Study links college depression to helicopter parenting

I'm working Dick's Slate beat today.

Helicopter parenting is increasingly correlated with college-age depression and anxiety.

Written by a former Stanford dean:

In my years as dean, I heard plenty of stories from college students who believed theyhad to study science (or medicine, or engineering), just as they’d had to play piano,and do community service for Africa, and, and, and. I talked with kids completely uninterested in the items on their own résumés. Some shrugged off any right to be bothered by their own lack of interest in what they were working on, saying, “My parents know what’s best for me.”

...

In 2013 the news was filled with worrisome statistics about the mental health crisis on college campuses, particularly the number of students medicated for depression. Charlie Gofen, the retired chairman of the board at the Latin School of Chicago, a private school serving about 1,100 students, emailed the statistics off to a colleague at another school and asked, “Do you think parents at your school would rather their kid be depressed at Yale or happy at University of Arizona?” The colleague quickly replied, “My guess is 75 percent of the parents would rather see their kids depressed at Yale. They figure that the kid can straighten the emotional stuff out in his/her 20’s, but no one can go back and get the Yale undergrad degree.”

 

Damn it!

As soon as I saw the headline, I just knew Dick had posted it.

Then, I was going to beat up on you for working Dick's corner, but you beat me to it.

 

Not only that but they don't even like Seinfeld.

 

Like many people, lots of our more casual acquaintances are people whose kids are involved in the same things our kids are. One Facebook* friend is the mother of a kid who was in a church youth group with my son. This kid is a rising senior, so he's finalizing that college resume as we speak. His mother's Facebook feed is pretty much exclusively what little sonny-boy is doing on behalf of the the world this week ... in other words, what parent-driven resume-builder he's been roped into this time.

*One guess as to her Facebook profile permutations over the past two weeks.

 

I remember walking up to the press box a few years ago at a high school game and hearing a high school girl casually telling someone that her mom had written her college application essay. I'm not surprised at all at the stuff about kids not being interested in what's on their own resumes.

My kid says he wants to be a spy. Fuck it. Let him.

 

Spies use guns.

 

His goal is actually to be a ninja spy.

 

Friend of mine has a son who is a golfer at at Division I school. It's well known that the mother of a senior on the team writes all his papers and had him enroll in classes heavy on papers so she could do them.

He made Academic All-Conference, and the golfers all congratulated his mother on making All-Conference.

 

As long as he has a concealed carry permit for his shurikens.