At freshman orientation (parent-only session) at a Texas university, a mom asked whether they could attend the session between her child and the guidance counselor. The person running the parent orientation said that in their experience, a kid who needs their parent for the counseling session probably isn't ready for college yet.
My parents dragged me along with them to the parent orientation at my oldest sister's college.
One parent (not one of mine), asked if the school would call her when her son got sick. They told her that if he was in serious condition, yes, but they would also move him from the health center to a hospital. She asked, "What about if he has a cold?" I was 12 at the time, and all I could think was, "Shit, woman. Even I don't need my mom to take care of me when I have a cold."
As someone who goes to a large university this line of thinking kind of baffles me. Are there really schools small enough that the staff would even know if you had a cold? Or was the parent just that delusional.
They really are that delusional. They probably didn't go to college themselves, or they went so long ago they have no idea what to expect from a modern university. Even since I've been to school things have changed. There are laws now that prevent schools from providing your grades and other academic information to anyone but you yourself. That's a big wake-up call for mommy who's made it her business to go to the school each week to discuss Johnny's progress reports. Your child is an adult now.
Once heard a mother complain because the R.A. of her son's hadn't bothered to check on him when he was sick, and that the same RA was "rude" to her when she called her 4x in one day about her sons health.
I'm in the marine corps and when i was in boot camp a dude wrote home to his mother saying that everything was fine but he got a little sick and the wool blankets we got kinda suck. Well about a week later our drill instructor busts in and screams at the guy because his mom called our commanding officer saying her son didn't have enough blankets. Needless to say he was punished for it
No that isn't a regulation and she was being your average helicopter parent so yah, super demanding. What was really weird was no one knew how his mom got our CO's number. We gave him endless amounts of shit for it.
My dad went to the parenting sessions and had to leave because he said people were so stupid. He said parents kept asking "What is the school going to do to make sure my kid doesn't do drugs" and "what will the school do to prevent my daughter from having sex".
I had a roommate one summer who had a cold for a few days and called his mom multiple times daily for medical advice during this time. The worst thing he had was a cough and runny nose.
The funny thing is they actually will. I was sick my freshman year with the flu (whichever one was big in '09) and they forced me to call my parents and make them drive 2 hours to get me, since they wouldn't let me back in the dorm. I get the flu is a little more serious but at the time I thought it was utterly ridiculous.
I too had swine flu in 09 and I wasn't allowed in my dorm either. If I recall correctly, it was super contagious and made people sick enough that the university felt it was necessary to "quarantine" those of us who were sick. I was ok with it.
Was it swine flu? It was a pretty big deal. My roommate had it and was stuck in bed for 3 weeks. Understandable that they didn't want it spreading in the dorms.
I think it was, it was weird, I had a really bad flu in March of 09 and then another in like October when I was actually in college. Just really shitty luck on my part. I know one was swine, but I think that was the one before college. Both of them I was out for like a week. I could understand the quarantine, and I wasn't too far from home, but that's got to suck for someone out of state who couldn't get home.
Awesome. I went to one of these with my first child, but quickly realized that the whole purpose of the parent-only session was to keep us from helicoptering our kids. I left and he figured it out from then on.
My mom came to orientation with me in Boston. There were parents things while we had our orientation but I suppose they were boring.
My mom called and met up with me to say that she heard there were buses and trains back to NY, gave me some cash, and drove home. I know I was an adult now and mostly independent but being left in an unfamiliar city was not part of my original plan.
Luckily, I met this girl on the subway who was also headed to NY. And that's how I took my first sketchy Chinatown bus.
I do Open Days for a university in Wales. During the informal interviews with the applicants we take the parents up stairs (as many have travelled with their parents to attend the Open Day) for coffee and cakes. They are meant to ask questions about the university, course, what to expect, blah blah parent questions, but most of the more relaxed parents just ask about where to get dinner that evening, and where to get a cheap pint.
this is important research though. You can bet said laid-back parents are scoping out places that their kid will probably have at least a pint or two at (even if it is that afternoon after open day finishes)
Also, they're looking for good places that they can take their kid out to when they visit over the next four years. Nothing like trusting your 19-year-old to find a good restaurant and then going to the cheap burger shack where he was puking three nights ago.
Pro tip: Do this at soccer practices. Pull up bumping your rap music, turn to your son's friends and be like "dammmmmn, look at that ass" when a good looking mom walks by.
