
The 'Over-Parenting Crisis' in School and at Home (2015) - Ibethewalrus
https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/07/24/628042168/the-over-parenting-crisis-in-school-and-at-home
======
christofosho
As a teacher of ages 4 up until 14, I think parents and people in general need
to be concious toward what constitutes "over" parenting. Too often we as
teachers see students that are behaving poorly, or having more trouble in
school, because they do not have enough help or consistency at home. Parents
reading articles like this might take them too literally and step too far from
their child's life. Parenting should be a balance. You should know, as a
parent, what is happening with your child's schooling, and be there to help.
But you should not micromanage the child. Parent involvement leads to more
academic confidence and success[1], and more behavioural[2] success.

[1]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3020099/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3020099/)
[2]
[https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/scmsAdmin/media/users/sm6/McCormi...](https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/scmsAdmin/media/users/sm6/McCormick_2013_parent_involvement.pdf)

~~~
btilly
Let me turn this around.

As a parent, I think that teachers should pay attention to research on
homework that says there is on average no academic benefit, but there is a
huge cost in family conflict. You have enough time in the classroom to teach
and provide practice time. Free family time up for what parents see best.

~~~
marcell
> there is on average no academic benefit

What? This sounds BS. If you don’t practice what you learn in school, how will
you ever master it? Eg. How will you learn integration if you don’t do some
practice problems?

~~~
tofflos
Parent also wrote "You have enough time in the classroom to teach and provide
practice time" so he/she agrees with you but argues that there is enough time
for that practice to take place at school.

~~~
btilly
Exactly right. Practice is essential, but it is essential that it be correct
practice. According to research, supervised practice in the classroom is both
superior to homework, and sufficient for learning.

------
laurieg
As someone considering starting a family, I have literally no idea what
parenting is anymore. When I was younger I was pretty much left to my own
devices, sent off to play with my brother and then packed off to school when
old enough. My parents were too busy working, cooking and cleaning to do much
fancy extra curricular stuff.

I do wonder now what I should be doing to prepare for parenthood. I feel that
perhaps it's not the sort of thing that can be distilled down into an easy to
read 200 page paperback.

~~~
rayiner
I'm working on kid #2, and my takeaway is this: "parenting science" is like
"nutritional science." It's _almost_ entirely bullshit, and little to no
progress has been made in the field ever. There is no use paying attention to
it, other than doing/not doing the obvious things. (Don't eat too many
calories; don't emotionally destroy your kids.)

Your kids will turn out how they are going to turn out. Instinctively, you'll
love them and want to keep them alive, so don't worry about that. Other than
that, do what you think is right and hope for the best.

~~~
bkmartin
This is wholly and categorically untrue. Parenting today is much different
than it was 100 years ago. The way we approach children, discipline children,
and help them grow into their best selves has changed a lot. And it is based
on lots of research. It is also based on all of the work that therapists do
with adults after their parents have messed them up so bad with their horrible
parenting. Every child will be their own adventure, personalities makes
parenting every child different. But to say that there aren't guidelines and
that you should just do whatever comes natural is dangerous. Because beating
children comes naturally to some people. Being passive aggressive or
emotionally blunt with them can come naturally. Being an absent parent and not
spending any time with them can come naturally as work gets in the way. If you
are unsure then seeking professional help to make sure you have the basics
covered is a great way to start.

Parenting is very much an art, but like all art, there is definitely a science
backing it up.

~~~
recursive
The argument is not that parenting has stayed the same. It's that there's no
measurable improvement in results from all the changes. So the argument goes,
the changes aren't worth much, so don't worry about it.

~~~
Trill-I-Am
What about crime rates going down and teen pregnancy going down?

------
jknoepfler
I'd expect NPR to not use the word "crisis" in this context. There no obvious
juncture, no imminent, looming problem that demands decisive action. There's
just yet another op-ed pop-psyche piece about kids failing to learn "how to
adult."

