This fall my eldest is heading off to university. I remember my own entrance into university. Other than my mom driving me down to help me find a place to stay, the majority of the organizing and decision making was done by me, as was the case with all of my friends.
Imagine my surprise then when I opened a 52 page guide for parents with advice on how to help a student transition into university. While some of the information was helpful, I couldn't help but wonder if I really needed to know that tailgating is allowing someone without a key to follow you into a residence which often leads to mischief or where the Cow Path is or who the Dippers are. Part of me was thinking I shouldn't be reading this. This is my daughter's new world, not mine and these should be her discoveries.
As I continued through the guide I came to a section that began with this:
Very Important Note About Contacting Resources:
The information provided in this section is not provided so that parents and family members can contact campus service providers on behalf of a student. Instead, you are strongly encouraged to use this information to empower your family member to advocate on her/his own behalf. They may need coaching on how to do this in a productive manner and debriefing afterwards can be helpful too.
A critical life skill for a student is knowing how to advocate for oneself while remaining respectful (often approaching with questions rather than telling how it is) and having the confidence to act on one's own behalf. You may want to use this information to direct the student in your family towards the resources they need.
What has this world of parenting come to that universities feel the need to tell parents to back off and let students problem solve on their own? What kind of people have we raised that a university feels compelled to tell parents that their children should be polite when trying to resolve issues? How did this happen?
Imagine my surprise then when I opened a 52 page guide for parents with advice on how to help a student transition into university. While some of the information was helpful, I couldn't help but wonder if I really needed to know that tailgating is allowing someone without a key to follow you into a residence which often leads to mischief or where the Cow Path is or who the Dippers are. Part of me was thinking I shouldn't be reading this. This is my daughter's new world, not mine and these should be her discoveries.
As I continued through the guide I came to a section that began with this:
Very Important Note About Contacting Resources:
The information provided in this section is not provided so that parents and family members can contact campus service providers on behalf of a student. Instead, you are strongly encouraged to use this information to empower your family member to advocate on her/his own behalf. They may need coaching on how to do this in a productive manner and debriefing afterwards can be helpful too.
A critical life skill for a student is knowing how to advocate for oneself while remaining respectful (often approaching with questions rather than telling how it is) and having the confidence to act on one's own behalf. You may want to use this information to direct the student in your family towards the resources they need.
What has this world of parenting come to that universities feel the need to tell parents to back off and let students problem solve on their own? What kind of people have we raised that a university feels compelled to tell parents that their children should be polite when trying to resolve issues? How did this happen?
I don't know, but it is a real problem, parents calling profs ad asking why their students got a certainn grade and trying to provide excuses for them...all I say is "your son/daughter is an adult have him or her speak to me" and hang up.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it terrifying?? We received a similar manual from the daughter's university ... Sad. A few weeks ago I was at the Driver Testing grounds booking a test date with my kid. An irate mother stormed in demanding an immediate meeting with the tester. She was shouting about her son being a straight A student, how could he fail this test?
ReplyDeleteSTEP AWAY FROM YOUR CHILD! LET HIM TAKE HIS OWN JOURNEY!!!!!
I'm certain these are not the only tales of parents stepping over boundaries. At what point do these children grow up? Or don't they?
ReplyDelete