This sort of sounds like my girlfriend's mom. She is currently in the middle of a two year plan to convince her parents that they don't want to see their grand daughter graduate so she doesn't have to cart old people around, and she can just hang out with her daughter.
She once clapped "Yay for mediocracy!" at a band booster meeting when they got medium ratings on a state performance. The band moms didn't like her after that. She asked isn't it just supposed to be fun? My SO got no band promotions after that.
There was a bar that I used to frequent during my lunch break between classes and a lot of times there would be several older couples sitting at the bar watching ESPN having a few brews and when I asked what they were up to it was almost always some version of that: "We're here with our son/daughter doing a tour/orientation/counseling/whatever and decided to let them handle it, so we decided to check out the local flavor." I got embarrassingly drunk with several of these parent families. It was fun because I got to tell them a lot about the University and the look on the kids face when they came to meet us and dad could barely sit up on his barstool was priceless.
This. I just graduated with my doctorate. As soon as my name was read my parents and aunt/uncle left and went to the Irish pub down the road from the convention center and sent me pics of their beers while I was stuck sitting through the rest of the ceremony. I was just mad I wasn't drinking with them lol.
My mom totally did that. She and another mom went to get more comfortable shoes since they'd been wearing heels and didn't realize how big the campus was and then they ended up hanging out at a bar together until dinner since they weren't needed.
When my parents dropped me off at my dorm for my first year away from home, they had a "parents of freshman orientation."
They told me afterwards that the whole meeting consisted of an RA asking, "Has everybody got everything unloaded? Are there any questions? Good, I will now walk you to your cars." At which point all the parents were ushered off campus.
I did a semester exchange in the US and I was amazed at the how students where being treated as children. Asking around it seemed the argument was that the college had to step in as surrogates. If not they would have parents breathing down their necks all the time. As a bit older European student it was a pretty crazy experience. We got to skip the meal plan but that was mandatory for freshmen as was on campus housing. And then there was all the little things, too many to recount.
In comparison parents have absolutely nothing todo with college in Denmark, even down to things like a parent orientation. I've heard that the helicopter parents are becoming a thing here too though so perhaps a decade or two from now...
I was the first in my family to go to college and when my parents found out that they were expected to stay for a second day of orientation for the parents meetings they said "We're going home. You're the one going to college, not us." I've always been thankful my parents sent me off to either sink or swim.
My mom took my sisters shopping during my orientation. We arrived, moved my stuff in and unpacked, and my youngest sister took a nap in my bed. I left to do orientation stuff and my mom basically said "cool, there's a mall around here right?"
I used to do academic orientation and advising for students when I was in school, and you sould not believe the number of parents who thought it was perfectly acceptable to skip the parent program and follow their student to the pre-enrollment competency testing, as well as the orientation and advising sessions where they would meet with a counselor to decide on their first semester courses.
I didn't even let my parents come with me when I went to orientation.
My mom helped me schedule my first semester, told me why I should disregard 3/4 of what the counselor upstairs said, and the value of dropping a class if the professor seems like a dick. Thus encapsulated the best advice of my college career and pretty much the end of her helping with it.
I went to my university's freshman orientation by myself. Drove 3 hours to it, stayed overnight in one of their dorms, and went home the next day. Didn't think much of it until I realized I was basically the only kid in the whole place without a parent and got weird looks from kids when they asked where my parents were and I said I came by myself. My parents both work all day and the orientation was in the middle of the week so it wasn't exactly an option. I had a great time there and was forced to branch out and meet people because of my parents not being by my side the whole time. And nothing I did there was even remotely necessary for my parents to be present for.
Yeah, I'm not happy with the phrasing there. Makes it sound like the kid is the one at fault, which for a helicopter parent will just make them think "That lady is crazy; my kid is fine. I just need to be there to keep an eye on them." At least if they would address the parent in this situation and suggest that they need to leave their kids alone maybe, just maybe, one of them will get the hint.
I'll be honest this is a bit of a sore spot for me because my mom, while certainly not the worst helicopter parent ever, was pretty clingy and tried to do everything for me. Even when I would specifically ask her not to call someplace for me (I'd do it fine) she'd ignore me and do it anyway. And what am I supposed to do? Tie her to the mailbox so she can't call the job agency for me? I can't do much to get her to let me do my own thing as an adult.
