I doubt they do at CCRI or even RIC but who knows, parents vary in their approach. I’d be curious for sure.
I imagine that the staff wouldn’t indulge parents at schools like that the way they do at schools like ours. Not to mention students live in their own community for the most part.
But, I also think that parents who make the sacrifice to send their children to their dream schools are helicopters from the get-go.
I know a mother of a graduate student who moved from Montana to here in Arizona to be close to her son. She even got an apartment in the same complex as him.
Poor guy is trying to have a life of his own. He was taking classes, working in a lab, doing research, met a girl, even got married, and his mother was still following him around.
Pitiful.
I wonder how big a factor money truly is. I would bet many if not all helicopter parents are footing the bill. I wonder how many kids who are shackled to student loans have their parents living in a motel room at their beck and call.
My guess: none.
Oh, sister, I hear you. It’s so hard for me to bite my tongue. “My son’s problem is that he has ADD; that’s why he can’t turn in forms by the deadline.” No, lady, your son’s problem is that he’s 23 years old and his mama is making these calls for him.
Sweet Kick Ass Over The Phone !
Word UP!
And yet, at our school, we’ve never even talked to the parents of the kid in the wheelchair. That kid even made their own inquiry call in high school.
Cite?
As far as I’m able to tell, the only states that actually have laws are Maryland and Illinois. Illinois’ is a ridiculous 14 (but is qualified by saying left alone for an unreasonable amount of time before the age of 14 - so a thirteen year old left alone for a reasonable amount of time is fine), Maryland’s is 8.
Most states have “guidelines” that often vary by county. Guidelines are usually written in a “take into account the maturity of the child, the length of time left alone, the circumstances” sort of common sense guidelines. Obviously, you do not want to leave a developmentally delayed 11 year old alone, but a mature eleven year old may not only be old enough to be home alone for half an hour, but keep an eye on younger children for that half an hour while you run to Target.
I agree that it is unreasonable to expect people to not allow their 13 year olds home unattended. Most places seem to suggest that it’s ok for short periods starting around the age of 9.
In my house our rule is that it is at age 10 that they can be alone for a short time (around an hour).
Ours became latchkey kids in second and third grade - at age eight and nine. We would have continued to pay for after school care, but they really wanted to take the bus home. We talked it over with their teachers, all agreed they were ready for that. They are home alone for about an hour - the TV is locked, they let out the dog, have a snack, aren’t allowed anywhere outside the yard and adjoining culdesac yards. Many of my neighbors are home during the day. For my county, this is within guidelines given my kids’ maturity level.
I’m sure they do, though I doubt community colleges have a lot of it going on since so many of those students support themselves and thus must be functioning as adults.
Well, maybe it’s a guideline. I heard it from my husband who is a Social Worker with many years experience working with families and children.
I was a latchkey kid at 9. My twin and I used that time to beat each other bloody.
My son generally calls to say “I’m playing with Matt” - my daughter reads. The don’t beat each other bloody. In fact, they never have really had all out battles or fights.
Not all kids are ready to be left alone at that age - you and your twin obviously weren’t. But other kids are. Which is why laws are crap. Some nine year olds are fine - some beat the crap out of each other - some do drugs (yes, at nine). Some fourteen year olds are fine, some spend their latchkey time having unprotected sex with their boyfriends. If I thought there was a significant risk, I’d have them in aftercare.
My stepson has never been able (even with my help) to get it across to his mother that he is a man and doesn’t need a mommy.
When he’s home on leave she tries to set a curfew for him and wants to know where he is at all times. His friends, she’s sure, are going to get him into trouble. There was an uncomfortable episode where she tried to bring herself to actually voice some vague warnings about girls and pregnancy and diseases.
She was told, in no uncertain terms, to stop emailing his commanding officer’s wife* with her concerns over his treatment and well-being.
He’s currently serving his second tour of duty in Iraq where his combat engineer unit disarms IEDs. He’s the guy that carries the big gun (I think it’s a fifty caliber, but I’m not the guy to ask about military armaments) with a couple-thousand rounds of ammo on his back.
He’s shorter than his 13-year-old half-sister, but he could pick up my six feet and 250 pounds and throw me through a cinder-block wall.
His mother still thinks she needs to wipe his ass for him. She doesn’t seem even remotely as blind to anything else in her life. He and I both just don’t get it.
- The relatives of the men in his unit have each others email addresses so that they can support each other and disseminate news.
She’s really the textbook case, isn’t she?
Obviously your stepson is a grown man. I’m just curious how old he is even though I can see he’s too old for this.
Is she this way with your daughter?
Does she not have any identity outside of being “Mommy”? I find that some of the people in my life who display this behavior tend not to have really done anything that they identify themselves with once they start having children, and then don’t have anything to fall back on once the kids start becoming older and independent.
I think this is a direct hit.
When Mama’s are hovering it is because they have too much time and not enough idenity of their own.
I really feel sorry for your stepson.
Bummer, I’m late to the thread. I haven’t been around much.
I don’t know if someone else would call me a helicopter parent or not. For one thing, I homeschool, so we are in fact together for most of the day. More on that in a moment.
My oldest has some very severe food allergies, which has made me very protective and paranoid. On the plus side, she hasn’t met up with a peanut in 3 years–woohoo! But I do have to work to make sure I’m not being paranoid for no reason and that I’m letting her be a normal kid unless it’s necessary. I think I would have been a very different mom if she hadn’t had this–instead of my natural relaxed personality, I’ve developed a lot of generalized anxiety about safety which I try really hard to keep under wraps. (It wasn’t helped when my younger daughter did her best to drown in a fishpond at age 3.)
With the homeschooling, I expect that a lot of people would categorize that as automatically earning a helicopter label. I would disagree, of course; it’s possible but certainly not universal. I think quite a few things tend to make homeschooling parents focus on independence, actually; I have little incentive to do my kid’s schoolwork for her, since I’m the teacher and I have my educational goals all mapped out in my own mind. I’m not looking for an A. I do have lots of incentive to get my kids doing lots of chores and making their own lunches, etc. (actually independent cooking is a big priority around here, because of the allergies; 8yo will have to be able to cook well by the time she leaves home–no surviving on take-out burritos for her).
Anyway, I hope I’m not–I would never dream of trying to get a teacher to change my child’s grade if she were in school–but I probably have some tendencies because of certain circumstances in our lives. I try to only let them out when appropriate.