Parents subsidize 'kidadults'
More parents are subsidizing their “kidadults” through their 20s and longer, reports the Arizona Republic. Research from the University of Michigan indicates that 56 percent of young adults are living...
View Article‘Snowplow parents’ bully schools
Pushy “snowplow parents” are afflicting schools, writes Ole Jorgenson, head of a private school, in the San Jose Mercury News. Gen Xers orchestrate every move of their preschoolers, from perfect play...
View ArticleProf: Students can’t tie their own shoes
In recent years, college students have lost the ability to tie their own shoes, writes Jerry Weinberger, a Michigan State political science professor, on City Journal. Without their helicopter...
View ArticleMad dads and moms, sleepless kids
Adam Mansbach and Ricardo Cortés’ Go the F**k to Sleep, a father’s anguished plea to his child, has made all the best-seller lists. On Slate, Katie Roiphe sees the quiet desperation of yuppie parents....
View ArticleWe need more helicopter parents
It’s fun to make fun of helicopter parents, but we need more of them, writes Brink Lindsey in The Atlantic. Today’s hyperventilating “helicopter parents” are comic fish in a barrel. Playing Mozart to...
View ArticleHelicopter-ed kids in the classroom
At 50, after a successful career selling magazine advertising, Rod Baird became a high school English teacher at an affluent high school near New York City. Counterfeit Kids criticizes education fads —...
View ArticleColleges teach workplace social skills
To help graduating seniors find jobs, colleges and universities are teaching the social skills of the workplace, reports the Hechinger Report. After final exams are over, MIT students will return from...
View ArticleThe Ivy rat race
New York City’s “most ambitious, wealthiest parents” start the college-admissions process by hiring a consultant to get their toddler into an elite nursery school, writes Lacy Crawford. Then come...
View Article‘I will not check my son’s grades 5 times a day’
I Will Not Check My Son’s Grades Online Five Times a Day vows Jessica Lahey in The Atlantic. Her son’s high school lets parents access information on their children’s academic progress, attendance and...
View ArticleThe overprotected child
The author’s 5-year-old son, Gideon, playing at the Land playground in North Wales. (Hanna Rosin) Overprotective, safety-obsessed parents have “stripped childhood of independence, risk taking, and...
View ArticleFree-range mom aids anxious parents
On a new reality show called “World’s Worst Mom,” Lenore Skenazy, an advocate of “free-range parenting,” encourages anxious parents to let their children try new things. That includes a mother who...
View ArticleTo raise an adult, stop hovering
Helicopter parents are raising fragile children, writes Julie Lythcott-Haims, a former Stanford dean. Colleges are seeing a wave of depressed, apathetic students who can’t make their own decisions. In...
View ArticleWhy the copters? It’s harder to pass on privilege
Why so many helicopter parents? asks Megan McArdle on Bloomberg View. The world isn’t more dangerous than it used to be), she writes. “I grew up in a New York City where kids had a lot more freedom —...
View ArticleAdventure playgrounds pop up in cities
New York City children play at a “pop-up” adventure playground on Governor’s Island. Urban adventure playgrounds — with adult monitors, but no hovering parents — are giving city children a chance to...
View ArticleIn Mike’s playborhood, kids take risks
Children jump from the playhouse roof to the trampoline in Mike Lanza’s backyard in Menlo Park, CA. Photo: Holly Andres/New York Times. As the “anti-helicopter parent,” Mike Lanza has turned his...
View ArticleColleges adapt to helicopter parents
As parents are more involved with their children’s college lives — some send a wake-up call to ensure they get to early classes — colleges are adapting, writes Laura McKenna in The Atlantic. Some...
View ArticleSpoiled children
A college education isn’t intended to make people think any more, write Greg Lukianoff, a First Amendent specialist, and Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist, in The Coddling of the American Mind. “It...
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