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Former Stanford dean explains why helicopter parenting is ruining a generation

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Former Stanford dean explains why helicopter parenting is ruining a generation

#51

Post by avz »

supercanuck wrote: post #38
munin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody wants to be the parent of the most mentally stable Starbucks Barista here's an important question to ask yourself: if you had to choose, would you rather your children be kind, or smart?

Which one is more employable? If Hacker News is any indication, I would say Smart.

What makes you employable today may or may not make you so in two or three decades. For example, if an increasingly large fraction of cognitive employment is taken over by technology it is possible that the skills related to direct human-to-human interactions become the best bet.

If this happens being kind may indeed make you more employable than being smart.

(Caveat: as I argued in another post, smart person still has an advantage: she can generally learn other skills including being kind easier than a not-so-smart person)

Re: Former Stanford dean explains why helicopter parenting is ruining a generation

#52

Post by throwaway13337 »

supercanuck wrote: post #14

You know what. Those parents got those kids into Stanford. Obviously helicopter parenting is working for them. 90% of the decisions people make are based on the environments they are in. Today's environment is extremely competitive and the margin for error is lower. Nobody wants to be the parent of the most mentally stable Starbucks Barista... Get them into Stanford, then they have the rest of their life to "fail"

>Nobody wants to be the parent of the most mentally stable Starbucks Barista

This is a very American problem and the cause my (20's) generation's unhappiness.

No one is happy with just being a stable person.

Being a stable person is a great goal. Most people aren't.

Re: Former Stanford dean explains why helicopter parenting is ruining a generation

#53

Post by jroseattle »

supercanuck wrote: post #14

You know what. Those parents got those kids into Stanford. Obviously helicopter parenting is working for them. 90% of the decisions people make are based on the environments they are in. Today's environment is extremely competitive and the margin for error is lower. Nobody wants to be the parent of the most mentally stable Starbucks Barista... Get them into Stanford, then they have the rest of their life to "fail"

> Those parents got those kids into Stanford.

Correlation/causation fail.

The worst part of parents functioning this way is that they assume they are dictating results.

Re: Former Stanford dean explains why helicopter parenting is ruining a generation

#54

Post by [deleted] »

m_fayer wrote: post #13

The idea that "today's youth" are more fragile than the youth of yore seems to be a growing meme. I do believe that there is a rise in mental health issues among young adults, but there are many potentially interacting causes. I haven't read the book in question, but I hope that anyone who tackles this subject addresses all the possibly relevant social phenomena before pinning it all on one root cause. Some things I…

[deleted]

Re: Former Stanford dean explains why helicopter parenting is ruining a generation

#55

Post by lmkg »

supercanuck wrote: post #14

You know what. Those parents got those kids into Stanford. Obviously helicopter parenting is working for them. 90% of the decisions people make are based on the environments they are in. Today's environment is extremely competitive and the margin for error is lower. Nobody wants to be the parent of the most mentally stable Starbucks Barista... Get them into Stanford, then they have the rest of their life to "fail"

The article implies (but does not state) that these students struggle once they're in. Getting in to Stanford has only marginal value on its own, the majority of value is in graduating and receiving a degree. If parents are optimizing for success at step N-1 at the cost of success at step N, that is self-defeating.

Re: Former Stanford dean explains why helicopter parenting is ruining a generation

#56

Post by 6stringmerc »

throwaway13337 wrote: post #52
supercanuck wrote: post #14

You know what. Those parents got those kids into Stanford. Obviously helicopter parenting is working for them. 90% of the decisions people make are based on the environments they are in. Today's environment is extremely competitive and the margin for error is lower. Nobody wants to be the parent of the most mentally stable Starbucks Barista... Get them into Stanford, then they have the rest of their life to "fail"

>Nobody wants to be the parent of the most mentally stable Starbucks Barista This is a very American problem and the cause my (20's) generation's unhappiness. No one is happy with just being a stable person. Being a stable person is a great goal. Most people aren't.

As noted in the article, the observed issues with mental health problems would indicate that pushing toward such an "achievement" extreme carries with it significant baggage.

Re: Former Stanford dean explains why helicopter parenting is ruining a generation

#57

Post by dalke »

The term "helicopter parent" is more than a generation old. Here are some examples:

1994 - "Helicopter parents" make excuses for their children, rescue them from the consequences of putting off their chores, ... - https://books.google.com/books?id=kXkT2dXGjtYC&q=helicopter+...

1991 - "'Those helicopter parent of mine' ... Translation: a nosy grownup who is always hovering around" - https://books.google.com/books?id=AfQDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA6&dq=hel...

Ahh, the Wikipedia entry traces the metaphor to the late 1960s - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_parent .

Of course the underlying concept is even older. The grousers of yore just used different phrases. Here are Google Book Search snippets predating 1970 for search "expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter": https://www.google.com/search?q=expect+everything+to+be+hand...

This includes from a 1960 PTA magazine:

> 'I've known a lot of kids who were treated like little heroes. Afterward, they expected everything to be handed them on a silver platter— and it wasn't. They couldn't adjust.' "Beyond any doubt, the boys in Williamsport last week were treated as ...

A Boys' Life article from July 1937 at https://books.google.com/books?id=agt7vyGWtXoC&pg=PA14&dq=ex...

> We want to teach them not just to sit back and expect things to be handed to them on a silver platter but with confidence, based on their training, to go out and get what they want. We need to stiffen a moral flabbiness that has been affecting our youth.

Life Magazine, March 29, 1949 at https://books.google.com/books?id=b00EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA6&dq=exp... :

> We have reared a bunch of weaklings in our young marrieds of today. Too much has been handed to them on a silver platter without their having had to work for it, and they lack the intestinal fortitude to meet life as a challenge.

Re: Former Stanford dean explains why helicopter parenting is ruining a generation

#58

Post by m_fayer »

veryes wrote: post #43
m_fayer wrote: post #13

The idea that "today's youth" are more fragile than the youth of yore seems to be a growing meme. I do believe that there is a rise in mental health issues among young adults, but there are many potentially interacting causes. I haven't read the book in question, but I hope that anyone who tackles this subject addresses all the possibly relevant social phenomena before pinning it all on one root cause. Some things I…

> 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 s…

Although it's certainly subjective, I don't think what we call the middle class is such a fine-grained entity, and I do think the distinction between "working class" and "middle class" is useful.

I would define "working class" as people who are resigned to whatever paid labor they can find on pain of hunger and homelessness. Anyone in this class wants to get out of it.

The middle class, on the other hand, expect to get to pick the labor they perform, and in return expect a comfortable and secure existence as well as a good amount of leisure time and luxury to be attainable through their labor. Many in the middle class hold no ambition to climb still further, but are desperate to not fall out of it.

The distinction is useful for shaping policy - we want to help as many people as possible into the middle class and out of the working class (as defined above), and then do everything possible to keep them there.

Re: Former Stanford dean explains why helicopter parenting is ruining a generation

#59

Post by learning_still »

I grew up in the kind of area that specializes in what this article is talking about. I had a lot of friends in high school who were forced into honors and AP classes by their parents. Who were forced to do anything and everything to set themselves up for college. Who would stay up til 1am on a Tuesday just to make sure they got all of their homework done and had studied properly. I can tell you that "helicopter" parenting has not ruined any children and it never will. What it's done is it's pushed children into schools where they don't belong. Meanwhile it's pushed a lot of smart kids out. What this dean has experienced isn't kids becoming less self-sufficient, but instead less self-sufficient kids getting into college because the kids who are pushed by their parents have a higher likelihood of getting in.

Re: Former Stanford dean explains why helicopter parenting is ruining a generation

#60

Post by japhyr »

chrisgd wrote: post #9

I believe there are two different things at work here. One is being an active parent and the other is helping your child develop grit[1] and I don't think they are mutually exclusive. At what age can I let my child walk to school by himself? It all depends on the child, neighborhood, and other characteristics. But if my son never walks to school by himself (elementary and middle), that doesn't mean he is going to fai…

The conversation about grit needs to be balanced by a careful critique of the work we're asking students to engage with. If a school has a great climate and academic rigor, then by all means develop resilience and grit in students. But if a school is giving largely meaningless busywork, that needs to be addressed before telling students to work hard.

Here's a great critique of the current conversation about grit:

- http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/classroom_qa_with_larry_fer...

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