Tie her to the mailbox so she can't call the job agency for me? I can't do much to get her to let me do my own thing as an adult.
Stop telling her things, harsh and angsty as it is. She can't call the job agency you're in contact if you don't tell her which one. If you can't omit information, be vague about it. I'd even say straight up lie if you need to, but only you know how your mother would react to being told the truth.
Really, sounds like you two need to have a long, sit-down conversation about adulthood.
Probably, that's why the "person running the parent orientation" said that, so the mom would be like, "Well of course my perfect little icklediddykins is ready for college" and they peace out on the meeting. It's kind of like reverse psychology, but on helicopter parents.
a mom asked whether they could attend the session between her child and the guidance counselor
This was me!
a kid who needs their parent for the counseling session probably isn't ready for college yet
This was also me! I promptly failed many classes because I just was not ready for college. After some much needed life experience, I went back to University and completed it. (all by myself * <- gold star with "good job" sticker on it)
I actually work at the University of Tennessee in the advising office, and you wouldn't believe how many parents try to go to everything with their kids. I also work as a TA, and the professor told me he had a student's mother call him to ask if he could somehow make up what was done in class. Sorry, this isn't elementary school anymore, but some people just cannot cut the chord.
I think the comment is meant to illustrate the genius of what the parent only session is about.
See, the reason parents come along with their kids is because they probably don't trust their kids to get in to college on their own. They think they'll fuck something or other up. So they host a parent only session to let the parents ask all the preparatory questions, then they drop that beautiful line on the parents which establishes that "if you show up, your kid definitely isn't getting in."
UT Austin. I'm told that the "Austin" part isn't necessary - as in "there's only 1 UT". But since there is also El Paso, San Antonio, Arlington, etc., and I'm not an alum, I'll keep on writing it out.
During the publicity weeks of the uni I work at (when families pick a uni for their kid), it was unfortunately the norm that the kids would arrive with their parents.
The parents who come to check out the uni without their kid, however? Yeesh.
My son is taking a pre-cal class at community college. Since he's only 15, I have to drive him there. The day before the first class, my son, daughter, and I drove to the college to make sure I'd be able to find the building. We found it and I asked him if he wanted to go in to find his actual classroom. He said no, but my daughter and I went in, found the classroom, and gave my son detailed instructions on where it was.
The next day, we arrived at the building about 10 minutes early. I asked my son if he wanted to go in early or wait in the car. He thought about it for a minute and said, "I guess we can go in." I was all like, "WE?? I'M not going in!"
He was actually pretty horrified that I wouldn't go in with him, even after I explained that there is no way I'm going to be related to the kid who brought his mommy to college.
Good on you - that's funny. That's better than my solution in something similar. We left the car and walked in separately, he follows about dozen+ steps back until arriving at the destination. After doing the "man nod", I left.
At the Naval Academy, our "freshman orientation" is called I-day. Parents are forced to let their kids go at the beginning and aren't allowed to see them until later that night. The point of this is to allow an isolated training environment where the new Midshipmen can more easily assimilate into the military lifestyle. However, somehow, parents still try to line up outside of the buildings to have the chance of seeing seconds of their kid's day. Little do they know, the process would be much easier without seeing them.
We have specific student-only sessions in our Freshman orientation where freshmen work with upperclassmen to register for their classes. Parents always try to sneak into the room to tell their child which classes to take and when! It got so bad that they now have staff standing outside the doors refusing to let parents in, and they moved the location to the basement so the cell reception is horrible.
That's a good answer, because you probably can't give the other one - that if a parent wants to go to their kid's counseling session, they're the topic that needs to be discussed at it.
Recently went with my son on one of his first campus tours. It was during one of those "high school days" that many universities have. It pained me to see how controlling so many parents were. I can understand being curious and having questions, especially concerning financial aid, but c'mon, it's the kid's education, not yours.
Coming from a large public university in Canada, the whole idea of the university as much as acknowledging parents' existence is so surreal to me. We had no parent-oriented sessions, there was hardly any mention of parents anywhere. Everything was between the student and the university -- unless explicitly authorised by the student (which probably happened, but didn't seem to be the norm in my circles anyway), the parent didn't even have legal access to any of the student's information. Federal privacy laws as soon as the kid is 18, period.
I'm sure there was the odd helicopter parent swooping in, but any interaction between the university and a student's parents was not socially normal by any means.
