Sad Kids- and how to resist Helicopter Parenting

Roughly 8 ½ out of 10 of us will get a phone call from a super miserable college kid.

Like, flat-out miserable.

They will be friendless, homesick, overwhelmed by the work, unsure of their every decision, and will be quite certain things will never get better.

Every molecule in your body will scream, ‘Baby don’t worry! Mama’s here! I AM COMING TO SAVE YOU FROM THIS CRUEL COLD WORLD AND ALSO I WILL BAKE YOU COOKIES, WHEN CAN I BOOK YOUR FLIGHT HOME?’

You must under no circumstances do the very thing you feel you need to do in your soul…rescue them.

Your child is on the Hot Mess Express and it is a ride they have to take to get to This-New-Place-Feels-Like-Home Junction.

Do not pull them off the train.

Also do not get on with them and lament that yes everything is horrible because that is a straight shot to Sad Sack City.

Instead, you need to run alongside that train waving your hat and saying things like, ‘You’ve got this it’ll all be OK!,’ ‘It’ll be a short ride and you’ll be so happy when you get there!’ or ‘Keep your dorm room open so people can see you are home!’ or ‘Look straight ahead so you don’t get train sick!’

That is it.

Listen to them.

Validate their feelings because the adjustment can be hard and long and feel not so great.

It’s OK for them to struggle and they might just need to talk about how crappy it all is.

But they also need us to believe in them.

They won’t always believe they can do it so we need to step it up and tell them they indeed can.

Remind them they are a gift from God to the world and that they’ve had friends before and they will again and their little brother still thinks they’re the coolest.

And I know what you are thinking, What if they are not OK?

What if this all is a disaster and the right thing to do is to bring them home?

I hear you, and on the off chance that is the case you need them to tell you when that time is.

And it isn’t on weekend two when they still don’t have a friend.

It isn’t even on weekend four when they are still sitting in their dorm room.

A good rule is to make them stay put for at least six to eight weeks, especially if they are having a hard time.

Yes, this will basically feel like forever to both you and your miserable child.

But something happens around the 6-week mark.

They make friends or at least one friend.

They connect with a professor.

They break down and join something, anything.

They realize they know the way to all their classes and have a new favorite coffee at the coffee shop.

Someone invites them to a party and they go and it isn’t a nightmare.

The cafeteria staff starts to recognize them and lets them know when they’re going to make more potstickers.

And they have made connections all on their own.

Of course the conversations you have had and the bazillion prayers you have prayed have helped but basically, they own this.

They have carved out a new home without anyone else and it will feel amazing.

Do not steal this from them.

Sit with them, coach them, pray for them, but make them stay on that train.

It will be one of the hardest things you have ever done.

I know, I have done it once and I have four more in line to allow me to experience this joy of parenting again, and again, and again and again.

Unless they choose to just stay with me forever which at least one of them still promises to do. #liar

Surround yourself with support because you will need it too.

You will see pictures online and think all the other kids in the land are happy but yours.

But if you ask a parent or two you may find they are right there with you.

At least 8 1/2 of them.

We’ve got this friends and so do they.

Shared from Hiding in the Closet with Coffee by Amy Betters-Midtvedt

Former Purdue President Mitch Daniels is a regular contributor to the Washington Post. He wrote this just before Mother’s Day 2022.

Can I get something on the record? I love moms. I really love moms. A caring mother provides the best chance, sometimes the only chance, a young person has of turning into a responsible, self-reliant, high-character adult. No mission is nobler.

However. Ahem. Even moms are subject to that fundamental caveat of life: “up to a point.” Working daily with and on behalf of tens of thousands of other people’s children, as I do as the president of Purdue University, one encounters mothers who, let’s just say, carry things a little far. Like the one who insisted, without ever providing any documentation, that her child was allergic to all non-organic food. She ordered food multiple times a week, accompanied by specially selected spices, and had it delivered to our dining courts with a demand that the staff cook it separately for him, to her specs. (They did, for a year, until the demands, or maybe the “allergies,” ceased.)

Or the mom who wrote and called eight times to complain about her daughter’s accommodations. She was sure there was mould (the test she ordered came back negative) and that the water was tainted (she sent it out for tests — negative again). The oven handle was loose. (Has the college student tried using a screw- driver?)

My school often receives helpful advice about adding street lights or other measures to enhance physical security — on a campus found every year to be one of the safest in the nation. After the university acceded to one mother’s demands and moved her daughter to different housing, she continued to complain on behalf of other people’s children who apparently hadn’t realized the extent of their own jeopardy.

Of course, many of the grievances are justified, and we try to act on them promptly. But after years on the receiving end of such entreaties, I find that the term “helicopter parent” no longer seems adequate to capture the closeness of the hovering. “Mom mowers” might be more descriptive.

This is not to exonerate the fathers. Although paternal complaints make up a much smaller fraction of the campus mailbag, they can be just as difficult. One father was the source of 13 emails and three phone calls about how miserably lonely his son was, insisting he be moved to a different residence. When visited, the student reported having lots of friends, several extracurricular involvements and zero interest in being moved.

Such parent-student disconnects are not uncommon. One mother was persistent and belligerent because her son’s bed was too short for his 6-foot-3-inch frame. When visited to see if the university could make a different accommodation for him, he picked up his cellphone, called home and bluntly asked Mom to butt out.

As extreme as such examples are, it is impossible not to empathize with parents who, rationally or not, worry about the physical safety or comfort of their child. More dubious are parents’ attempts to shield their off- spring from failure or the academic challenges that higher education, if it’s doing its job, presents to its young clients.

Like the mother who insisted that we gather all her son’s homework assignments daily and fax them to her so that they could work on them together every evening. Or the one who requested an “advance interview” for herself the day before her daughter’s own interview regarding a possible academic award, so that she could “explain her daughter’s qualifications” for the honour in question.

Or, a personal favourite, the mom who impersonated her son — yes, son — at his teaching assistant’s virtual office hours, to present his homework solution and push for a 100 percent grade. Even with the Zoom camera off, the TA detected the subterfuge.

Years ago, when my wife and I took the eldest of our four daughters to start college, the arrival day’s welcome program ended abruptly mid-afternoon. Parents and kids had attended separate orientation sessions at lunchtime, and when we saw our daughter again it was for only five minutes, before the adults were politely excused. The message was clear: A new era has begun for your child, and that means for you, too.

In a country where so many social sadnesses are the consequence of irresponsible, neglectful parenting, one cannot fault those who love their children to the point of overprotection. But protection from challenge — and from the occasional failure that is often the best teacher — can be endangerment of a different kind.

So, bless all the moms, and dads, including those who go a little over the edge. We’ll do our best to be responsive. But remember: When your kid graduated from high school, maybe it was time for you to graduate, too!