I'm not surprised by the existence of the article, it's as inevitable as my
curmudgeonly response. I'm surprised NPR stooped to publishing it.

~~~
tcfunk
Yeah I was also thinking the term crisis was a bit of a stretch here. 'Over-
Parenting Crisis' is in quotes, however, so I'm wondering if they've taken
that title from one of the books?

------
tehabe
Recently I watched a report by the US correspondent of the German public
television. She spoke with parents who got into trouble because they let their
children play near the house. A mom who put surveillance software on their
children's phone. Parents who look on video feeds from the day care centres.

I found this shocking and also dangerous in the long run, people are getting
used to surveillance might also accept it by the state.

~~~
ajross
FWIW: A "look at those crazy americans!" color story by a foreign journalist
may, y'know, not be the most authoritative source for this kind of thing.

Obviously those products exist (and probably do in Germany too) and I'm sure
that parent who got in trouble was a real incident. Nonetheless those of us
actually raising children in this country don't actually do that stuff. Chill.

~~~
tehabe
Of course it is colourful, but the reporter was a parent too and neighbours
wondered why they let their children play unsupervised outside.

In Germany a court just ruled that a three year old can go alone to the bath
room and their parents don't have to check on them. The child set the bath
room under water and someone wanted the parents to be liable.

Also some years ago, I saw a video from a school parking lot, where the
hundreds of pupils where dropped off by their parents. So instead of building
several schools close to the pupils, they build one big school, to which
almost no pupil come alone.

~~~
Steltek
> In Germany a court just ruled that a three year old can go alone to the bath
> room and their parents don't have to check on them. The child set the bath
> room under water and someone wanted the parents to be liable.

Seems like the alternative is to declare the 3yo liable for the damage, which
is absurd. Water like that can cause a lot of damage; it's not like they
tipped over a glass on the table.

~~~
tehabe
They wanted the parents to be liable for the damage, claiming they have
breached their obligatory supervision to the child.

The judge said that the parents are not obligated to surveillance their child
24/7 in the flat as it would hinder the development of the child.

~~~
nybble41
I would argue that parents (or legal guardians) should be held liable for
damage caused by their minor children, period, without claiming that parents
have an obligation to monitor their children 24/7\. The degree of surveillance
is up to the parents, and I agree that continuous monitoring would tend to
stifle development, but that does not remove the parents' liability. Someone
has to pay for the damages, and it would not be sensible or just for that
someone to be the owner of the damaged property.

The alternative to parental responsibility is that property owners simply ban
unsupervised minors from the premises. They represent too great a risk to be
tolerated in the absence of legal recourse for whatever damage they might
cause.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I would argue that parents (or legal guardians) should be held liable for
> damage caused by their minor children, period, without claiming that parents
> have an obligation to monitor their children 24/7.

The idea that _having children_ should be treated as a strict liability tort
is...unusual.

Without that treatment, the damages would need to stem from some other tort by
the parent (such as negligence by failure to reasonably supervise), or a tort
by the child with a rule that parents are liable for the children's torts.

> Someone has to pay for the damages, and it would not be sensible or just for
> that someone to be the owner of the damaged property.

That's who usually pays for damages not resulting from some failure of a legal
duty, so I do think see why a child being involved would change that.

> The alternative to parental responsibility is that property owners simply
> ban unsupervised minors from the premises.

