August 20, 2006, The Sunday Star-Ledger Majoring in meddling Some parents are way too involved in their college students' lives By PEGGY O'CROWLEY STAR-LEDGER STAFF The calls begin during the summer before freshman year and, by now, college administrators know what to expect: The mother who wants the philosophy course stricken off her daughter's schedule for the fall - without telling her child - because philosophy "is silly, and she's paying the bills, and we need to have that changed," said Julie Traxler, assistant dean for first-year students at Rutgers College in New Brunswick. The parents who last year asked Mark Schuster, Rutgers College's assistant dean for student services, if they could have a three-week visitors' pass so they could stay in their child's dorm room. "I thought they were from somewhere like Europe, but they lived an hour away," he said. The parents who called Linda Walter, the director of family orientation and disability support services at Seton Hall University in South Orange, to complain their freshman is getting an "F" on a midterm from a mean professor - even though the student has worked hard. The parent who called the hall director of his child's dormitory to demand the kid's roommate be evicted immediately because the students aren't getting along and "my child is not doing anything wrong," said Marjorie Savage, the parent program director at the University of Minnesota and author of "You're On Your Own (But I'm Here If You Need Me): Mentoring Your Child Through the College Years" (Fireside, $14). By now, college officials have a name for them: "helicopter parents," who hover over their students from infancy to college to make sure everything runs smoothly for them. But it's not just the parents, according to those who work at colleges and high schools. The kids themselves seem happy with this level of involvement, calling parents on their cell phones whenever they hit a social or academic snag. They have a name, too, "millennial students," according to Walter, who is working on a doctoral dissertation on this generation. Born from the early '80s through the mid-'90s, the first wave of millennial kids hit college around 2000, the same time officials started noticing the wave of intense parent involvement. This generation is much closer to their parents, often saying a parent is "my best friend," more likely to be in touch constantly via cell phones, e-mail and instant messaging, more likely to let parents manage their lives even when they leave home, according to Walter. "That's the new thing to me," Traxler said. "Parents have been involved for many years and students used to say, 'I'd be so embarrassed if my parent called.' But now, they don't see it as crossing the line the way we do. It's great that they have these relationships, but it's taking away from students' growth." Kristin Leccese, 16, of Lyndhurst, a junior at Lacordaire Academy in Montclair, and her sister, Maria, 20, a junior at the College of St. Elizabeth in Convent Station, are typical of this generation. When school is in session, Maria talks to her dad at least once a day. "I mostly call her, depending on her stress level, or to wish her good luck on an exam. She calls me if she got a bad grade, if she's stressed out from too much work, if there's a problem with her friends. I'm her buddy," said Pat Luccese, a software consultant. With her parents at a college fair at Drew University in Madison recently, Kristin said she wouldn't want to go to any school more than two hours away, "so if I got homesick, I could get home." That's a fairly new phenomenon on the college admissions scene, said Maureen Tillman, a Morristown psychotherapist who started "College with Confidence," a program to help college-bound teenagers develop life skills. "Parents have a worry after 9/11, and lots of kids won't look beyond a three-hour drive," she said. Seton Beckwith, a mother of six from Montclair, contacts her daughters, Micalagh, 22, a recent graduate of Messiah College in Harrisburg, Pa., and Brindley, 19, who attends the same school, every two to three days. "I consider them like best friends. We communicate regularly, not just for money but for advice and to share things," said Beckwith, who uses cell phones, e-mails and cell phone texting to keep in touch. Beckwith also meets with other college mothers at a local chapter of Moms in Touch, a Christian group for women who pray for their students. "We keep each other updated on our weekend plans. I know a lot of their friends. My parents didn't know my college friends," she said of her children. Her older daughter would e-mail her college essays to mom for editing, although Brindley is more independent, she said. She and the rest of the family, however, often see Brindley at her college soccer games, which they travel to on weekends. "It's almost like back in high school, going to games," she said. Beckwith said she has asked her daughters if they are comfortable with that level of involvement and said their relationship is reciprocal. "They're e-mailing me. I just got a text yesterday from my daughter in camp in Canada: `Mom, call me.'" Compared with some parents, she's the picture of restraint: A study of freshmen at Middlebury College in Vermont, released earlier this month, found that students contacted parents an average of 10 times a week. The frequency of communication is, of course, enabled by the explosion in technology. Texting family and friends is a far cry from the days when most Boomer college students lined up at the pay phone in their dorm hall to call home, collect, maybe a few times a month. Constantly checking high school friends' MySpace profiles is a lot different from meeting up with hometown pals for the first time during Thanksgiving break. And being able to call mom in tears because of a bad exam or a fight with a roommate tends to propel a situation into a "let's-fix-it-now" crisis. But the contact is just a reflection of the intensity of the relationships, Walter said. In a recent poll by Experience Inc., a career advisory service to students, a quarter of 400 recent grads and college students said their parents were "overly in- volved to the point that their involvement was either annoying or embarrassing." But 65 percent said they turned to their parents for advice on academic and career decisions. And nearly a third of students in a separate survey of 20,000 students said they would "miss their parents terribly" during the first year of school. There are several factors responsible for the phenomenon. "I think that this is the first generation of parents who went to college as a big group. It may