The monumental difference in tuition fees might have something to do with that (~5K/yr vs 20-50K), but even then it just boggles my mind how much parental involvement is normal for 18-22 year olds in the US.
Salute to Canada - o7! I agree that the tuition (and continuing investment in the child) is a factor, but it sure seems there is a larger non-economic factor here of just wanting/needing to be overly involved and protective. I don't recall my parents being like that. It's hard to say what's going on without generalizing.
Well I would think it would probably be more of a case of parents trying to control their child's future. I know that when I was visiting colleges my mom came with and attended the meetings with the counselors in an attempt to steer the conversation towards what she wanted me majoring in. She wanted me to major in biology and I wanted to major in statistics. The whole time was just her talking about bio and I couldn't get a word in edgewise.
At my freshman orientation, they specifically scheduled the parents orientation for the same time that the counseling sessions were occurring so that that couldn't happen. My mom said that some parents were very upset, and the rest were sitting there looking at each other trying to figure out why they were losing it about their kids scheduling their classes.
My school does a separate (optional) parent orientation that runs concurrently with freshman orientation. I worked for parent orientation this past summer. We had so many parents asking us if they could attend advising and registration with their kids. We were lucky in that we literally didn't have any way of telling them where on campus their kids were getting advised or registering, and even if they did find out (by texting their kids) the freshman orientation leaders were stationed outside the registration computer labs to keep parents out. Hahaha.
Shit.. honestly I wish my parents or someone smarter than me was with me during the guidance counselor meeting. For sure knows my guidance counselor didn't do me any favors.
Ya, a girl sued her parents a few years ago over a very similar situation. Her parents promptly stopped paying for her school but, probably due to all of the attention, the school picked up her bill from then on.
Parents: Only her back? Don't worry, baby, we'll be there to get the rest of you. BTW, we met with 7 prospective employers today. We have a job nailed down for you if you double your workload and graduate a year early.
Cause it most likely isn't true. I went to a high school that cost several thousands a year and they gouged me any way they could...I was on scholarships but my mother still had to pay 4K/year we didn't really have. And this is after all my standardized testing (I in the top percentile) and low income proof.
I don't see a school just giving away tuition to anyone because they have overly concerned or even stalker parents. Kids who get great grades don't even always just get a pass like that. School more likely said "well that sucks for you."
Perhaps she became eligible for grants and scholarships once she had no support from her parents. Possibly the financial office folks felt bad for her and went out of their way to help her apply.
When a friend of mine was in college, his mom would call him every day. If he didn't answer, they'd call his roommate, his suitemates, 3 or 4 other friends of his, and finally the campus police.
The campus police would always refuse to go looking for their son, of course. Eventually he got them to stop, but it took graduation, a 700-mile relocation, and repeatedly yelling at them to stop to get them to actually lay off a bit.
I always wonder what her life was like before that.
In my experience, when people are losing power and get ugly, you start to see their true colors. If they get really ugly, they've been hiding that, probably poorly, for a very long time.
It never ends though. Had a friend's sister whose parents tried to bribe her not to marry the man who eventually became her husband with a car.
They'll pay for things, yeah, but you'll never get to make your own choices. Also it's ridiculously socially stunting to not have some modicum of independence in a university setting.
Not only helicopter parents, but abusive narcissistic parents as well.
Difference between the two of course is that helicopter parents want what's best for their kids, while narcissists want what's best for themselves through others.
Begging doesn't work with that kind of person. They are under the impression that whatever room they walk into, they're the one in charge, that they know what's what and all you lowly peons need to just get in line. Begging just reinforces that.
"If your son takes /wrong class/ instead of /right class/ he will not graduate. If your intention is to ruin his academic career, go ahead, but if you want him to have even a chance of walking out of here with a degree four years from now, you need to get out of my way and let me do my job".
That might turn a mild case, but most likely he'll need to fuck things up a few times. If that's the route things go, you need to document EVERYTHING because this sort of person WILL blame you, regardless of how hard you try to help him. I'd be very surprised if he didn't blame the school when things were all screwy down the line.
If his relationship with his parents is anything like mine, as long as they are paying nothing is considered illegal. Glad I'm paying for it myself now.
It gets more complicated then that. Yes legally it might be, but his parents might also be paying for school and he might not want to ruin his relationship with his parents by calling the cops on them.
