At Explore Colleges, we often find ourselves defending parents and our behavior in support of our college-aged, or soon to be college-aged, children.
Certainly some small percentage of parents may go over the edge and try to do too much in support of, or on behalf of, our kids. Examples of this behavior are filling out the college application itself or writing an application essay in the pre-college years, or calling a professor about a grade or e-mailing a residence hall advisor to settle a roommate dispute during the in-college years.
Yet that small percentage of parents who do engage in over-the-top and intrusive activities tend to get the lion’s share of attention from college officials and some members of the media.
We are convinced that the vast majority of current and future college parents simply love their children and wants to do whatever they can to support their children’s activities on the road to and through college.
It is important to note that, as a country, we have gained a near-universal consensus in support of the importance of parents being involved with and supportive of their children in the K-12 school years.
This involvement is encouraged because a wide body of research shows that the children of supportive parents are more likely to continue in school, to succeed in and finish high school, and to go on to college.
So with that as a given, it is unrealistic, in our view, to then ask parents to suddenly turn off that involvement at the college campus gates.
Indeed, we parents have developed a tremendous emotional – and monetary – investment in our children, and we are interested in and concerned about what is going with that investment.
And rightly so, as every autumn more than 2 million young people in this country are first-year students at an institution of higher education, and by the following fall more than a third of those students are no longer attending those institutions, either because it was specifically the wrong school or because they had experienced academic, physical or emotional problems to an extent that higher ed, in general, was no longer in the immediate realm of possibility.
High stakes indeed, so no wonder families want to “hover,” as “helicopter parents” are prone to do, around their children. It’s kind of sad really that the term “helicopter parent” has seemed to take on such a negative connotation.
After all, we humans use helicopters to perform some important and essential jobs. Traffic reporters use choppers to help us keep an eye on local traffic and to suggest alternate routes if our commute becomes clogged. Emergency personnel use helicopters to perform search and rescue operations, and those individuals really value the fact that these mechanical birds can hurtle into the sky on a moment’s notice, flying whenever and wherever it is necessary.
Analogous to the examples above, we think that parents can and should keep a watchful eye on their children, and that they can and should be there in case an emergency should arise. But you know, as we do, that the young adult in your family will, in the end, make his or her choices when it comes to choice of major, choice of friends and choice of career.
Helicopter pilots, and the crews they carry on their missions, perform important and sometimes heroic tasks. So too do “helicopter parents” on your mission to best support your children on the path to and through college. On behalf of all of us at Explore Colleges, here’s to happy and successful piloting!
Kathie Boozer is the founder and president of Explore Colleges, a premier college group tour operator. Explore Colleges’ customized tours help students experience the unique cultures, environments, and opportunities on each campus and inspire them to follow their dreams. Contact Kathie at kboozer@explorecolleges.org
