Just before sitting down to write this post, I saw off my 7-year-old daughter as she went on a bike ride by herself. It's a moment of some concern for all of us nowadays, as we seem more worried about our kids venturing out alone than ever before. Yet I gained more satisfaction in letting her free than by watching her intently or greatly limiting her freedoms. This brings me to an old favorite topic for this blog: Helicopter Parents.
As regular readers know, I have increasingly been using The Challenge Dividend concept to highlight the danger of American children who are insulated from the lessons of failure by their parents. My most recent post on the issue hit on a new counter-meme to Helicopter Parents called "Free Range Kids." That post has many other links and some great discussion.
Today, however, I wanted to throw two more examples of society shifting both ways in its view of how to best raise kids. Both come from this weekend's issue of The Week magazine, which pulls from the best-of newspapers around the world.
First, news that a high school in Fairfax County, VA "has abolished the concept of class valedictorian, out of concern that ranking students makes some of them feel inferior." Instead, everyone with a 4.0 GPA will sit in a special front-row seat at graduation and all will have dinner with the principal. Do these educators believe that the idea of "best in class" should not exist anymore - that we have reached some Utopian realm where all are equal? Most likely is that parents complained that it is unfair for only one "perfect GPA" to be recognized. Trophies for everyone, please.
On the other hand, there is power to the movement against helicoptering. Debra Bruno of USA Today laments that, as college graduation closes "nearly three out of five college graduates are moving back home." She suggests that, "'maybe we need to let these kids face a few years of dead-end jobs. If we don't stop jumping in and saving them from their own mistakes, they'll never learn to stop making them."
I think these stories show some progress in advancing the dialog about parenting styles and results.
Thanks for the post & link... reminds of a quote by the great John Wooden, who said,
"The worst you can do to those you love is to do the things they can do for themselves."
Posted by: scott | July 16, 2008 at 04:12 PM
Great quote, Scott!
Or how about Sting, who said: "if you love someone, set them free..."
Posted by: Bob | July 19, 2008 at 09:47 AM