Well, that's _an_ alternative, and a fairly common one where it's not
fundamentally incompatible with the purpose of the property.

~~~
nybble41
> The idea that _having children_ should be treated as a strict liability tort
> is...unusual.

Yes, but that isn't what I was saying. "Having children" is not the tort.
Damaging others' property is the tort. The parents are liable because it was
their child that caused the damage. The child is their responsibility. What
the child does, _they_ did.

> or a tort by the child with a rule that parents are liable for the
> children's torts

Yes, exactly this.

> That's who usually pays for damages not resulting from some failure of a
> legal duty...

The legal duty which was failed in this case is the duty to not damage others'
property. (You do have that, right? Or are property owners simply expected to
absorb the cost of accidental damage no matter who was responsible?)

> Well, that's an alternative...

I argue that it is the only viable alternative. Why would property owners
voluntarily accept liability for the actions of other people's children
without some form of compensation? But we don't want this alternative, because
it means 24/7 surveillance and stunted development—not out of legal obligation
but simply because unsupervised children would have nowhere to go.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The legal duty which was failed in this case is the duty to not damage
> others' property.

One doesn't have such a duty, otherwise we wouldn't have specific torts at
all, you'd just jump straight to damages.

> You do have that, right?

No, the closest thing to that is general negligence, where you owe a duty of
reasonable care. Damages resulting despite exercise of reasonable care (other
than where a strict liability tort exists) do not generally create legal
liability.

> Or are property owners simply expected to absorb the cost of accidental
> damage no matter who was responsible?

If no breach of a legal duty occurs that produces the accident, yes, people
are, in general, expected to absorb damages.

> I argue that it is the only viable alternative.

But the argument you make for that position is inconsistent with the results
in reality.

~~~
nybble41
> No, the closest thing to that is general negligence, where you owe a duty of
> reasonable care.

So your legal system _does_ recognize a duty not to damage others' property.

I think it is safe to say that flooding the room is a good example of not
taking "reasonable care".

> If no breach of a legal duty occurs that produces the accident...

Irrelevant, as we've already established that there was a legal duty which was
breached.

> But the argument you make for that position is inconsistent with the results
> in reality.

Only if you start from the position that parents are not responsible for
damages caused by their children, which is itself contrary to reality.

~~~
gowld
Apparently, this German legal model is that small children are a force of
nature, like a tornado or hurricane. That's...one answer, and maybe reasonable
in the context of homeowners' insurance and social safety nets, but it's _not_
an indictment of some kind of crazy American helicopter parenting.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Apparently, this German legal model is that small children are a force of
> nature, like a tornado or hurricane.

That's pretty much the US model, too; young children are unlikely to be
subject to tort liability (under common law, there was a firm cutoff at 7
years for negligence, with a presumption against liability up to 14; now in
most jurisdictions it's a balancing test of age, experience, and
intelligence.)

And even where a child is liable, they are likely to be effectively judgement-
proof and many jurisdictions have fairly limited provisions for parent
liability for minors torts (California, e.g., has a quantitatively-limited
amount of parental liability, for liability from willful misconduct.)

There may be some cases where there is a negligence action against parents for
reasonable care in supervision, but it's not clear that the duty the would be
judged that much differently than in Germany.

------
thorell
I think a lot of parents don't know how to effectively parent and make up for
that with enthusiasm. Too much involvement, not enough parenting. I am guilty
of this.

~~~
MaxBarraclough
Which leads to the question of how one teaches general parenting skill.

~~~
citizenkeen
My wife is a pediatric occupational therapist. My dad's always saying "There's
no book on parenting."

My response if always "Screw you, yes there is. But you went to business
school." You can pay someone to fix your injuries, or broken pipes, but you
can't pay someone to raise your kids.

When my son was born, I went into it with the knowledge of three highly rated
books on Amazon I had picked at random.

My wife went into it with years of experience dealing with difficult kids. She
worked at a feeding clinic at a research institute, helping parents figure out
how to get their kids to eat their vegetables.

I'm so grateful. My 2 year old helps fold laundry, says please and thank you,
and knows to put away his toys before bath time.

I don't know what I'd do if I hadn't married this woman. I don't know where I
would have gotten the skills I have now.

~~~
nugget
So what would you recommend for potential parents who don't have the years of
hands-on experience that your wife had?

~~~
analog31
Be born with genes for incredible self discipline and emotional stamina, and
your kids are likely to be born with those genes as well. In fact, all the
books I read said that you have to apply the techniques with total consistency
and regularity, or the method doesn't work. That's something I'm utterly
incapable of doing.

