Helicopter Parenting, or the worst idea since Spock

       I read an article this morning in which I recognized some of the players, well, metaphorically at least. Read the article and then come back....

        http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/26/18469581-helping-or-hovering-when-helicopter-parenting-backfires?lite&ocid=msnhp&pos=3


    Yes, I recognize these parents. I have some every year in my classes. Yes, you read that right, in my classes. Physically they may not be in the classroom but with the electronic age they are as palpable a presence as their child who sits in front of me every day during 4th period. It's hard to say which is worse, the detached, completely remote parent, "Uh, I had my kid sign the grade sheet you sent home because I was busy", or the mom who sends me around 3 e-mails a day on average.
It's really too bad that kids don't arrive with a badly written users manual like the lawnmower. Of course, humans are complicated, and in all fairness, kids come in a variety of personalities, as do their parents but I think there are a few basics that will pretty much apply in most cases. I wrote a blog in
Nov. 2004 that covers those basics    http://theteacherslounge.blogspot.com/2004_11_01_archive.html

    Here are some of this year's examples.   At the beginning of the year I met with Carol's parent on the Registration Day. She would be in my AP World History class. First semester did not go too well. Carol did not do assignments, failed most tests and I think I may have heard 3 words out of her the whole the semester which was a bathroom request. As the semester came to a close I suggested that she consider moving to the on-level class. After a few conferences with the parents, (Carol decided to not show up just to tweak her Dad) and too many e-mails to count we came to the week of final exams and Carol's grade was borderline passing. Mom e-mailed me several times a day. At first I wrote back fairly detailed answers to her questions about every assignment. I had to explain every step of the asssignment so mom could be sure it was done correctly or that Carol had in fact turned it in (which meant stopping whatever I was doing to go through the stack of papers and see if Carol's was there) but when I wrote back that "Yes, it was there" I would get an immediate response asking for the grade. Ok., I graded it and sent the grade, then another response, "Did it improve her overall grade?" and on and on. My responses became shorter and more curt. Within an hour of the completeion of the final exam there was an e-mail wanting  to know if Carol had passed the semester.
At this point I bacame positively blunt. I have 140 students whose exams and essays must be graded. That will take time and although I plan to grade things while on the plane to see my family over Christmas, I don't have to have grades in until Jan. 4 and that's when I will know the answer. You'll know when I know. Over and out. That did it for the moment. Carol managed to just squeak through and I was relieved when her schedule showed that she had dropped AP World History....until she walked into my 4th period on-level classroom. It was on like Donkey Kong again. Personally, I think that Carol is exasperated with her parent's meddling. The more they try to micro-manage her assignments the more she seems to "forget" to turn it in. In one e-mail her mom complained that the assignment wasn't turned in because Carol was out sick and didn't know where to pick up the assignment. I pointed out that the extra hand-outs box is about 5 inches from her head in the classroom. She was supposed to take an essay portion of the test recently and chose to hide-out in the bathroom the whole period. She is the poster child for passive-aggressive.  
         The other example is a Senior who was repeating World History 2nd semester in order to graduate. My guess is that Shaneka's IQ is hovering around 70. Throughout the entire semester she never once raised her hand, never answered a question directed to her and could not write any cohesive, understandable paragraph. Within two weeks of joining the class I was writing to her counselor and then to her parents asking if there was a learning disability. Did not hear back from the parents until an e-mail I wrote at the 12 weeks mark with a subject line of "PLEASE READ THIS E-MAIL". Her grade was 52% at that point. I am keenly aware that failing a senior gets you all kinds of unwanted attention so I wanted to be sure to document, document, document. Now, with only 6 weeks to go, mom gets involved. She sends Shaneka in for extra help. Shaneka sits quietly in front of me waiting for me to pour knowledge into her ears or give her some coloring project to do for extra points. I patiently re-explain how to do an essay that was ungradeable the first time she did it. A couple of weeks later Shaneka comes in and asks what she can do to improve her grade (I can hear her mom's voice in the request). I ask about the essay. Blank look. I explain it again. We do this a total of THREE times. Each time-"What can I do to improve my grade", "The essay we discussed earlier and re-take some quizzes". Then a few weeks later we replay the scene. Finally Mom comes bustling in for a face-to-face conference with three weeks left of the semester. I give her the typed TO-DO list that I had Shaneka sign the previous week so there would be no question about what would be required. She asks lots of questions so she will understand the assignment. Next week, she shows up, without an appointment, and wants to know what else she could do because these assignments are not going to get her enough points. I tell her that the Road Trips would have helped but now we are two weeks before the end of school and all recovery projects, by school policy, must be in by the coming Friday. Interestingly, Shaneka is not in school the next day and on the following day turns in two beautifully typed Road Trip assignments. This adds 50 points to each of two tests that she made a 20% on. Now she is at 70% but we still have the final exam to go which counts for 15% of the grade. Mom is e-mailing me every day, questioning every point on every assignment through the semester. On the morning of the exam I am busy and don't have time to check my phone until lunch when I see four missed calls from Shaneka's mom and have one voice-mail that is unintelligible for the wailing to please call with the final grade.  Shaneka's grade was 46% on the final and her overall grade was 67.75%. I decided that failing high school for 2 1/2 points was not doing her any favors. Her life will be low level, minimal wage jobs and she will never need essay skills again. I pass her with a 70. Mom sends me 6 roses that afternoon. I heard from colleagues that when Shaneka walked across the stage at graduation her family went wild with screams and applause.
         I think it is very difficult to parent a child. To know when to help and when to put your hands in your pockets. I also think that some parents wait until it's too late to put their hands in their pockets, like the parents in the article above, and their child is going to find it rough to act independently when she leaves the nest, no matter how confident she seems now. I don't think I was the prefect parent, but I think we tried to encourage our kids to advocate for themselves at a fairly young age. "I need ketchup for my fries!"..."Well, go ask for some." "I can't, I'm scared"..."Then learn to enjoy your fries without the ketchup"....