One of the biggest obstacles that educators face in today's world is the Helicopter Parent (HP). You know exactly what I'm talking about: the parent(s) who just cannot let their child have any individual experience or make their own choices We've all known an HP (or the child of one) at one point or another in our own educational journeys. It may seem like HPs are just doing what they think is right to make sure that their child has the best they can get as they grow up, but HPs are actually extremely detrimental to their children's ability to act and think independently AND they create massive headaches for the teachers, coaches, and bosses of their children.
Take, for example, the 53 year old mom who posed as her middle-school-aged daughter in order to take a test for her. What is that teaching the daughter? That it's OK to cheat on a test as long as mom does it? That you could get anybody to take a test for you? That it isn't her responsibility to learn the material and take the test for herself? It's hard enough to get students to pay attention and do schoolwork to begin with. Are you so concerned that your child is going to be bad at something that you're willing to do the work for them so they don't feel that failure?
I have news for you, there. HPs who do work for their children are only setting their kids up for failure later on in life. Sure, you can do their homework (and even try to sneak into pre-scheduled tests and exams for them), but you won't be there to help them on that pop quiz or when they're randomly selected to lead the class discussion. Then you're setting them up to flounder in front of the entire class. This is why more and more teachers are sacrificing valuable in-class teaching time in order to do menial assignments which used to be done at home. If they have the student do the work in-class, then they know the student was the one who did the work. In addition, depending on how strict the plagiarism policy at any particular school is, doing your child's work for them can get them slapped with a plagiarism violation which can result in automatic complete failure of a course AND it looks horrible on a transcript, so you can probably kiss Harvard goodbye.
Here's another thing that HPs do which can be extremely detrimental: they try and control their child's schedule. I'm sure that Susie would love to have lunch and algebra and American history with her best friends Jill and Betty, but maybe that isn't the best thing for her. If she's struggling in a class, maybe she needs to be away from the people who are constantly distracting her by asking if she wants to go to the movies after school or if she thinks that new boy Ricky is cute. I can understand wanting your child to eat lunch with people they're already friends with, but have you considered that it might be a way for them to make new friends? So much of life after school relies on networking and the best way to prepare for that is to have a solid network of friends when you leave school. Jill and Betty will still be there after school (and maybe during third period Spanish because one class with friends is OK, but too many leads to problems). Kids need to learn how to make friends out of a situation where they feel they have none. Otherwise they're going to have a really bad time when they go off to college.
I was fortunate enough to never experience helicopter parenting. My parents made sure I was a responsible student who knew that my work was my job. As a result, I had a strong amount of confidence in my intellectual abilities going into college and consider myself pretty smart (having a boyfriend who continually tells me I'm one of the smartest people he knows helps, too). Because I'm so confident in the skills I've built up over the years, I don't fear any new challenge and instead I face it head-on. I was intimidated by the year-long internship I'm a part of when I was first informed that I would need to complete it, but I know I can do this. That's how I was raised.
PM
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