Kara Ramos
Staff Writer
klpardun@valdosta.edu

While parents aren’t literally swooping down to carry their children to safety, Valdosta State University, and colleges nationwide, are facing a new problem in parent and child relationships: “helicopter parents.”

Dr. Cheri Tillman, VSU director of perspectives curriculum, has published an article on the subject and works closely with VSU students. She is also the program coordinator for the Freshman Year Experience, where she helps students transition from high school to college.

“Where the term helicopter parent comes from is once the students get into higher ed, parents don’t want to let go,” Dr. Tillman said. “They still want to be involved, and they ‘hover’ when they should be encouraging their child’s independence.”

Parents are e-mailing professors about attendance and grades, wanting to continue involvement after high school, according to Dr. Tillman.

This parenting style has been hovering for several years.

According to Dr. Chet Ballard, a VSU sociology professor, the trend began in the ‘80s-‘90s, when parents were taught to maintain a high self-esteem for their children and to say yes to their every need, structuring their lives around them.

“These children have been socialized to expect and get their parents nearly complete attention to their wants and needs,” Dr. Ballard said. “I think the millennial parents are a reaction to the parenting they saw in a previous generation. They didn’t want to be the missing parent, too committed to work to be there, and be deeply involved in their children’s everyday lives.”

For most students, college is the first time they are living on their own and where they should develop their independence.

“You become less dependent on others and more dependent on yourself,” Dr. Kurt Keppler, vice president for Student Affairs, said. “I think along with taking biology and math and all thoseclasses that you take, part of the college experience is learning how to deal with who you are as a person, how to make decisions, how to manage your money, how to manage your time and how to
manage your relationships.”

While some parents are over involved, Dr. Tillman feels they are being supportive by having good intentions because they want their child to be successful.

“I think parents have the mindset that they want to make the world perfect for their child,” Dr. Tillman said.

One parent who talked to Dr. Tillman has one child at Georgia Tech and one child at VSU. At Georgia Tech they receive emails updating them on important issues and dates, but they do no receive any communication about what is going on at VSU.

“My philosophy is we need to keep parents involved and we need to find a middle of the road
approach,” she said. “We need to work together because I think our retention rates will go up, but we’re going to have to work with parents and students to help it.”

Dr. Tillman has students fill out a records release form to get them and their parents working together, but her students have the freedom to authorize whether they want their records to be released.

“I put what’s good for the student first and I talk to the student, too, and I encourage them to talk with their parents and to bring them in on what’s going on,” Dr. Tillman said. “I feel if we could find some way to work with parents it can be a win-win situation. But we have to make sure that we are not violating any FERPA regulations.”

However, according to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), parents are denied the right to access records from the university without their child’s permission. Parents can only view records when children complete a consent form, parents provide proof that the student is dependent for tax purposes, for safety and health emergencies or if students under 21 violate the use of alcohol or drugs.

When Dr. Ballard talks with parents, he follows his duties as a teacher by sticking to FERPA. While he says that faculty should always be polite, they must say no to parents who want their child’s records unless they meet one of the previous requirements.

“From a teacher’s perspective, when parents contact me it raises the potential for role stress,” Dr.
Ballard said. “Such as representing the university and being helpful to parents of our students, but also being clear on the student’s right to privacy regarding his/her educational records.”

A lot of parents are even encouraging their children to attend schools closer to home. Also, after students graduate from college they are beginning to move back home with their parents.

This trend is referred to as students boomeranging back home,according to Dr. Tillman.

According to the Web site Super Solutions, Jobtrak.com, an online job service for students,
“surveyed college students and found that 60 percent of them said they planned to live with their parents after graduation.

Twenty-four percent said they planned to live with them for more than a year.”

“They [students] aren’t ready to go out into the real world,” Dr. Tillman said. “You get a job once you graduate, your employer is not going to put up with excuses as to why you’re late. I think that’s why you see a lot of students aren’t ready to be on their own.”

Dr. Keppler said, “My view is how to take that parent energy positively rather than negatively. What an 18-year-old needs more than anything else, in my opinion, is encouragement, confidence and willingness to feel good about themselves.”