Parents are increasingly involved in the lives of college students. Colleges have noted the trend for several years. As college parents, we’ve earned several less-than-flattering nicknames — everything from helicopter parents (hovering) to snowplow parents (pushing obstacles out of the way) and lawnmower parents (running over anything blocking our student’s path).
But exactly how involved are parents in their college students’ lives? Is the perception accurate? And, although we know that students need to control their own lives, might there be benefits of parental involvement?
Campus ESP (Campus Experience for Students and Parents), a Philadelphia based technology company recently surveyed 1700 parents about their involvement with their students at the college level. The stated mission of Campus ESP is ”to improve student success by strengthening relationships between schools, students, and those who influence them.” Parents are clearly some of the most influential people in their students’ lives (even if it may not always seem that way to parents).
by Katherine S. Newman is an important look at the trend toward a rising number of multigenerational families. Newman’s findings are based on extensive interviews with 300 people in six countries. Half of those interviewed were parents and half were adult children. Many of the interviewees were from the same families.
