About the Role of Parents

jterhune@colby.edu (James Terhune) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 22:05:24 GMT

I’m not sure who coined the phrase “helicopter parents” but I‘d like to kick that person in the shins. I do worry that the nature of the relationship between the current generation of college students and their parents can have an adverse impact on a student’s education. I just don’t think it is accurate or helpful to oversimplify the situation by laying “blame”. The issue is complex, and addressing it in a meaningful way requires a nuanced approach. Snarky monikers like “helicopter parents” don’t exactly invite all parties into the conversation.

The concerns I have are not a function of parents being involved or engaged in students’ lives, but rather what form their involvement takes. The problems occur when parents move beyond providing love, counsel, and support into doing for their students things that students should be doing for themselves. As a parent I know that it is an easy line to cross, in large part because it is a very hard line to see. It is also true that the pricetag for a Colby education being what it is (which is to say high), and the level of pressure students feel to succeed (also high) contribute to the pressing parental instinct to intervene on behalf of students. But intervening in ways that deprive students of the opportunity to manage important, if difficult, life experiences actually undermines their education.

Any meaningful college experience presents a variety of challenges to students, and that is as it should be. We know that on the other side of their Colby experience all of our students will encounter difficult situations in their work and in their personal lives. They will make mistakes and have to cope with the missteps of others. The time they spend in college affords students the opportunity to move towards greater autonomy and independence in a relatively low-risk environment. The trick, of course, is figuring out just exactly how we all (students, parents, faculty, and deans) support students without hindering their growth and learning.

While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to balancing the parent-student relationship, I can offer some thoughts that may be useful.

· Take the long view. While bombing an exam or negotiating a roommate conflict can be really unpleasant, their impact will be microscopic in the grand scheme of a student’s life. On the other hand, the experience gained in working through such problems will likely prove valuable in the long run.

· Ask and listen. If and when a student encounters something unexpected there are people at Colby in place to provide counsel and support. Administrators, faculty and staff are at Colby to teach and advise students, and we want students to succeed.

· Use the coach-player model.It may be helpful to think of parents/family members as coaches to their students (players) as opposed to teammates with them. Coaches help guide, support, and prepare players for contests but the players have to perform on their own.

· Expect some adversity. Colby won’t – and shouldn’t – insulate students from all discomfort. Some elements of this experience will be hard. Dealing with them is important for growth. If students and families understand that some aspects of the college experience will be more challenging than others, then it will be easier to manage the difficult times.

Odd as it may sound, the right role for parents is a lot like teaching kids to ride a bike. We start them out with helmets and training wheels and let them wobble up and down the driveway or a quiet side street so they can get the general feel of it down. Then we take off the training wheels and spend an awkward stretch of time running alongside them trying to supply adequate forward momentum and east-west balancing to prevent them from tipping over and tumbling onto the pavement. Eventually we come to realize that our efforts are at best redundant and at worst holding our kids back, and we know we have to let them solo. So we jog a few last steps beside them and, in a moment that is at once terrifying and exhilarating, we let them go.

In the end, college students have good days and less good days. Their job is to do the best that they can and to learn how to manage the bad days as well as the good. Our job as parents, teachers, coaches, and advisers is to urge them towards their best and try to stay out of their way.

About Conversations that Matter

jterhune@colby.edu (James Terhune) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:28:43 GMT

I’ve been thinking…

…about starting a blog for some time now. As dean of students I am privileged to have a somewhat unique perspective on student life at Colby and I often think that a broader, and more visible airing of some of the issues and ideas that land on my desk and/or occupy my psyche might prove to be interesting – or at least entertaining. It also has the added benefit of providing a forum for some give and take which is always worthwhile.

At any rate, I’m going to give it a go. So for those of you who are inclined to peruse the Colby website, and monitor the various blogs that exist, for at least the near term, you can expect somewhat regular posts from me on any number of issues that are of significance to Colby students. I can’t be certain what direction some of my cyber-essays will take, nor can I say exactly how this little corner of e-Colby will contribute to some larger understanding any of us have of the College, the community, or the cosmos, but hopefully it will provide some useful or provocative insights into what’s happening on Mayflower Hill.

So here goes…

I have been struck this fall by the tenor of the conversation on campus around some issues of real importance. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about the ways in which Colby students are talking about dangerous drinking and about race, privilege, and cultural insensitivity. Neither of these issues, or concerns about them are in any way new at Colby. But the sound of the discourse around them this fall is different. There is more polyphonic dialogue and less atonal monologue. It may not be particularly harmonious at times, but it does seem to be working in that direction. And that’s something.

Regular readers of the Echo (the student newspaper) and the Digest of Civil Discourse (sort of an online chat room for students to discuss a wide range of issues) know what I’m talking about. Over the past three weeks the Echo has run a series of well-researched and well-written articles covering the drinking issue from a variety of perspectives. During that same time period there has been an evolving, threaded discussion on the Digest about cultural and racial insensitivity and white privilege and how these issues play themselves out at Colby and beyond.

As the year progresses it’s likely that I will revisit these themes more than once in this space. There is certainly no shortage of material to be explored under the headings of drinking and diversity. But for this installment, I want to focus on the discussions themselves rather than the specific content. On college campuses in general, and certainly Colby is no exception, we talk a lot about the “free and open exchange of ideas.” We champion openness and discourse and urge students to “step outside of their comfort zones.” But the truth is, often when moments arise where hard conversation is most needed we don’t always live up to the ideals to which we aspire. A rush to judgment and an urgency to assess blame and to punish can chill real dialogue. Anger and defensiveness don’t usually produce the kind of frank and courageous sharing of ideas that is required to effect real change.

But my sense is that the conversations on campus this fall about drinking and about racial/cultural insensitivity have more often than not been precisely the sort of open and civil interactions with hard concepts that we want to encourage. We may not have yet found the solutions to these problems but real, open and honest dialogue is an important step in the right direction.

I've Been Thinking

About the Role of Parents

About Conversations that Matter