~~~
dragonwriter
> In fact, all the books I read said that you have to apply the techniques
> with total consistency and regularity, or the method doesn't work.

Note that's long been a line used when people are selling stuff they know
doesn't work, because people don't do much of anything with total consistency
and regularity, so when the inevitable failures occur, you've pre-biased the
buyer of your woo to find an excuse to blame themselves, rather than the
snake-oil you sold them.

Even if it's not _knowing_ fraud, any parenting approach that doesn't
accommodate and specifically address the reality that parents are fallible
isn't going to work with real people very well, even if it might work for the
mythical beasts it must be designed for.

------
jimhefferon
I teach in a college. Many's the time I've been waiting to get into a
classroom because the folks in there are wrapping up an exam, and students
come out, instantly produce the phone, and I hear, "Hi mom, I did OK on the
quiz, I think ..." That's too much.

~~~
donovanh
What's wrong with that?

~~~
hamandcheese
On its own, not much. But increasingly parents are involving themselves in
their college freshman’s education, going to bat for them when they “unfairly”
score low, etc.

------
squozzer
I offer the following hypothesis - competition for entry into "the best"
colleges, competition for "free money" through scholarships, and competition
for "good jobs" after college has _driven_ parents to micromanage their
children's school "career."

The margins for "error" \- i.e. achieving suboptimal grades and cultivating
interests outside of "school stuff" \- have shrunk since I was a kid.

This is, of course, in addition to the need for parents to acquire bragging
rights about their children.

~~~
gukov
We gamified our kids.

------
smelendez
> Some schools have an explicit policy against parents doing kids' homework
> and in favor of kids raising issues and concerns themselves rather than
> relying on their parents to do so. These schools are part of the solution.

I'd love to see these policies tested, e.g., have five high school kids with
class scheduling issues attempt to resolve them themselves, and another five
have their parents call, and compare how the process goes.

~~~
thomasfedb
High school kids have class scheduling issues that aren't just automatically
sorted out by the school? Heck. Not my experience for sure!

~~~
throwawayjava
Turns out a lot of the scheduling software out there was written by people who
without formal training or who weren't paying attention in their algorithms
course.

E.g., one year:

Me: requests A and B

Friend: requests A and non-honors B

hour 4: Me in non-honors B; friend in gym.

hour 5 (only hour honors B is offered): Me in A; friend in honros B.

Based on a few years of observations, I'm almost certain courses were filled
using some variant of this algorithm:

    
    
        for each student s sorted by student number:
            for each non-filled course c in hour 1..n:
               if(s wants c and not in c): assign s to c and continue to next hour.
            for each non-filled course c in hour 1..n:
               if(s wants c' and not in c' and c is like c'): assign s to c and continue to next hour.
    

because students with lower student numbers tended to get their choices
(correlated with when student joined district far better than class status)
and courses late in the day were always half empty while courses earlier in
the day were always filled to the brim.

Things got better each year but never in a way that would suggest someone
finally decided to pick up an algorithms textbook.

I suspect by now they've purchased something that works or else managed to
prove P=NP and the solution is billions of if statements fixing special cases
the teachers/students complained loudly enough about...

~~~
thomasfedb
I don't know the details, but I know my school had a person from IT with a
computer science degree on secondment to the studies department at the
beginning of each year to get the timetable sorted out. The phrase "least
constraints matching" is something I remember being mentioned when I asked.

------
stcredzero
Jonathan Haidt thinks an earlier child abduction scare sparked the overly
fragile undergrads that started to appear in 2014.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snqXOvnHzcQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snqXOvnHzcQ)

We are raising kids lacking conflict resolution skills who can't discuss and
would rather coerce someone who doesn't conform to their ideas.

------
tarr11
I'm not convinced this is a real problem. The term helicopter parenting was
first used in 1990 [0] New Yorker article on same topic from 2008 [1]

Articles and posts like this are chock-full of anecdotes and head-nodding, but
short on studies or other data to even correlate against. Seems like this
"crisis" has been happening for a long time.

Is there a longitudinal study on children who have been "helicopter parented?"
vs those who were raised "free-range"?

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_parent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_parent)

[1] [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/11/17/the-child-
trap](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/11/17/the-child-trap)

------
finaliteration
It’s a difficult balance to strike and it’s easy to judge parents either way.
I’m plenty guilty of being on both sides as a parent. My particular challenge,
however, stems from PTSD from childhood abuse and neglect, so I feel even
-more- pressure to give my child everything she needs and wants because I
don’t want her to feel as alone and unwanted as I did. But I do worry that
comes at the price of her independence, which is something else I definitely
don’t want to take away from her.

The paradoxical thing for me is that much of what I’ve achieved has come about
because I was forced to do things on my own and fend for myself. It built a
lot of “character” but at the same time I’m not anywhere near happy or
content.

~~~
fatnoah
>so I feel even -more- pressure to give my child everything she needs and
wants because I don’t want her to feel as alone and unwanted as I did

This is a tough one because I think how we parent is super-strongly influenced
by our experiences as a child. I think the keys here are to make sure she
knows that you love and support her no matter what and that's as much of a
given as that the sun will rise in the east AND to support her on doing things
for herself.

It's one thing if you're there to provide encouragement or a bit of help doing
something vs. telling her to get it done and walking away. She'll learn the
least from having everything on a whim or you doing everything for her. If the
answer is "no" discuss why. Be fair and not capricious. Kids are smart. They
know the difference between a parent that doesn't care and a parent that's
setting limits.

~~~
finaliteration
> It's one thing if you're there to provide encouragement or a bit of help
> doing something vs. telling her to get it done and walking away.

The former is definitely my approach. I never just dump her into a situation
and ignore her, nor do I do everything for her. For example, cleaning up
around the house is a joint effort. And arguments and power struggles are
always followed up by reconciliation and reassurance that I still love her
despite us being angry at each other.

My biggest struggle is not knowing whether a punishment or correction is too
severe (because all of the ones I received were), so I tend to be more lenient
in a lot of situations where maybe I shouldn’t be.

------
projektir
If you find a behavior you don't like, figure out what's causing it. It's
probably not random, parents are probably not just being dumb.

Test scores, or minor misbehaviors, or other things, can disproportionately
influence someone's future, to extents that are not realistic or human.
Children, left to their own devices, will have trouble surviving in a world
that runs on rules that don't actually make sense. Parents can sense this, so
they try to protect their children, and they play by the rules that they see.
There's no advantage to being fair, to doing things the "right" way, because
the message has already gotten out that the rules are arbitrary. It's not
important what you know, it's important that you pass the test.

Or, as they say, "best predictor of future behavior is past behavior" (very
horrible sentiment).

If you don't want parents being overzealous and a bit crazy about their
children, stop making society so damn competitive and inflexible. There are so
many pitfalls someone can fall down just by accident, just by being human.

