Helicopter parenting is a growing culture — and unfortunately, it's negatively affecting high schoolers and college students. Recent studies conducted by St. Norbert College outline the long-term effects of overbearing parents on high school students. The results indicate that parents' excessive involvement in their childrens' lives is becoming a subculture. But the worst part of the situation is that helicopter parenting is continuing through their sons and daughters' college education.
College is the last push before falling off the cliff of adolescence and into the real word. It's the last time one can do as he or she pleases and make more than one mistake without hefty repercussions. In many ways, college is more life lessons than textbooks. It teaches a lot, if not more, to students outside the classroom. Without parents around, students are forced to learn by experience essential skills like time management, decision making, outfit picking — the list goes on.
Once at college, a student can learn so many things about oneself, from personal style, like getting a nose piercing that your mom would not have allowed or wearing stripes with polka dots that she would have cried over, to personal interests, like a photography class that wasn't available at your high school or concerts your dad didn't ever think to bring you to.
Parents mold their children from the day they're born until the send them off to college, then it's the child's turn to do some self-shaping. College is a chance to gain individuality. It's the time for kids to grow up and add on to, change or demolish the infrastructure their parents have laid down for them.
The tiger mom effect should go no further than high school. It's one thing to deal with the high school norm of one's mom or dad screaming at a football game, being unreasonably strict or even ordering food for the child, but it's a whole different story when a parent continues to coddle and keep hawk-eyeing their offspring through the independence-gaining time college is supposed to be.
An example of the tiger parent effect in today's society is the steep increase in parents calling colleges to complain about the roommates with whom their kids are assigned to live. In a Washington Post article, the president of Frostburg State University, Jonathan Gilbratrator explains that he has received a number of phone calls from these hawkish parents, telling him about their son or daughter getting in a fight with a roommate.
With modern technology, parents are capable of watching over just about everything their child does. From Facebook to Twitter to grades being posted online, they still have so much control, even when their child has moved out. College students' own parents are detrimental to themselves and, more importantly, stunting their maturity.
So listen up, parents: You have 18 years to steer your child in the right direction, but past that, they should be free to make their own choices. If you have faith in the way you in raised them, then everything will turn out fine.
Reach the columnist at aerumore@asu.edu or follow her on Twitter @AubreyElleR
Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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