What defines a helicopter parent?

[WarEagle07]

Originally Posted by AOII_LB93

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?

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.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by WarEagle07

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.

[sageofages]

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

"I am suppressing a scream at the moment. One of my part-timers quit via e-mail because "his work schedule interfered with his sleeping." He even said that he talked it over with his Mother and she agreed with him that ...with school starting in a few weeks he wouldn't be able to maintain his grades and social life if his "boss" wasn't going to change his schedule from time to time to accommodate his sleep requirements.

This 21 year old adult - sleeps until 1 p.m. every day and has complained to me about my scheduling him to work at 11 a.m. because he's usually out until 3 or 4 a.m. Maybe I'm way too old school, but my parents would have kicked me out of their house if I did that! I didn't have to be up at the crack of dawn mind you, but certainly if I wasn't out of bed by 10 a.m. I had a parent in my room.

First I'm shocked that any parent would support a child in such nonsense and secondly, I'm just shocked that he and his Mother felt it was appropriate to put it in writing for eternity! What has happened to our work ethic? I always thought that I was spoiled, but obviously I was not!"

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

[AGDee]

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!)

[WarEagle07]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

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.

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?