I was a tour guide at my law school for the last three years. I am also young enough to probably be a millenial myself. That being said, here's a normal parent vs. a helicopter parent:

Normal Parent: Comes on a tour or to admitted students day or orientation. Parents and spouses are encouraged to attend these at our school, so this isn't too out of the norm. My mom didn't come to admitted students day because she wanted me to decide for myself without her influence, but I did bring my boyfriend to orientation. The parent will ask a few questions of the tour guide, like "Is my kid going to be safe in this city?" or "How did you cope with the stress of your first year?" Parent might even pull me aside while the prospective student is in the bathroom and ask a few questions that the prospie might find more embarassing to overhear. Throughout the day parent is quiet and taking in information, generally hanging back from the tour group. When I explain Bar Review (weekly social event), parent says to the kid "That sounds like a good way to make friends."

Helicopter Parent: Comes to a tour, admitted students day, and orientation. Stands in the front of the tour group at every stop, asks what professors the prospie should be sure to take, what section the parent should call the school and ask to have the student placed in, what clubs are available for "us" to join, etc. When I explain Bar Review, parent says to the group "Well my special Susie is a serious student and she would NEVER drink on a weeknight." Calls admissions office. Emails me with followup questions.

There is a huge difference between a normal, concerned, loving parent who wants to help their kid make a decision and a heli-parent who will be right there making every decision for them. These parents I encountered were parents of kids who had done well enough in college to get into law school, and the kids were all at least 21 or 22 now.

I'm also not even sure it has to do with age - there is a guy enrolling for next fall at my school who is only 18. His dad came to visit day because the student was a minor and couldn't get a hotel room to stay overnight, but his dad was really laid-back the whole day, and his only question was if somebody at the law school would be able to make sure his son was living in a safe neighborhood. I had other prospective students who were older than me (I'm 25) who had both parents there hovering over the whole time and telling me how good Wonderful Will's stats were.

My mom told me one time, when I was a teenager (and it really stuck with me)...

"The hardest part about being a parent is that if you do your job right, your kids leave you"

Walking that line between helping them learn to be independent adults while dealing with your own difficulty in letting go of them is tough.

I think when you're actually dealing with/interacting with parents regularly, the difference between a healthy involved parent and a helicopter parent is clear. We have the capability of checking our kids assignments/grades online daily in our school district. I keep an eye on how my kids are doing, especially my son, who tends to miss assignments here and there. So, I check him. When he's missing something, I bug him to turn it in, talk to the teacher about it, etc. That's all I do. I have talked to parents who email or call the teachers themselves to get the kid excused from those assignments. Interestingly, it's my son who needs the prompts to talk to teachers if there is a problem and my daughter is the very independent child who handles everything herself. She's the oldest perhaps? She had good elementary teachers too, who she could always talk to. My son had some really bad experiences with elementary teachers so it may have instilled some difficulty. My son also has a harder time with anticipated change and always has. That first week of middle school was tough for him. I'm sure to point out to him how successful he was in spite of his fears about it all to make him see that change isn't bad. It's all about encouraging them to be independent though. I don't know if it's because I'm a single mom working full time and I need them to be more independent or what. They might call me at work asking if they can go do something and I will say something like "You'll need to find a ride" and they make the arrangements themselves. I don't have the time or energy to do it all for them.

I do think technology has made it easier. It was easy to make long distance calls when I was in college, when in the dorm room, but how often was I in my room? Plus, I couldn't afford the bill. It was very expensive, relative to today. My land line at home now has unlimited nationwide calling. That concept was totally foreign, and that was 25 years ago. I talked to my parents once a week and that was pretty much it.

I think you might be on to something. I think SOMETIMES divorce/single parenthood brings out heliparentitis. A single parent becomes so attached to a child that they have trouble letting go because they don't want to be alone. And the child is so used to the attention that they don't understand why they aren't "special" to everyone else in the world.

I don't know. I am an only kid, of older parents, but they were more overprotective than helicoptering. IMO 2 different things. I wasn't allowed to get my ears pierced, to ride a skateboard, to do some of the things the kids in my neighborhood did. Then again, I don't know anymore how much was my parents & how much was just me not being asked.

