As a parent, I see this:
Schools encourage parents to get involved with their kids’
education, to make sure homework gets done, to encourage them to study for
tests, etc.
The minute we, as parents, get involved by having a question
on a grade or an assignment, we’re labeled as helicopter parents and
troublemakers.
As I read more about helicopter parenting, it’s clear we
don’t fall into that category. We allow our children to fail. They face
repercussions for their actions. And we don’t do everything for them.
But we do check on things.
Our schools send us weekly reports on grades. My wife goes
over them with each child, noting any low grades or missing assignments (we
have one child on the autism spectrum, so doing this is imperative, as he has a
knack for completing homework but forgetting to turn it in). If we notice
there’s a problem, we’re not immediately on the phone with teachers. We make it
clear it’s our kids’ jobs to find out about late or missing work, and to make
arrangement s with their teachers to get it done or suffer the consequences.
However – there are times we have to step in. And this is
where the helicopter parenting label seems to get slapped on, and quickly.
We’ve pulled our oldest kid out of classes and got him with
a different teacher when we could see the teacher’s style wasn’t going to mix
with his cognitive limitations. And we let our youngest take a class from the
same teacher, and thusfar, things have gone well.
We’re right now butting heads with a teacher/student teacher
combination over rather vague language used in grading one of our daughter’s
essays. The message we’ve received is that the teachers will cover this in
class, and that since the discussion takes place in class, we, as parents,
don’t need to be involved. Except that our daughter isn’t understanding the discussion
in this advanced class. We’ve just asked for the definition of one concept –
but we can’t get it. Because it was discussed. In class.
If seeking clarification over a bit of classroom jargon is
helicopter parenting, I guess we’re guilty.
We’ve also had to fight to get our kids credit for dual
enrollment and advanced placement classes. The school district and state have
rather byzantine systems to get the students this credit, with only one person
in the district trained clearly on the ins and outs. My wife ran up against
roadblock after roadblock earlier this semester with this system, including
secretaries who would never let her talk with the person in the know. She
finally got his direct number and got things fixed within minutes.
(Thanks to one teacher, at least, who noticed for our oldest
that the final button hadn’t been pushed the day before the deadline so we
could get two classes taken care of.)
If penetrating the bureaucracy is helicopter parenting, I
guess we’re guilty.
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