FAILED PARENTING STRATEGIES AND ACTIONABLE ADVICE FOR HELICOPTER AND SNOWPLOW PARENTS

Failed Parenting Strategies, College Admissions, and Actionable Advice for Helicopter Parents

After more than a week of reading and listening to news stories and updates about the parents who used questionable tactics to get their children into high selective schools, I felt compelled to write my reaction as both a parent and someone who works in higher education.

During my nearly two decades in higher education, I have worked with countless students and interacted with a number of their parents at open houses, during freshman orientation and sometimes in my offices after a student has had a difficult first semester.

I have never met a parent who did not want their son or daughter to be successful in college. Some parents have parenting styles, which may differ from my own. However, it is my personal opinion that everyone is trying to do his or her best.

Failed Parenting Strategies

With that being said, I am not one who would normally criticize a parent for doing what they thought was best for their child. However, I have no problem identifying the parents who were allegedly involved in the college admission scandal as using “failed parenting strategies,” a term I first heard in Simon Sinek’s viral YouTube video in which he describes the plight of Millennials.

According to Sinek, Millennials cannot successfully function in the world of work and life because of “failed parenting strategies” by which millennial parents create protected environments for their children by telling their children that they are special and they can have anything in life, just because they want it. However, when these children grow up and enter the real world in which the false reality created by their parent is exposed as a fraud, they cannot cope. Here is a link to the post if you'd like to see it. Watch it.

The case of the admissions scandal exemplifies what happens when “failed parenting strategies” go awry. You are not special and mommy and daddy cannot get you into your dream school. At least not legally. No matter how much you want it. And now, these children are hit with the impact of how the real world works and the ramifications of their parents’ actions in the worst possible way.

Even for those parents and students, who were not caught, or who have not gone to the extremes of uncovered by this scandal, there other examples of “failed parenting strategies” that some parents use with their college-aged students.

I would argue that the type of parent who would try to bribe their way into a school is on a similar spectrum as a parent who would call to speak to their student’s college professor if they did not like the grade that their student received on a paper or exam. Yes, this does happen. Perhaps this strategy worked in high school, but in college the results are not likely the same.

What does in fact concern and surprise me as a person who works in higher ed is the belief that expending all of one’s money, time and efforts to ensure a student’s entry into the best school is all that matters. It is as if parents believe that admission to the ‘right school’ is the final destination. When in reality that is where the hard work really begins.

If parents really want to set their children up for success in college, everyone knows that there are legal and more ethical ways than the route of the parents in the scandal. However, getting in college for some students is just as difficult as getting out.

Here are a few facts that you may find interesting. According to 2018 data from the National Center for Education Statistics, at 4-year institutions where the acceptance rate was less than 25 percent of applicants, (highly selective institutions) the 6-year graduation rate was 88%. Yes, national statistics on graduation data is based off a six-year graduation rate because students on average take 5.6 year to complete a college degree. The 88% six-year graduation rate drops to a whopping 32% for the less selective colleges, which are schools that the majority of college students attend.

So what do all of these numbers add up to? Well the numbers tell us that getting through college is hard for a number of reasons and many students do not graduate after they are accepted.

Did the parents in question think about what would happens after their children were admitted to the university without the necessary academic knowledge and skills needed to be successful at such highly competitive institutions?

In addition, how does the fact that their parents found it necessary to pay for their admission to college impact these students’ self-esteem and confidence levels?

How committed were these parents?

Were they going to pay for their children to cheat their way through 4 years of college? Were they going to have someone write all of their papers?

I mean, what was the plan?

Did they really think it through?

These parents robbed their children of some important life lessons. And this is likely not the first time that these parents easily removed an obstacle from their children’s path.

Buying your child’s entry into the ‘right school’ sets the child up for failure. Trying to make your child’s life easy will ultimately make it harder for them because life isn’t easy. Children must learn these important life lessons by having real life experiences that don’t always work out the way they would like.

One of the most important life lessons that students must learn is learning from failure and being able to recover and to move on afterwards. Students must develop these copping skills in the process of growing up and becoming an adult. And if you never learn these skills, then how do you survive in this world?

College is a big investment of time and money for most families and spending all of one’s energy and focus on getting in to ‘the right school’ and then just dropping off your kid off after orientation and wishing for the best is another example of what I would call a “failed parenting strategy.”

Actionable Advice for ‘Helicopter Parents’

Those of us who work in higher ed may sometimes give helicopter parents a bad rap. The term often connotes parents hovering over their children, not letting them grow up and make their own choices independently. However, it is important for parents to know what is going on with their student when they go to college especially during one of the most difficult transitional periods that they are likely to experience in their lives.

Research show that the first semester of college, and more specifically the first six weeks of a student’s first semester in college, is the most difficult.

As parents, you were with your students through all of their academic life from elementary and middle school to those often-turbulent high school years. You know your students and the areas in which they may have struggled. These issues do not go away one the student gets to college. If anything, the issues may get worse because they may have more freedom than they have had in the past. They may be in a completely new environment and may not have the self-disciple or have developed the skills needed to be successful on their own. And while most schools have support services for students, we cannot force students to get help even when they really need it.

Therefore, there is a line of communication that parents need to establish with their children well before they go to college. Clarification and guidelines about the types of support and guidance that is appropriate and desired from their children in order to help these emerging adults transition to adult hood successfully is key.

No matter what year you child is in college they will need your help. It might be a push to use support services or a connection to someone in your professional network for a summer job or internship. It is never too late to start. We all want our children to be successful and the best way to do that is to be there for them when and if they do fail. Not by eliminating the possibility for failure. And using actionable parenting strategies.

The Other Parent Speaks