GP's story reminded me of something my mom told me when she came back from 7th grade open house. My friend D and I were both in "enrichment class" for brighter students in 5th/6th grade and our moms became good buds. Well get to jr high, everyone was asking questions and D's mom said "is this an accelerated class?" My mom said she was so embarrassed she wanted to fall through the floor.

Oh and t*p brought up a REALLY good point about the "everyone gets a trophy" bullshit. I got one trophy when I won a poster contest and STILL am proud of it. When that kind of reward is everyday, I don't know how you can cope with losing anything.

Funny that you said that - here's a story, back when my oldest was playing little league football (12 years ago, he was 10) he was on this awesome team. I was so involved, living, breathing this football thing. They went undefeated through the whole regular season and made it to the "big" championship bowl game, anyway, the team ended up losing in a really tight game. I was sick, literally sick to my stomach, after that game (meanwhile my son was more interested in the pizza party somebody was organizing:rolleyes:). I was depressed for days, when I suddently had an epiphany, I was actually letting the performance of 10 year olds and my expectations of them effect my mental health!! How pathetic is that?!?

So, with my husband's encouragement and blessing (in terms of really helping out), I went back to competitive sailing. Suddenly, when I had something to look forward to that was MY OWN, not my kids, I was able to let go - this was a major step in getting away from the helicoptering. My kids have had to deal with Mommy being gone periodically when I go to events. They do fine without me and I think it has helped them gain independence (plus they are proud that their mom is doing something kind of cool:)).

As for the "parent portal" where you can look up grades. I never signed up for it. I knew, that as neurotic as I can be, I would be looking at it 20 times a day (look how much I'm on this silly site:p), so I have just trusted the kids to be honest about grades, knowing that at some point the report card would be coming home, so they'd be busted if they didn't let me know if they were struggling. When they have struggled and asked for help, I've found tutors for them (cuz I sure as heck can't do that stuff anymore - calculus - forget about it!!!). I also am the terrible mom who no longer does "curriculum night", once elementary school was over - I figured if a teacher really needs me, they know how to find me, I don't need face time with them (and hope I never need to meet them).

Now that 2 out of 3 of my kids are in college, I don't know what or how they're doing unless they tell me. Sometimes I wish I knew more, more often I want to put my fingers in my ears and say, "lalalalala I'm not hearing you" because my kids feel they can share any and all with us and some things are just TMI for a mom!!

Thinking about it, I don't think I'm a helicopter:cool:

I'm also wondering if our society doesn't encourage helicoptering in a way...granted I'm a HS teacher, but at all of the local elementary schools there are "class parents" and it's expected that the parents of all the kids show up and help out in some form or another. There's a message board and yahoo groups for the parents of the community where I live and for the particular schools. I don't have children yet, but I find this odd. Am I out of the ordinary?

Not that my parents didn't care for me, but that didn't happen at my elementary school. Ever. Maybe it was just the school I went to? Anyhow, I've experienced the helicoptering at the HS where I work and one of my good friends who works for USC (the real one-Southern Cal, not South Carolina:)) with all the super bright kids(Rhodes scholars, Fulbright, etc..) has had to deal a lot with parents in the last couple of years. She got chewed out by a parent on the phone because this woman's son wasn't named the Valedictorian and someone else got it. I mean come on, wouldn't this young man be embarrassed at 22 that his mommy is calling about Valedictorian to his university?

I think this is pretty regular procedure to involve the parents in their child's school, and MBs and yahoogroups are just a facet added with the technology available.

As with everything, it's the people who use it. Some parents probably just use it to check when rehearsals for the spring play are, but some heliimoms & helidads are probably on it every day suggesting what the class should do.

It's very possible to help out at school (the teachers need the extra hands) without helicoptering.

I think that it really depends on the school and its needs. We had them back in my day too. Some schools require that the parents (or their designee like a grandparent) put in X amount of volunteer hours at the school. It's part of the obligation when you enroll. It can range from library helper to playground monitor o working shifts at the school fair. I volunteered on library and computer days. Sometimes it was for my child's class but most often not. I was also a room mom and there was no room for helicoptering. I coordinated two parties a year the class gift for the annual auction, and Christmas and End-of-Year presents for the teacher. I did utilize e-mail alot because that was the best way to contact the parents.

I wasn't disputing that, I'm a teacher...I can always use help, but sometimes having a parent in the classroom can undermine the teacher's authority because the child is more inclined to look to the parent than the teacher if they do something wrong. I've also seen(as I've had numerous conferences with both parent and student) that some of the time the parents are making excuses for their children, or denying the fact that their child could ever do something wrong (i.e. cheating, copying, smacking some other kid).

Not saying that parental help is bad, I was just wondering if we aren't sort of enabling helicopterish behavior for some parents.

My elementary school had teachers' aides - who were usually moms of kids in the school. However, if mom was an aide in 4th grade classroom A, kid was assigned to 4th grade classroom B, except in special circumstances.

Then again our classrooms weren't grouped according to ability - if you do it that way it might be a problem.

Soap Box Derbys
 

I first noticed it when my son was in Boy Scouts and they were given a chunk of wood and they were to sand it, paint it and make it into a car to race. My son worked on it as a little kid would and it looked like it. When we showed up for the race we saw all these elaborate cars and were stunned. (The rules were the kids had to do it themselves). I asked one dad how his son cut it and he replied "power tools" and I said "you let bubba use a power tool" and the dad said "no, he did that part". Well, heck, I think the little twit should have been disqualified but it seems all the dads did a bunch of work on the cars.
I was proud when my son's came in 3rd, even tho it looked juvenile.

One of my biggest beefs with modern society is the apparent movement away from taking personal responsibility for anything. We have become a culture that blames many an ill in our lives on someone else, and seldom acknowledge any wrong doing in ourselves.

Reading this thread, I'm beginning to wonder if this lack of personal responsibility might not be at the heart of helicoptering, moreso than any influence of technology or anything else. So many of the above examples would never take place if the parent would consider that their child (or in some cases the parent) might have some role in the failure to achieve whatever they wanted to achieve. Instead, the blame goes to the teacher, the system, the mean sorority girls, etc.

Just typing while I think, but I believe it's an interesting correlation.

Its funny because I see that side of it as an attorney especially. Everyone wants to play the 'blame game' looking for someone to assign the blame to. Sometimes things just happen (isnt that what an accident really should be defined as), and sometimes everyone should bear some of the blame. I still shake my head over the million dollar cup of McD's coffee.

Yes, I think we do encourage it. And I think ArmyWife79 story also points out how it can be encouraged simply by not enforcing the limits that exist. Most parents aren't willing to let their kid's work look like junk in comparison with other kids'. And often at schools and in youth organizations, unless adults are really thoughtful about what they are looking for long term, there's a tendency to reward kids for work that probably isn't their own, to the point that parents who do let kids complete things on their own start to look remiss.

Any tour of a suburban school's science fair will probably reveal the same thing, unless the judges and scorers and really mindful about what they are doing. There can be an emphasis on presentation, materials and complexity that would be really unrealistic for a kid whose mom or dad wasn't highly involved with the project all the way through.

I believe that there are 2 things that encourage this. One is a lack of government funding for proper staff and supplies. The parents are invited in to help because with 30+ kids in an elementary class a teacher and an aid alone cannot provide one on one attention.
Two, studies show that children of parents who are involved in school do better in school than those who don't have involved parents. Plus, the mega-involved parents do have a way of making you feel like an inferior parent if you don't...it's like adult peer pressure.;)

I don't know. I'm in a well-funded district with low class counts. There'd be no reason really that anyone needed to be there from the school's perspective; the teachers and staff have got it. But the schools do have volunteers and most of the PTO efforts are outstandingly good rather than meddlesome and helicoptering. But it's because, I think, the schools and some great normal parents had to learn to channel the over-involved parents' efforts.

I agree about the peer pressure though. A couple of helies can influence the perception of what's normal pretty easily, and if would be normal parents start to think it's what they need to do. . .

I think the test in school volunteering is two fold: one, is the parent sincerely interested in helping all students and teachers or is it an expectation of quid pro quo or influence seeking AND does the parent seek to meddle or overstep his or her authority while "helping out"?

If you have an altruistic desire to make your child's school a better place, more power to you, but if you are just trying to worm your way into getting what you want for your kid, even at the expense of others, not so much.

