Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Actually, the RA does have some responsibility, at least to recommend the student go to the health clinic or hospital, especially if s/he is in crisis. RA's have been known to actually drive a suicidal student to a campus or off-campus hospital after hours, and make sure they go inside and register. At some universities, they get training for how to handle such crises. I don't know if that's true at all universities. Often, the RA is the first person to know the student has a mental health problem; the parents may be thousands of miles away, and not have a clue.
This is what I meant when I wrote the comment. If the parent is across the country and a child calls them suicidal then I think that calling the school to help ensure that they get the help they need in the crisis is the right time to intervene. