Today's "snowplow parents" keep their children's futures obstacle-free

[Demovictory9]

How Parents Are Robbing Their Children of Adulthood
Today’s “snowplow parents” keep their children’s futures obstacle-free — even when it means crossing ethical and legal boundaries.


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Helicopter parenting, the practice of hovering anxiously near one’s children, monitoring their every activity, is so 20th century. Some affluent mothers and fathers now are more like snowplows: machines chugging ahead, clearing any obstacles in their child’s path to success, so they don’t have to encounter failure, frustration or lost opportunities.

In her practice, Dr. Levine said, she regularly sees college freshmen who “have had to come home from Emory or Brown because they don’t have the minimal kinds of adult skills that one needs to be in college.”

One came home because there was a rat in the dorm room. Some didn’t like their roommates. Others said it was too much work, and they had never learned independent study skills. One didn’t like to eat food with sauce. Her whole life, her parents had helped her avoid sauce, calling friends before going to their houses for dinner. At college, she didn’t know how to cope with the cafeteria options — covered in sauce.

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If children have never faced an obstacle, what happens when they get into the real world?

They flounder, said Julie Lythcott-Haims, the former dean of freshmen at Stanford and the author of “How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success.”

At Stanford, she said, she saw students rely on their parents to set up play dates with people in their dorm or complain to their child’s employers when an internship didn’t lead to a job. The root cause, she said, was parents who had never let their children make mistakes or face challenges.

Snowplow parents have it backward, Ms. Lythcott-Haims said: “The point is to prepare the kid for the road, instead of preparing the road for the kid.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/style/snowplow-parenting-scandal.html

[Sherman A1]

1. Interesting description

and one that seems rather appropriate for at least some.

[pnwmom]

2. This makes sense for high school students and above.

But for elementary and middle school children, parents sometimes need to snowplow.

My sister had a very bright son who she could see was dyslexic (like his father) -- before the school was ready to acknowledge it. (Since he was so bright, he could still score at the median on standardized tests, even though he had so much trouble reading. He was a great multiple-choice guesser.) So she got him in for testing and then was able to arrange the IEP and in-school instruction that he needed. Otherwise, his dyslexia would have interfered with the subjects he was most drawn to -- math and science.

Meanwhile, I had a daughter in elementary school who had been in multi-age classes. For a few years, the teachers had her working with the older kids, so when they all "graduated," my now 5th grade daughter was working on her own. When it came time for middle school, the teacher told the middle school what class my daughter was ready for -- and they ignored it. Instead, they wanted her to essentially repeat two years of math. So I had to be a snowplow to clear her path into middle school. But once she was there she didn't need me anymore. That was the point.

P.S. I wish I could tell that principal, who finally decided to move out of her way, that my daughter ended up with a PhD.

[Dorian Gray]

4. Advocating

for a child with needs that aren't being met by the school is not the same thing as snowplowing.

Oh, heck. Who knows? Maybe some people think it is.

But I don't.

Taking care of every single thing so your child is incapable of doing anything for themselves is problematic. But advocating for classes, especially if the child has a learning difference, as your gifted dyslexic nephew does, and as your high performing daughter does, is appropriate for a parent. Even a high school parent.

It's not appropriate in college, though.

[pnwmom]

5. Right. Back when I went to college, long distance phone calls cost real money,

and so most of us only called home once a week or so. Our parents didn't have a chance to be helicopter parents, and we wouldn't have wanted them to be.

After she graduated from college, my daughter finally confided in me that they had a mice infestation in their dorm (which had kitchens in the suites). She never told me because she knew I'd be grossed out, and she didn't want to hear about it. Good plan.

[Dorian Gray]

6. I was in college

back from 89-93. We had a bug infestation (Larva, maggots, flies) in our apartment one year. I don't think any of us told our parents. We dealt with it.

I do think cells and social media make it much easier to keep in touch. There is both good and bad that goes with it. A loss of independence isn't surprising when it's possible to be in constant contact.

[MineralMan]

7. I had mice in my dorm room at college.

So, I tamed them, and they came to me for food. No problem - I brought back goodies for them from the dining hall. Mice are smart. It takes virtually no time to have them sitting on your leg, eating food from your fingers. My roommate thought I was weird, but ignored the mice anyhow and wasn't really bothered by them.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. Yet another scare story from the NYT about a very, very small group of people.

[MineralMan]

8. Actually, it's probably more prevalent than you thing,

at least to some degree.

[IronLionZion]

9. I can't be the only one who finds this incredibly amusing

Maybe those of us with immigrant parents are battle hardened and made more resilient to better deal with the cruelty and viciousness in the world today.

Some people these days might go the way of the dodo.