be that they're more informed and thus need to be more involved," Traxler said. "I've noticed that parents who haven't gone to college are a bit more stand-offish." Walter said this generation of parents have fewer children and, thus, more time to pay more individual attention to them. This kind of focus starts early in life, even before conception — Walter points out that most advances in reproductive science in the last 20 years have been in infertility, indicating that people desperately want to be parents. Once their children are born, parents go about making sure their precious offspring are safe — this is the first generation that's never been without car seats, bike helmets or organized play dates, said Walter. "One of the funny things I ask is, `How do you know when it's time to come home in the summer?'" she said. "Baby Boomers always respond, `When it gets dark out, when the street lamps come on.' Today's kids don't know that. They think it's when mom calls or they call her on their cells. So, instead of being good problem solvers and having conflict resolution, they have to be taught those skills." There are many positives, too. They are less likely to smoke or drink (although those who do are likely to be heavy drinkers), and they have a strong commitment to volunteering, according to Walter. These students are also more accepting than previous generations, less sexist or homophobic, Schuster said. Throughout elementary and high school, they are also more involved in extracurricular activities, also organized by adults, such as sports, music and enrichment classes. "The good piece is they're very good team players. The downside is they're not very good at accepting individual responsibility for things," Walter said. Given this involvement, and the pressure to get into top colleges, it's no wonder parents are not ready to drop out when their children graduate from high school, prompting parents to call college deans asking for information because their children are "too busy" or don't "pay attention" and therefore need help. Another reason is the high cost of college. With parents shelling out bigger bucks for tuition, they want some return for their investment, and are willing to manage their kids to protect that investment. "When we say, `Let go, trust the school that we'll take care of them,' today's parents sit back in their chairs and glare at us," Savage said. "The cost of college is so much greater that it's a family investment. Parents are worried about losing money if their students mess up." Some parents pressure their children to follow career tracks in the sciences or medicine, for example, when it's apparent the student does not have the aptitude, Schuster said. "These students are killing themselves to get `D's' and `C's' in science, and no one has had the conversation whether or not that person should become a doctor," he said. "I tell the students that success isn't defined as what other people think of you. Happiness is your own definition of yourself." That rigidity affects students' creativity and independent thinking, he said. As involved as they want to be, parents face official frustrations. The federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, known as FERPA, forbids schools that receive federal aid from sharing records such as grades with anyone but "eligible students" age 18 or over. That can be a problem when students who are flunking out don't come clean with parents. "Under the law, you cannot have access to your children's grades and you can't talk to the professors without permission," said Cindy Foster, a Moms in Touch member who recently moved to South Carolina from Montclair. "For us, that was our daughter's downfall." Foster and her husband didn't find out their daughter had flunked out of school in North Carolina until it was too late to intervene. In retrospect, Foster said, she should have insisted that she get permission to share her daughter's grades. The increasing visibility of FERPA has led some parents of incoming Rutgers College freshmen to ask for a waiver of the restrictions, much to Traxler's exasperation. "I wrestle with this. If you're this close to your child, why is this necessary? Maybe you need to think about this as a business relationship: This student needs to give you a copy of the grades before you write a tuition check," she said. As tough as dealing with these parents can be, college officials realize the old message — just let go — won't work with them. Instead, those in admissions, student life and parent orientation believe that a new part of their mission is to help parents learn to empower their children, rather than do for them, a message they say parents embrace better than being told to go away. For instance, when a parent calls Traxler to say her daughter wants to drop a class because the professor is intimidating or hard to reach, she will tell Mom that the student needs to contact the professor and hash out differences herself. "Because the professor is not warm and fuzzy is not a reason to drop the class," she said. "That's not a good life lesson. There are always going to be intimidating people who are not warm and fuzzy to deal with." When Savage fields calls from parents demanding their child's roommate be ejected, she tells them it's a problem between the two students and the resident hall director. Seton Hall launched a new parent/student orientation program two years ago, "Ready or Not, Here Comes College," based on child psychiatrist Mel Levine's book, "Ready or Not, Here Comes Life" (Simon & Schuster, $14). Parents are told they are not the "cruise director" of their kids' lives, Walter said. Instead, they are asked to help students become more independent by discussing how their child might problem-solve a situation rather than getting directly involved. That way, students get the best of both worlds, caring parents and increasing levels of independence. Schuster said he asked the parents who wanted the visitors' pass how their child and the student's roommate would feel about their moving in — never mind the rest of the dormitory residents. They changed their minds, he said. Many parents who are in constant contact do draw the line between support and control. Leccese, the father who calls his daughters daily, said he would never intervene in school life, such as calling to make sure they get up in time to take an exam or contacting a professor over a grade. "That's their job," he said. ________________ Peggy O'Crowley covers family issues. She may be reached at pocrowley@starledger.com or at (973) 392-5810.
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