How involved are your parents in your life? How much do they step in to help you with your schoolwork, social life, college applications, hobbies, sports or anything else? How often do they try to solve your problems? Do you like having their help, or do you find it burdensome? Why?
In a Sunday Review piece, ?When Helping Hurts,? Eli J. Finkel and Gr?inne M. Fitzsimons write:
American parents are more involved in our children?s lives than ever: we schedule play dates, assist with homework and even choose college courses.
We know that all of this assistance has costs ? depleted bank balances, constricted social lives ? but we endure them happily, believing we are doing what is best for our children.
What if, however, the costs included harming our children?
That unsettling possibility is suggested by a paper published in February in the American Sociological Review. The study, led by the sociologist Laura T. Hamilton of the University of California, Merced, finds that the more money parents spend on their child?s college education, the worse grades the child earns.
A separate study, published the same month in the Journal of Child and Family Studies and led by the psychologist Holly H. Shiffrin at the University of Mary Washington, finds that the more parents are involved in schoolwork and selection of college majors ? that is, the more helicopter parenting they do ? the less satisfied college students feel with their lives.
Why would parents help produce these negative outcomes? It seems that certain forms of help can dilute recipients? sense of accountability for their own success. The college student might think: If Mom and Dad are always around to solve my problems, why spend three straight nights in the library during finals rather than hanging out with my friends?
Students: Tell us ?
- Do you recognize your parents or guardians in these descriptions? Are they helicopter parents?
- Whether you consider them helicopter parents or not, how have they tried to step in to help you recently? How much do you rely on their help in general?
- What is an example of a time when your parents gave you too much help? A time when they gave you too little? Why?
- Do you agree with the findings in this piece that help from your parents may hurt you by making you less accountable for your own success?
- What is the perfect amount of help from a parent? Why?
Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.
Source: http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/do-you-have-helicopter-parents/
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