How our parents go overboard

It’s in a parent’s nature to protect their young. Since the beginning of time, generation after generation of humans have constructed their own unique approaches in raising their children. However, while it’s normal to want the best for your kids and to aid them through adolescence, this generation of mothers and fathers have taken parenting a step too far. Their hovering and overinvolvement have won them the title “helicopter parents”, and have led to them becoming a detrimental aspect of their children’s lives.  While all parents want happiness and success for their children, this recent group has been harshly ridiculed for the lengths they go to in attempt to achieve them. Raising children in the era of technology is certainly no easy feat, but the parents of current teens are notorious for granting themselves permission to invade their child's privacy by stepping into situations a child should handle on their own. This has created an increased dependence on the parent, which sets them up for failure later in life. It is not going to benefit a child to be constantly coddled by their parents, because as they mature and head into the workforce, they will be unable to function on their own. For Samo students, this is a reoccurring issue that plays a prominent role in student-teacher and student-coach relationships. Coaches have shared copious complaints regarding parents contacting them about their child receiving minimal playing time during recent games, as well as demanding that their child be given more of an opportunity. It has even gone as far as parents reaching out to athletic college recruiters, and ruining their children’s chances of a scholarship. The Northwestern football coach, Pat Fitzgerald, shared his personal experience watching parents overstep their boundaries and hurting their child’s chances. “An increasingly large part of the evaluation process for us is evaluating the parents. When we talk about our fit we evaluate parents too, and if parents don’t fit, we might punt on the player and not offer him a scholarship. And that has changed over a decade. Ten years ago I’m not sure that was as big of a role, but now that’s a big part of it,” Fitzgerald said (usatodayhss.com). Everyday, similar stories bounce around the halls of Samo. Friends complain endlessly about their controlling parents who won’t respect their privacy or give them a chance to speak for themselves. It is frustrating for high school students to watch their futures slip away due to the overbearing actions of their parents. I believe that it is absolutely not the parent’s responsibility to contact the coach, nor is it their place to demand something for their child. According to a new study, children who have parents that have exerted psychological control on them during their formative childhood years are prone to have a more difficult time developing close relationships in their early adulthood. With every email and call made by a parent, their child is losing vital skills that desperately need for their future. This is increasingly prevalent in millennials, with many speculating that the lack of hands-on parenting exhibited in our parent’s youths has fueled them to overcompensate with their children, creating the “helicopter parent” stereotype. Additionally, teachers are constantly bombarded by “helicopter parents” pressing send again and again as they desperately attempt to raise their child’s grade or inquire about assignments. One Samo high school teacher shared her parent horror story, depicting a nightmare situation with a mother. She spoke about a student who wrote all of his notes in pen on his hand during the final exam, and was promptly caught and given a zero for the test. The following day, the student’s mother called her school phone in an attempt to convince her to allow the student to retake the final exam, claiming that the pen was “just his studying method,” and that he must have forgotten to remove the notes before the test.  This, simply put, is not the parent’s duty. By shattering their child’s privacy and stepping into situations that their child should be handling alone, the parents are setting their children up for future failure. Additionally, as the parents try to “fix” issues, they often end up making the situation worse. There will soon come a day in which the student will need to send an email or ask a question on their own, and without mommy or daddy resting on their shoulder, they will be lost and unable to function. By not allowing them to make their own decisions and exercising psychological control, these parents are hindering their children’s success.  Millenials have been stereotyped as dependent, lazy and unable to work at the rigorous level produced by those before them, and unfortunately this new group of Generation Z teenagers appears to be following directly in their footsteps. However, it isn’t the children themselves that led to the formation of these negative characterizations. It was the parents. The overbearing level of parental involvement is slowly destroying many vital skills adolescents desperately need as they transition into their adult years, which is what causes a generation full of dependent, lazy and incapable workers. Since they were unable to act for themselves in their formative teenage years, they grew up to be individuals who were still dependent on others, and couldn’t handle day to day situations on their own. It seems as if there is no way to stop the torrential downpour of parent participation in their children’s lives. We can try to sit down with our parents and have an honest conversation about their presence in our lives outside of the house, and perhaps a few will listen. However, as we move forward and begin to have children of our own, it is essential to keep the failures of our parents generation in mind. While it may be an act of love, children are fully capable of speaking up for themselves on their own, and stripping them of that ability is doing nothing but stripping them of a successful future.