Former Stanford dean explains why helicopter parenting is ruining a generation • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by fsloth » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 6:15 PM UTC

m_fayer wrote: post #137

zkhalique wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, following sentiments of Peter Thiel and others, it's not necessary to get into an elite school today, in order to succeed. If it was, then good education and success would still be scarce in today's world, as most people can't afford to go to Harvard, Stanford, etc. Now we have MOOCs an schools can become centers for socializing, tutoring and testing. A great teacher can educate more than 300 people a year t…

If you're a parent then, your decision looks like: Let your kid be a kid and bank on society having advanced far enough to allow success without a big-brand school on your CV. Barring that, hope your kid will be driven/creative/wily enough to make do without that stamp of approval. Or, take the "safe" route and go full helicopter-parent, and give your children the best possible guarantee of success in the world as it…

I'm left wondering why the parent would be compulsed to push the child agressively.

Maybe it's a US thing?

We are are engineer parents in northern Europe, we try to raise our kids so they remain curious and emotinally fullfilled, we wish every good thing for them - but it's really hard to imagine to go all helicopter on them. If anything, I imagine we will let them make all the right and wrong decisions about their education when the time comes - but we try to make them understand what options they have and what likely outcomes their decisions entail.

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

#152

Post by setpatchaddress » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 6:16 PM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #149

wfo wrote: post #90

Dean complains about helicopter parents at Stanford and yet admissions essentially requires incoming students have helicopter parents. To get into a school like this you need to be exclusively focused on exactly the arbitrary criteria that will get you accepted into a school like this -- grades in the "right" classes, enough sports to talk about it in an essay but not too much, extracurricular and volunteer work at t…

No teenager has a passion for SAT prep. I grew up in the generation when no one in my region of the country (the Midwest) had heard of test prep. The students who did best on standardized tests (my friends and I) simply enjoyed reading for fun. Really, it's that simple. Read books and articles that are not assigned by school and that you choose for your own reading pleasure. Students who score high today on standardi…

Your knowledge is out of date, I'm afraid. Simply being a geek is no longer sufficient. Teenagers today are competing in a much larger pool of increasingly sophisticated candidates; there's an entire class of businesses dedicated to getting students into colleges.

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

#153

Post by wfo » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 6:16 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #128

lemevi wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nonsense. Getting into elite schools opens up doors that are otherwise completely shut. At law firms, at prestigious graduate schools, in academia, in medical schools and good positions at top corporations. Every year information is collected on the various success rates for students coming out of America's universities and students from elite school make up the highest paying and most successful members of o…

All areas that are going to be increasingly disrupted by technology and digitalization. So sure for now but this will change.

Signalling and networking and group association and stereotypes are inherently human and have remained the same for the past 6000 years of human history no matter the changes in technology. You can't just throw out contentless buzzword bingo like "disruption" and "technology" and seriously expect anyone to believe it's going to change.

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

#154

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 6:16 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #128

lemevi wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nonsense. Getting into elite schools opens up doors that are otherwise completely shut. At law firms, at prestigious graduate schools, in academia, in medical schools and good positions at top corporations. Every year information is collected on the various success rates for students coming out of America's universities and students from elite school make up the highest paying and most successful members of o…

All areas that are going to be increasingly disrupted by technology and digitalization. So sure for now but this will change.

[deleted]

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

#155

Post by fsloth » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 6:22 PM UTC

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"

"Today's environment is extremely competitive and the margin for error is lower."

The number of poor in the world is steadily declining. To fuck up ones life in a western country basically requires a mental or health problem. I am left wondering what one is competing about.

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

#156

Post by wfo » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 6:22 PM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #149

wfo wrote: post #90

Dean complains about helicopter parents at Stanford and yet admissions essentially requires incoming students have helicopter parents. To get into a school like this you need to be exclusively focused on exactly the arbitrary criteria that will get you accepted into a school like this -- grades in the "right" classes, enough sports to talk about it in an essay but not too much, extracurricular and volunteer work at t…

No teenager has a passion for SAT prep. I grew up in the generation when no one in my region of the country (the Midwest) had heard of test prep. The students who did best on standardized tests (my friends and I) simply enjoyed reading for fun. Really, it's that simple. Read books and articles that are not assigned by school and that you choose for your own reading pleasure. Students who score high today on standardi…

I did just fine because I liked to read too, but I talk to younger students and that is something that has fundamentally and seriously changed. Things are MUCH more competitive now than they have ever been, and everybody is studying the system and learning how to game it. People who focus on the things the metrics are supposed to be measuring (like reading) will lose to the people who game the metrics themselves, every time. Putting a college education up on this pedestal like we've done as "the thing you MUST HAVE to succeed" or "the key to any future besides gas-pumping" is like throwing a chunk of meat into a pit of rabid hyenas.

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

#157

Post by wfo » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 6:26 PM UTC

morgante wrote: post #133

wfo wrote: post #90

Dean complains about helicopter parents at Stanford and yet admissions essentially requires incoming students have helicopter parents. To get into a school like this you need to be exclusively focused on exactly the arbitrary criteria that will get you accepted into a school like this -- grades in the "right" classes, enough sports to talk about it in an essay but not too much, extracurricular and volunteer work at t…

I don't agree that helicopter parenting is anywhere near a prerequisite. In fact, amongst my peers it seems to have been the reverse. The kids with over-involved parents were the ones who ended up seeming too "cookie-cutter" and ended up going to "second-tier" universities. The hypothesis of helicopter parenting being a prerequisite for elite admissions also seems to be undermined by the consistent success of boardin…

That actually supports my argument: boarding schools are just helicopter parenting by proxy and even more extreme. Parents send their children away to professional helicopter parents to socialize only with the other helicopter parented-children.

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

#158

Post by nugget » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 6:27 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #128

lemevi wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nonsense. Getting into elite schools opens up doors that are otherwise completely shut. At law firms, at prestigious graduate schools, in academia, in medical schools and good positions at top corporations. Every year information is collected on the various success rates for students coming out of America's universities and students from elite school make up the highest paying and most successful members of o…

All areas that are going to be increasingly disrupted by technology and digitalization. So sure for now but this will change.

Signaling will become worth more at the very top (top 20 schools) and less below that tier, which ironically will increase competition for the top 20, but probably reduce stress on the majority of kids who were always looking locally or regionally to begin with.

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

#159

Post by fsloth » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 6:30 PM UTC

dawson wrote: post #126

lemmsjid wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a parent, I would a thousand times rather my child be a mentally stable barista than a questionably stable Stanford student. In fact, having recently interacted with the Standard undergraduate body, I feel quite sorry for most of them because it's such a terrible pressure cooker stress environment. My primary goal for my child is for her to be a whole person. If she can do that at Stanford, fine. If she can do tha…

There are plenty of depressed baristas too.

Specific occupation is not the point - rather what the child thinks what his/her family thinks of her career choices and that this does not drive them into places they would not naturally go to. I.e. that their important life choices are not made because of extrinsic but of intrinsic motivations.

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

#160

Post by BrandonM » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 6:31 PM UTC

anon4 wrote: post #17

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"

That was my thought as well. The parents are making the rational decision that they can't afford their kids to fail, so they take every measure to make sure they get to a good start. A good start in this case meaning getting admitted to Stanford. It might have something to do with low-qualification jobs disappearing, which in turn means you have to have a college degree to be self-sufficient. Once upon a time, you co…

This is only true in a world where being an electrician, plumber, heating and cooling technician, etc. -- all jobs that are in-demand and pay $100K+/year -- have a negative stigma attached to them. Mike Rowe gave a great Ted talk about this: https://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs