Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion I am a hot housing helicopter parent?

I agree - I did my humanities degree and the only subject I had to remember facts was for a geography unit. I did my thesis in Chinese politics and I still couldn't tell you what year the boxer rebellion happened. I can however talk for hours about WHY it happened and what the ramifications were/are.... but I did my degree 20 + years ago.

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.

The solution to this problem is to:

(1) Quickly recognize that you are dealing with a choice between "dumb" and "dumber".

(2) Guess, because there's no possible way to win, so you've already lost.

(3) Move on.

Um, that's basically how a lot of schools work.

And law firms.

We had no idea; neither of us can imagine why you would want a parent at your school; we are learning something new each day. I am glad you shared so that I am prepared in the fall for when the same parents end up once again in their child's educational building. Is it that they renegotiate each spring so that they can map where their children will be in the fall and then make sure (somehow) to get that specific assignment? Yikes.

For the original post, one more response that occurred to me. I heard a woman on National Public Radio speaking this week about how her father always made all of the decisions for her and then once he passed, she set about making her own choices, redirecting and being able to pursue her own interests.

I also heard a brief report this week (but I don't remember the source, possibly also NPR) in which they were discussing how universities try to find children that the school wants in their starting class, but the child's home situation might be such that the student is not able to connect with such a university and schools are trying to work on that issue.

My point is just to add more discussion points about the role of parents. Thanks for the interesting post.

Wesupportgifted, I hope my reply doesn't sound like I'm arguing with you - that's not my intent, just trying to offer up a different point of view.


I have quite a few friends who are teachers in our local school district. It's *not* unusual for perfectly normal, non-hot-housing, everyday parents to arrange to have their child in the school they teach in or to request to teach in their children's school and for the teachers I know it's no indication at all of being overly involved or invested in their children's lives. The people I know who do this do it for one very simple convenient reason - they avoid having to use before and after school child care.

A secondary reason (not as frequent, but happens) is that the school they teach at is thought to be a better school than their neighborhood school. While this may seem a bit like helicoptering, the intent is really not that different from parents who choose to enroll their children in charter schools or lottery schools or magnet programs etc - they are simply trying to find the best-fit school for their child, same as most of us here on this forum have tried.

We are at a private school, and several of the employees have their children enrolled at the school - again, it's convenient in terms of saving child care $ and time, and in the case of private school, tuition is sometimes discounted for employee's children.

Sometimes things that are different from what we expect and seem "creepy" actually have very reasonable explanations.



A couple of thoughts here - first, yes, children talk and occasionally... children talk about things they imagine or hope to be true rather than what's really true. I never automatically assume that something my elementary-school aged kids heard from another child about things that adults knew or said that sounded off was true until I'd had it verified through an adult source.

Second thought - this employee, if they did indeed actually request a certain teacher, most likely isn't the only parent who did. At the elementary schools we went to and others I know of in our area, there was one school that let parents request teachers for the next school years and parents *loved* having that option. At other schools, even though the school policy said you couldn't request teachers, many parents did anyway, and in some schools principals tried to help parents get the teacher they requested. I'm not sure this is helicoptering as much as it is human nature - to hope to get your child in the classroom you think will work out best for them.

Last thought - the employee probably did know before others knew. That's one thing that happens when you work at a school - you get to know the other employees, and sometimes you find out information ahead of when the non-employees find it out. That's doesn't mean that because you know the info ahead of time you were somehow doing something odd or underhanded going on.


Standing on your own merit is something I value highly and something I've done my best to pass on to my kids, but the reality is it's not everything that it takes to get ahead in the real world (and especially in the corporate world). Connections with other people matter, how you treat other people matter, networking matters. This really isn't a bad thing - it's part of being human.

polarbear

Don't you have a preference for workplaces? Maybe your school district works differently, hut in the places I've sent kids to school and been to school teachers don't float from year to year. They get a job at Lincoln Middle School teaching Spanish and tend to stay there for many years if they're doing a good job, they don't get sent over to Washington middle school the next year,then back to Lincoln for a couple of years, then off to Jefferson, etc. Same for kids, if you start at Lincoln you tend to stay there. In face, one district had a reorganisation of zones and they specifically grandfathered in any current students and siblings.

As I understand it, Wesupportgifted is talking about school volunteers.
Our elementaries do rely on a lot of parent volunteers, both in and out of the classroom. Most families do not volunteer every day, but many have 2 or more weekly roles such as math helper or library reshelving plus room parent, staff appreciation coordinator, etc. Without these volunteers, we couldn't afford the staff to run the school at the level we want.

It is possible, of course, that a volunteer asked for a particular classroom for their child and got it far in advance even though this was against policy. It's also possible that the child was mistaken, or that another policy was in play - at some schools, a child will automatically go to the same teacher that their older sibling had unless the parents request otherwise. I agree that it's best for kids to separate from parents and put up with imperfect classrooms, but we aren't always aware of all the issues - a child who is socially immature for age, or whose parent is dying, or has other severe stresses, may need to be sheltered for an extra year or two. If the staff is responsible, other families won't know who those students are.

Which is all to say: it's hard to identify the hothousing parent from the outside. To me, the distinction between 'concerned' and 'hothousing' is in the motivation - the well-being of the child vs. status or appearances.

OK, I totally missed that!

Re volunteers, our schools also rely heavily on parent volunteers. While some may be there to gain an inside advantage, the vast majority of parent volunteers I've known are there for the best of intentions - because they love working with kids, because they want to help the school, to do something that benefits the school as a whole. In turn, the students love having parents at school - not just their own parents and not because they need some kind of extra special attention - the kids love getting to know adults and knowing that another "big" person is interested in them and what they are doing.

Truth is, among the parents I've known, the parents who've requested special favors such as teacher choice etc are also the parents who are too busy to help out at school.

polarbear