------
JTbane
The eternal debate continues between the "overbearing fascist helicopter
parents" and the "free-parenting grossly negligent degenerates". (I have no
horse in this race and find these pieces interesting nonetheless)

~~~
mikec3010
Controversy sells/generates clicks. Nobody wants to read a well-reasoned,
balanced article when they're jonesing for that next micro-dose of e-dopamine.

------
notadoc
Related:

> The research found, on average, children were playing outside for just over
> four hours a week

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/27/children...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/27/children-
spend-only-half-the-time-playing-outside-as-their-parents-did)

------
throwaway0255
This topic is always a great opportunity to share stories about what childhood
was like just a few decades ago, so I'll share mine.

When I was 5-10, a typical day for me was spent alone or with friends outside,
from sun up to down, with zero adult supervision. There wouldn't even be an
adult who knew where I was going or where I was. They simply gave me the
responsibility of returning home before the sun went down, and over those
years I always did, mostly because I was hungry. The only exception was one
day when I traveled too far, realized too late that the sun was going down,
and collapsed from exhaustion trying to get home. My family searched for and
found me during twilight. I learned valuable lessons that day.

I recently looked up my childhood home on Google Maps to see how far I would
go, and I would regularly travel within about a 3-mile radius. The surrounding
area was heavily wooded and mostly vacant.

I would see a black bear probably once a month. My parents just told me to
make noise as I traveled, to keep them scared off of my position. I knew never
to play with their cubs. I knew never to run from them. I knew to stand ground
and be loud and aggressive if I was ever approached or charged by one.

I fell off my bike and skinned my knees probably 40 or 50 times. I have many
memories of limping my bike home on foot for a mile while sobbing in pain, and
then squeezing my dad's hand as hard as I could while he poured hydrogen
peroxide or rubbing alcohol over my bleeding knee. Every time this happened,
he would just tell me I was going to heal up fast and get right back on the
bike.

A common route for me was to ride my bike along the side of the highway a few
miles to a corner store so I could buy chips or candy, or visit a waitress my
family knew at a local breakfast spot for some free eggs. Nobody ever stopped
their car and tried to "rescue" me. The people at the shops knew how I got
there, they were not concerned.

When I was about 10, my family moved to a rich white suburb outside a major
city. Their policy of letting me be independent and go wherever I wanted
unsupervised continued, but in this new town I was regularly approached by
adults asking if I was lost, strangers asking where my parents were, and
adults on golf carts with walkie-talkies reprimanding me and sending me home
for no particular reason.

I found their concern for my well-being incredibly insulting. I was insulted
that they thought I couldn't handle myself, and later I was insulted by the
way I realized they were judging my family and my parents. As a result, I was
downright rude to a lot of them, and kind of earned a negative reputation.
Ended up getting blamed for a lot of vandalism despite never vandalizing
anything, and causing problems between my family and other local families,
simply by locals assigning blame to me for all kinds of things based purely on
my reputation of being out unsupervised a lot and being rude to certain
adults.

So I got a taste of both worlds just by moving. I don't think the problem of
over-parenting is restricted to time and trend. I think it has a strong
geographical and cultural component, too. I suspect that if I went back to my
hometown, I might still find kids unsupervised, riding their bikes and
skinning their knees in the summer. I've also heard from people outside the
country that this helicopter parenting thing seems to be largely restricted to
the US.

------
guard0g
What kind of parent does their kid's homework?!

Here's an idea. Why not have "how to be a parent" classes taught in high
school or college?

~~~
aiyodev
Parents who understand what “tracking” is. If you aren’t, you’re setting your
child up for failure.

~~~
seattle_spring
What is "tracking" in this case?

~~~
analog31
Kids are separated into different classes based on ability, so there's a fast
place class and a slower paced class at each grade level. My elementary school
was tracked. My mom made damn sure that my brothers and me were placed in the
fastest track, whether we belonged there or not.

Tracking has a lot of ominous implications due to bias, and has been abandoned
to a considerable extent, but teachers still unavoidably treat different kids
with different expectations. And "involved" parents can influence those
expectations.

~~~
laurieg
Tracking (or setting, or grouping) essentially means that the higher level
groups are freed from the more distracting characters in the lower groups.
Great for them, but terrible for you if you end up in one of those lowers sets
and end up with a loud, boisterous and violent class for a year.

Teachers are busy and overworked. I'm sure they try their best to put kids in
the correct group for each subject, but you could easily end up in the 'wrong'
one with no malice on the teachers part.

My mother was a school teacher and when she found out that I wasn't in the
higher group for English she fought tooth and nail to get me up there. She
knew exactly what could happen in those lower groups.

------
geoffreyhale
"parents are more focused on keeping their children safe, content and happy in
the moment than on parenting for competence"

