Helicopter Parents

Throughout both essays the authors had similar views and information but they both also had really good points that made them different from each other. The essays were about parents with college students letting go of their child and letting them handle things on their own instead of depending on mom or dad to solve the problem.

In “How helicopter parents are ruining college students” the author Amy Joyce inserts quotes from Johnathan Gibralter, the president of Frostburg State University, where he said he has had parents call him at his office to talk about a squabble their child is having with a roommate. “Rather than telling a son or daughter to talk to a [resident assistant] or [resident director], parents will immediately call my office.”

For example in “How helicopter parents are ruining college students” Academic Advisor and associate professor at the Adler School of Professional Psychology in Chicago, Dr. Marla Vannucci stated that “I had a college-aged client whose parents did her homework for her. The mother didn’t want her daughter to struggle the same way she had.” The daughter, however, “has grown up to be an adult who has anxiety attacks anytime someone asks her to do something challenging” because she never learned how to handle anything on her own. “It really breeds helplessness” (Joyce p.1). Parents not letting their children make mistakes and figure things out on their own, cause’s long-term problems to occur in how the child reacts to the challenges within adulthood. In “No, helicopter parents aren’t ruining kids after all” the author inserted information that stated “The NSSE survey didn’t find a lot of HP going on, but students who did have such parents reported “higher levels of [academic] engagement and more frequent use of deep learning activities.” In fact, children of helicopter parents were more satisfied with every aspect of their college experience” (Kohn