This is from an email list I run for Phi Mu sisters.....She works for a notable radio station in Houston as the promotions director. I have little doubt of its validity

THAT is what happens when a younger person has a helicopter parent :).

I think the involvement in education varies along a continuum too. They always emphasized in elementary that the child's educational success was dependent on the "team" of parents, teacher and child and I agree with that. The parents' role should have boundaries though, just as Alum79 was pointing out. My son also made his own pinewood derby car and both of my kids were expected to do their science fair projects, presentations, diaramas, etc on their own. However, they didn't really suffer for it, grade wise. When you looked at their projects during Open House, etc, it was clear who had done them on their own and whose parents had done it. As long as it was correct, the teachers graded them well, even if they didn't look professional. My son won his school's science fair 3 years in a row but lost at the district level all 3 times. His presentations weren't professional looking enough. Where his school focused on the scientific process and rewarded those projects which were true experiments and discouraged things like product comparisons, it was inevitably product comparisons that won at the district level. The winners were always obviously partially done by the parents. The most I ever did was help them narrow down a topic to one experiment, supervise things that needed supervising (like using the stove), and take the pictures of the process while the kid was doing the experiment. There were many that were obviously done by the parents. Same with the "creative" map of the US. Trust me, the kid who did a topographical map of the US carved out of styrofoam with mountains, valleys, etc in 3rd grade didn't do that himself. And, we had the same experience with the Pinewood Derby. One dad actually took the car to the auto plant where he worked and had it painted with real car paint!

On the other hand, I think it was great that we had almost 100% participation in P/T conferences and that the parking lot was always full on fine arts night, science fair night, etc. Isn't part of AYP focused on parent involvement in the school? Or is that just a Michigan thing?

I don't think I agree that divorced parents are more helicopterish. As I said in my earlier post, I don't think we have time to be! I know parents who picked up their kids every day, at their classroom, and talked to the teacher, checked the kids' desk, etc. As a working single parent, my kids were in latch key and teachers were long gone by the time I picked them up!

I do check the kids' grades more often than I need to. I said that I checked my son's because he has this tendency to not turn things in. I also used it to encourage him though. He has never had the confidence that my daughter has had with school, in part because of some really bad elementary school experiences. This year, at one point, I showed him that he had all A's for that card marking with only a week to go. He was really excited about that, pulled out the books and studied for those last tests and pulled straight A's for the first time in his life (always capable, not always motivated). He did better than his 4.0 sister that card marking and that made a huge difference in his school motivation. I think he'll continue to try to do well now because he knows he can do it if he puts a little effort into it. I check my daughter's, in all honesty, because her grades amaze me. I was always a good student and motivated to do well, but she gets 100% on almost everything she does. I also use it to calm her down because she'll come home totally freaked out that she "failed" a test and when I look it up, she got a 94%... she's a perfectionist that way. I find it useful but I don't interfere either. When my son got 0 points for a whole week in gym for not dressing one day of the whole week, I didn't bother addressing it. However, when my son's diabetic friend was getting a C in gym because he was marked tardy every day due to checking his blood sugar and sometimes having to eat a snack before gym, his mom did contact the teacher. When it continued, she contacted the principal. I'd have done the same. We need to look at the age and level of interference too.

I did just fire off an email to the school district for posting new school start times on the web site TODAY, 3 weeks before school starts, which doesn't give parents much time to make arrangements if necessary. The new bus schedules still aren't posted. I'm debating with myself whether to change my work hours or not. With the old schedule, I could drive the middle schooler to school, leave for work and trust the high school kid to get herself to the bus stop. Now, the high school starts earlier than the middle school so I will have to leave for work before the boy boards his bus and that makes me nervous. I guess I have to put the responsibility on him to do it and he will probably surprise me and do it. He's also my kid who tries to get out of going to school because he "doesn't feel well" with vague symptoms, so I'm worried. Change the work schedule, making it even more difficult to get them to their evening activities on time, or try to trust the son to get to school on time. Tough decision to make. I think I will end up trusting the boy, until/unless he screws it up too many times. I wonder when I would have found out if I hadn't randomly gone to the school district web site today while bored at work though! (end of rant, sorry!)

Well said. Parents do need to advocate for their child and they do need to be interested and involved in their childs life. I think that we have defined what a helicopter parent is, the question now becomes how do you handle them? If you are a coach, teacher, or employer what do you do when confronted by a parent who has stepped beyond reasonable limits?

Been there, done that. It's one thing if Bubba designed the car and had his adult help with cutting it out, it's another for Dad or Grandpa to make the car themselves. That always drove me insane!!!! We had one little boy every year with a car so smooth that we thought they bought it. Dad admitted to taking his car to work and doing it there, but work was a major car production facility so Dad had access to the best paints and design software...and the car looked it. What does the boy get out of that?

Solved the problem by having a Pinewood work meeting night where leaders brought tools in to help the boys with cars (meaning, they could see the boys involved with the process ;)) and having a "Parent Division" on race day (with the entry fee to buy and race a car as a pack fundraiser. Darn effective fundraiser.)

Brilliant! I hope some others are inspired by this creative solution!

Someone who emails their child's school counselor EIGHT times in 4 days over something that's really not that big of a deal! :mad:

Just so you know, it is possible to log into the same account from a different location :rolleyes:

That's not what I said. There are plenty of posters here who I know have kids, and yet they don't just talk about hovering.

And another FYI, unfortunately, mods can't just ban whoever they want. If that were the case, we'd have very few posters here :p


If you want a place to vent, that's what PARENTING boards are for. Like I said before, I know plenty of posters here who are parents but they don't use GC as their place to talk about controlling and hovering over their kid's lives.

It's your son's perogative to go to whatever sites he wants to. If he decided he wanted more info about fraternities, he has 2 arms, and 2 working hands (at least I hope so, otherwise this is a moot point). He is physically capable of doing research himself whether it be here or somewhere else.

There is no reason why he should need your or anyone else to spoon feed him with information. If it's something HE wants HE should be old enough and capable enough to do it himself.

query
 

If it is something the parent is paying for, would that give them an interest in finding out what they are paying for? As an example, if my kid wants a car and needs help paying for it, I want some information about the car before I do it. I do want some information about sororities and sorority life at my daughter's proposed campus. Hopefully that is different from helicoptering.

Absolutely. But the difference is: if you check out the sorority websites, ask anyone you know personally that has personal connections, and/or ask generic questions on GC - to me, that's being an informed parent. When you call the Greek Life office, visit the chapters yourself, and make demands (ahem, strongly worded questions) on GC that anyone who knows anything about the spesific chapters to give you all their info, as well as help you secure recs, etc. that's crossed the line.

I guess what I'm trying to say that the line (TO ME) is when you start doing things that are FOR your children that they can do themselves. Gathering your own (GENERIC) info for the purposes of having a basic knowledge of what you're paying for doesn't cross the line for me.

For some reason, last year when I became my alter ego of srmom1, it wouldn't let me log on with my other name.

I've never vented.

They're all sports related.

Yes, thank God he has two working arms and legs. Oh, his hands work too.

And, about wanting fraternity information, he wasn't really actively looking - as I said, he didn't really realize he was being "rushed". I was the one who wanted information only to assuage my concerns. That was done with the wonderful posters on GC. My son had no worries...

I haven't had to spoon feed him since he was eating Gerbers. And, he's doing just great in his fraternity that he pledged all on his own. Believe it or not, I didn't even have to call nationals!!

AMEN!

Your examples aren't comparable. The car you will at least partially own or you are electing to buy as a gift for your child. In that instance, it would be very strange not to be involved.

The sorority is different. It is a membership that will exclusively belong to your daughter. You can pay for it or not, but you don't really get to participate other than when you are invited to parents events or asked to give money. (It's like buying season tickets to a sports team; you pay and watch, but you don't get to coach.)

Research to answer questions like "is this a safe and worthy use of my money" is completely appropriate. Research into particular groups, reputations, gaming the system to get a certain group or outcome are not appropriate. (I'm not saying that's what you, Lawgirl, would do, but we've seen it here.)

