Former Stanford dean explains why helicopter parenting is ruining a generation

So I fit right between Generation X and Y, depending on which timeframe reference used. I mention this as context because it feels as though I've had a first-hand view of public and private education trends. Also, a chance to see how the parents of friends and other students behaved.

Is there some logic and basis for this person's perspective? Yeah, I'm sure there are plenty of anecdotes from her career - but I also categorize Stanford as an outlier of access. As in, to get in typically (but not always) entails much parental investment and, well, access to resources. Could a person who worked at a troubled youth center tell stories of a lack of parental involvement or outright neglect? Probably.

Both are significant issues regarding the health and future of society in the US: each group needs to find a place in the working world. If neither is prepared, then what will happen to the traditional relationship between employer and employee? Can new hires adapt, or will they commit career suicide?

To me, "helicopter parenting" is an indicator of the selfishness that pervades a select cohort of parents. Successful. Relatively affluent. A sense of entitlement that comes from not having to do without as a baseline, and furthermore, is used to being able to bend the will of those with less power. How did I come up with this perspective? I've worked for them.

This cohort is full of Senior Vice Presidents and Managing Directors. They work for "important companies" doing "important things" and therefore feel they are, well, quite important! Even when I was in charge of projects, their projects and in turn them, I was frequently rebuffed, ignored, or otherwise minimized by certain personalities. Those who had a different mentality? Gracious, collaborative, and, no lie, would sometimes send thank-you notes in gratitude. For many years, the self-centered outlook has been rewarded, and framing it as such in a child development process is consistent with the behavior noted in the article.

It's one thing to have high standards. It's another thing to be so afraid of failure or short-comings that the worry gets manifested in mental health issues. Looking good on paper is actually quite easy to do with the right means. Becoming a well-rounded individual with hobbies and stories of learning from life by working, getting perspective, and occasionally screwing up - hopefully not on the scale of jail - isn't easily quantified in a "how to raise a kid in the modern US" book...cough Tiger Mom cough...there's no manual except the one each family writes for themselves. That might sound wishy-washy, but it's a reasonable outlook when considering the haves, the have nots, and those who "overcome" their environment, whether over-interested or completely disinterested upbringings.

> The tightening economic climate and increasing difficulty of staying in the middle class... > But now a majority of people of all socioeconomic brackets yearn for a middle-class existence...

There is no middle class. This framing is itself toxic.

There are only people who have to work for a living (i.e. the working class), and people for whom paid labor is optional due to accumulated capital of various forms (for simplicity, let's call them the rich.)

Focusing on distinctions between substrata of the working class mainly benefits the rich.

please don't post these asinine articles here. there is not even an attempt to furnish data to back up any of its claims, including: (a) are parents today more involved in student's lives? where's the data besides anecdotal? (b) are children today less prepared for life? where's the data? and (c) are these causal?

you've entirely missed the point. the article is making a claim on an entire generation of students and using stanford merely as an anecdotal sample

Whereas unkind people are actively detrimental to society.