brother got the pieces I was missing. The dumb hoop-jumping things especially. They have said so. Ideally, it should have put him in a good place and allowed him to go further than I was able to. But so far he still hasn't gotten off of the couch. I wish he had applied for summer jobs himself. So he could see how hard it is, that you need to apply widely and often and let the rejections roll off your back, that grades aren't everything, etc. But instead he has a position lined up, thanks to dad. I just don't think that's going to be helpful the long run.