With regard to hot housing, helicopter parenting, there is a trend (?) that we have noticed in elementary school that might be worth sharing, in case it is happening elsewhere. There are some families (too many as far as we are concerned) that have the (female) parent working everyday in some capacity at the same school and in the same building as one or more of their children's classes. We were very surprised (we are not in the education field and we are not experts in human development), because we thought separation (parent from child) was healthy and necessary and, also, because neither of us ever had our parents at our schools. Children talk and turns out, in one instance, one of these students knew which teacher they were going to have in advance (three months in advance), when no one else had teacher information. We have never tried to pick our student's teacher and / or classmates (i.e., insisting that (best) friends have to be together in the same room always). I am actually worried about one student in particular because the parent comes across so strongly, it really is bizarre. Fingers-crossed, this will not happen going forward, it's creepy and not at all preparing the children for the real world that we are used to which is based on standing on your own merit.