It's sort of like researching colleges. Shouldn't which college and why be a decision made by the person attending and the parental research is again, is this a worthy use of my money? Doesn't it seem strange when parents seem to think college is just like school K-12 where they made decisions for their kids? Isn't it odd that some parents are still trying to advocate for their children with college professors and registrars when the offspring need to do it themselves? In these instances the parents could say, well I'm paying for it. And they are, but it doesn't mean that they get to direct the people providing it. They can pay or not pay and lean on the enrolled student to handle the advocacy.

I love this quote, and it's highlighted so that I can refer back to it.

I'm glad you did. I think about this topic a lot because I work with teenagers at a pretty affluent high school. Sometimes with the helicopters, you'd think it was the fall of Saigon.

My parents were never helicoptering. My mom was the room mom because everyone liked her. She advocated for me twice during my whole time in school: once because I was having issues with math (8th grade) and again when my teacher gave me an unfair grade (advanced English class, got a D on a paper when I had followed all the instructions, had another teacher review it after the grade. Mind, I had recieved all As on previous papers. She went to the teacher and then the principal when that meeting didn't provide her answers. The grade was eventually changed.) She and my father did not do projects for me, did not harrass the teachers when I earned a low grade, didn't choose classes for me and did not pressure me into doing extracurricular activities.

I like AGDee's example of using the resources to motivate and encourage her children, that is what my parents did when I struggled in school. That is what I do now with my daughter. I will encourage and support her, but not do her work for her.

Actually, it does sound like they "harassed" the teacher when you received a low grade. They may have only done it once, but it looked like it happened. Harass is your word rather than mine, but what you describe really isn't all that normal.

If you made all As on your other papers, it really probably wasn't worth all that. What did you learn from her doing that? That you might sometimes call momma to deal with injustice? What about the times when your mom has no influence?

I have no idea what your English teacher was like, and I'll even accept that she/he was clearly in the wrong. But often the fights that seem like they need fighting really don't, and that an even better lesson may be learned by people not getting what they want.

Courtesy of dictionary.com:
ha·rass Audio Help /həˈræs, ˈhærəs/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[huh-ras, har-uhs] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–verb (used with object) 1. to disturb persistently; torment, as with troubles or cares; bother continually; pester; persecute.
2. to trouble by repeated attacks, incursions, etc., as in war or hostilities; harry; raid.

================

Until you can prove that what nikki's parents were doing was 'harrassing" the teacher, you cannot place judgement there.

Just sayin'.

I'm saying that having someone else grade a paper after the fact and going above the teacher's head to the principal is beyond normal behavior about one paper grade.

It may not be harassment, but it's the kind that helicopter parents do.

Now, I'm not saying that you should just let teachers hand out random grades, but one paper is not something that should be going to the principal worthy, I don't think.

I don't pretend to know Nikki or her parents, and they all may be delightful folks, but the situation with the English teacher is exactly what helicopter parents do. (ETA: Maybe Nikki was better off the long run with her parents advocating and getting the grade changed, but I wonder if it wouldn't have been even better to see what Nikki could have accomplished on her own. A kid in advanced English should have some decent communication skills, right?)

ETA: I do apologize for making it seem like I'm judging Nikki's parents so hard. I admit I don't know the whole story, but what's presented here seems like a bad example of how they aren't helicopters. I don't really expect parents to be perfect in every instance and there's a whole range of dealing with teacher issues that are completely the teacher's fault.
I think Nikki is correct in her assessment that if these were the only two times they intervened, that her parents probably weren't the helicopter type.

Teaching hijack
 

When I was teaching 8, 10 and 12th grade I had a rule. I would re-check your test or paper on request, but if I did so, you got the new grade, be it higher or lower. (I would often raise a grade in the initial grading for a student who was borderline but contributed to class, but I don't lower grades. You get what you earn.) I remember re-checking a test - the student got a lower grade. He was shocked - "Are you going to give me the lower grade?" Well, yes. I told you I would give you the correct grade, be it higher or lower. Explaining why a grade was given ( and how to improve ) I had no problem with - I'd happily go over it with a student so he/she could avoid the same mistakes later.
English grading is very subjective. It is more than just following the directions - doing that will get you a "C" for average in my class. However, if I had a student who went from A work to D, I would double-check that paper as a matter of course. That said, if I gave it a D, it would stay a D, no matter who wanted to recheck it or give me pressure. And I would be far more likely to respect an 8th grader who didn't understand why a paper was graded the way it was than a parent who called to complain. I really hated the parents who wanted me to give their children extra credit. I had an extra credit assignment every 6 weeks - your student can do the same one everyone else does. No special assignments for your special snowflake.

Actual conversation from my first year teaching High School.

Lee - "You gave (eta - I hate that. I didn't "give" you a grade - you earned it.) me a C! Do you know who I am?"

Me - "Yes, you are that student who earned a C on his paper."

At least he came to discuss his grade on his own, and didn't sic mommy and daddy on me!

eta - and I'm just commented on general helicoptering - not making a comment about the previous poster's parents. I don't have enough facts to say anything, other than I also think perhaps it was a missed learning moment.

I completely agree with you sxtxbelle, a grade earned is a grade earned!

About subjective grading in English, an interesting story:

My nephew, who is now in college, had to do a paper for the statewide "Reflections" contest (even though it is a "voluntary" activity, his teacher had the class do the papers for a grade, but they would all be submitted in the contest). He turned it in, and she graded it as a D paper.

His paper was sent on with all the other papers for consideration - the judging is done at different levels by a panel of English teachers- first district, then region, then state. Well, his paper won 1st place at district, 1st place at region, and was finalist at state.

There was obviously some disparity in grading between his own teacher and the various panels of teachers who placed his paper 1st.

Since having "winners" in the Reflections Contest is a big deal in our district, with newspaper announcements and blanket emails sent out with the winners names, it might have became a bit of an issue that he had received a D on the paper.

He (not his mom) met with the counselor and the English teacher to review the grade. Her response was that, stylistically, she did not care for the paper, and that she felt that it hadn't captured the "theme" of the contest's free response. The counselor pointed out that obviously the many other teachers felt that he had captured the theme, and that "stylistic" preferences should not preclude an objective grading.

The grade was changed to an A. They could hardly have the state runner up paper being a D! ;)

I wondered, after my sister in law related this story to me, if there might be some repercussions from this teacher, having been called out with the administration. I never heard if there was, so assume that all was well.

I really think that people overestimate the potential repercussions of approaching teachers directly about anything. Most of us are not so thin-skinned that we're going to hold someone asking us about something against them or their kid.

On the other hand, it's hard not to be irritated by someone going over your head about something that should really be your decision. Good principals don't play that anyway.

With the essay contest deal, trying to give clear guidelines for how something will be graded is always important. It seems to me that if the point of requiring the essay was to enter the contest, the grade should have come from the contest guidelines, so it shouldn't be that far off the mark. I will say though, I don't know who judged the particular contest and sometimes, it's not English teachers [ETA: I don't mean to second guess what was posted. I can see now you said it was English teachers. I believe you.]

I've seen winning essays for local stuff that were pretty much internet forward glurge, when what I'd expect from an advanced student would be better than that. Of course, I'm not claiming that's the case here. I'm just saying that many English teachers would give Hallmark bad marks for being trite, and yet, that junk sells like hotcakes.

The point I was trying to make was, that I had been an "A/B" student before, and to suddenly receive a D, and no sufficient explanation from the teacher as to why this was the grade I received. When I explained to my mom what happened, she met with the teacher, got the same response and THEN went to the principal. For me and my mom, it was a fight that needed to be fought because this grade could have kept me from going to high school on time. Apparently there were other "issues" involved with this particular teacher regarding certain students. :rolleyes:

If I did poorly on the paper, I would have accepted that and moved on. But to be consistently told that one is a decent writer (for middle school) and never having received a D in any English class before, and doing well in the class until then, and having a teacher tell me "well, that's the grade I am giving you, so just take it and sit down," that was a bit of a confidence breaker for me.

Apparently, I didn't communicate that well enough, so I apologize for the mix up. :( And yes, those were the only two times my parents intervened. And I did learn to speak up for myself from that experience.

Sorry for going off on the situation earlier. Particularly if this episode was middle school too, it make more sense that your mom took it up for you. I thought it happened in high school, and the same teacher from whom you have previously earned As scored one paper a D and your mom kept fighting it all the way to the principal. That seemed a bit much.

I apologize for rushing to GreekChat judgment.