As I approached my classroom on the first day of class, a woman was standing outside the room obviously waiting for me. I assumed that she was trying to get me to sign an overload form so that she could enroll in the section I was teaching. However, I was wrong. She was waiting to ask me to sign an overload form for her daughter.

Even if the class had not already been overenrolled, I would not have approved an overload for a student who needs to send her mother to make the request. Such a student does not have the social maturity to do well in my classes. Furthermore, faculty members know that helicopter parents who hover over their children’s lives refusing to allow them to grow into adults can be continuing problems throughout the semester.

I am not arguing that you should not consult your parents for assistance. Rather, my position is that it is not your parents’ role to act on your behalf. Instead, their role is to coach you and then provide emotional support.

A few years ago, a student had some difficulties in my class; difficulties that required us to meet with the dean. After leaving the meeting with the dean, I noticed a woman sitting on a bench in the hall. My gut feeling told me that the woman was my student’s mother. Later, after a one-on-one meeting in my office, my suspicions were confirmed when the same woman was waiting for her daughter in the hall outside my office.

I am far more impressed with the mother who waited in the hall than I am with the mother who hovered outside my classroom. Instead of speaking on her daughter’s behalf or trying to fight her daughter’s battles for her, I am sure that she coached her daughter on how to handle a difficult situation in a professional manner. She could both provide support for her daughter while allowing her daughter to develop important interpersonal communication skills that would serve her well in the future.

Unless you want to remain a child under mommy and daddy’s perpetual care, you need to learn to negotiate your own way through life. While your parents can be an important source of advice, it is a mistake to let them contact your professors on your behalf.

–Steven L. Berg, PhD