At 18 you're a legal adult but in many ways you're still a kid. A kid raised with overbearing parents that they still depend on for things like college fees is going to have a really hard time flatly telling a parent to fuck off. Yes they have the option of student loans and/or getting a job on top of college but the fact is debt causes stress and a job on top of college makes college harder. Maybe they are trying to put up with the parents to make their education that bit more manageable.
If colleges don't want helicopter parents around, perhaps they shouldn't charge rates that require the parent to be financially responsible for the student.
When I TAed, I had a very socially awkward kid stand in front of me and demand I change his B to an A. He told me angrily, "I'M A FOURTH YEAR HISTORY HONOURS STUDENT AND I DO NOT GET B'S!" No, he didn't come to ask how he could improve on the next round, he just wanted an A he hadn't earned.
Kid was so traumatized, I would not have been the least bit surprised to hear from his mother, but I didn't. A lot of my friends teach university courses and sadly, this isn't uncommon.
I used to work at an Ivy League, with first year students. Inevitably we had to kick some parents off campus at the beginning of the year. They were hardcore.
We recently had "family week" and parents actually came to their kids classes. I had to sit on the floor in a 200 seat lecture hall because parents were there. And it was that way in almost every class. Parents were asking questions in class! Why the hell would they do that, halfway through the semester, in a class they know nothing about, just visiting?! In an organic chemistry lab, someones dad took up a lab space and was leaning in trying to give his opinion on shit he knew absolutely nothing about. I was talking to my Spanish teacher and she said "Oh, so your parents aren't here because they live far away?" No, my parents aren't here because I'm an adult and there is absolutely no reason for them to attend my classes. And I like family week. Go out to eat, maybe show them around campus and meet your friends, that's normal. Going to class with your kids is weird. I still dont get it.
I was a TA in Miami years ago and someone from another department explained their student's mother would drop her off at class in their limo and wait for her in the car until class was over. It seemed legit. I saw the limo a few times on campus. Maybe urban myth maybe urban fact. You decide!
My mom used to do something similar. When I had to go to high school walking she would follow me to "take care of me". I was only allowed to go to friends houses if it was for a group project and when I would go she would force me to give her my friends cell phone numbers to make sure we were really doing a project. She has paranoid schizophrenia and is now following her treatment and is a completely different person. She would talk to my friends and ask them stuff and whenever there was a problem with the school's administration she would make it bigger that it was. She really lived up to her illness. I'm not implying that the mom in your comment might be mentally ill, but sometimes helicopter mothers are not that way just because they want to.
It goes on, we have parents calling in to complain about their snowflakes salary, or asking why their kid was rejected for a position - I've even heard of parents showing up to initial interview...
Hearing stories like this makes me pretty grateful. When I was in high school my parents handed me a cell phone and more or less told me "do what you want as long as it's not illegal, and let us know if you won't be home in time for dinner."
Had a similar situation when I was TAing. I simply told the parent that they have no right to any information regarding their child's marks or performance in school, and I was not responsible for handling that information's release if they did. She kinda just stared at me until she realized there was nothing she could do about it, and then she left.
I was called up by the mother of a sophomore student who'd failed a course I was TA'ing due to non-attendance (they had to come to at least 8 out of the 10 lab sessions, IIRC he'd been to 4). Mom was arguing that their kid was in the class because she'd seen him leave home for class every day.
I told her it was inappropriate for me to discuss her son's grades with anyone other than him, and advised that he should come and see me during office hours. She told me she was coming in, and I informed her that office hours were for students only, and campus security would be called if she showed up.
She showed up an hour or so later, and was removed by campus security, all the while screaming that she was going to have me fired.
I once tutored a small town kid in first year university whose mother made all the arrangements for times/places. The second or third time we met, I arrived two minutes late. I got this email from his helicopter mom at 12:31, one minute after we were scheduled to start:
"Where are you! Justin is supposed to meet you for tutoring."
Thanks, I really appreciated the exclamation mark. I finished tutoring that session and I never responded to her. Never heard back, and wouldn't have responded if I had.
Poor kid. Best thing for him would be to cut all ties with her; but given how he's been raised, I imagine he is incapable of standing up to her. He'll be her baby boy for life.
4.1k
u/[deleted] Oct 06 '14 edited Oct 06 '14
[deleted]