Serendipity35

Don Tapscott posted "Helicopter parents and Web 2.0 - a potent combination" on his Grown Up Digital blog about the phenomenon of “helicopter parents.” That's a term I heard all the time when I was involved in the K-12 world. Those are parents who so closely involved with their children’s lives that they "hover" above them all day.

Those were the days when I would return a test and within an hour find out that the parent of the student who received a "C" grade had already scheduled a parent conference with me. This was the father who told me that he was disappointed in the seventh grade science program which would not meet his daughter's needs since she was "an engineering major." (I had not been aware that we were declaring majors at age 12.)

Obviously, you want your students' parents involved in their education, but this is the overly-involved parent.

When I first started working at NJIT in 2000, I had a conversation with the Dean of Freshman Studies who told me she had actually received a few phone calls from parents about placement exams and schedules. "What is going on in those high schools?" she asked me. I warned her - these parent have been involved since pre-school and many of them are not going to let go when college starts.

But Wikipedia gave me two updates:

An extension of the term, “Black Hawk parents,” has been coined for those who cross the line from a mere excess of zeal to unethical behavior, such as writing their children’s college admission essays. (The reference is to the military helicopter of the same name.) Some college professors and administrators … are now referring to “Lawnmower parents” to describe mothers and fathers who attempt to smooth out and mow down all obstacles, to the extent that they may even attempt to interfere at their children’s workplaces, regarding salaries and promotions, after they have graduated from college and are supposedly living on their own.

Don also linked to a funny video from theonion.com about a digitally savvy mom showing how she uses Facebook and Twitter to keep a close eye on her son at college.