College Parents: You Gotta Back the F Off

I’m reading a lot about snowplow and lawnmower parenting, and it’s nowhere more apparent than the parents of college kids.

I see pictures of parents at sorority bid nights. There are parents visiting their kids with such frequency that I wonder if they’ve taken leaves of absences from their jobs. There are monthly local parent “chapters” for many universities that congregate to do things like assemble packages to send to little Johnny and Susie.

I know of a parent that took a day off of work to go meet with their kid (a senior) and his academic advisor to oversee the picking of next semester’s classes. Another parent told me that she can’t wait for Senior Year to be over because “we are spending hours online filling out job applications.” And by “we’ – she meant herself and her kid.

A friend of mine recently sent me a screenshot of a chat from a Parent Facebook page (yes, you read that right – a Parent Facebook page) from her son’s college. A parent posted a desperate plea – ‘IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ’ – asking if someone had an extra pair of mittens for Sally and could they bring them to Sally’s dorm because Sally lost hers and she didn’t want Sally going to class the next day in a snowstorm without any gloves.

I kid you not.

This is where we are at.

I’m all for being involved and staying connected with your kid, but this is getting out of hand. We are making it so that kids can’t problem solve anything – including getting themselves to Target to buy a new pair of gloves.

I have a college-aged sophomore at Baylor University. When I decided to write about this topic, I searched for Parent Facebook pages, because I honestly didn’t know these even existed. There were a few. Reading the comments alone seriously made my head want to blow off my neck. It was all kinds of nuts. These parents are spending serious time asking opinions about professors, apartment buildings, dorm food nutrition and myriad other things that their kids should be dealing with – not them.

College parents….and prospective college parents: you gotta back the F off. They are in college. They are young adults and they don’t need you there at every turn. They need to figure things out. You are not doing them any favors. In fact, you are stunting their growth and cognitive development and setting them up for a lifetime of needing you to be involved with any big – or little decision they make.

I’m seeing more and more “Failure to Launch” young adults in my clinic and believe me, these kids all come from families that have historically micromanaged every aspect of their lives from preschool on up.

It’s a balance. And a delicate one. Parenting is a game, and you need to be in the game. But your job is to be a cheerleader, a coach…..not as a player. Encourage them, instead, to be independent. They might make some good decisions, and probably some bad ones, but don’t fix their mistakes or troubleshoot everything. Be supportive and loving and present – but be in the background, not on the front line.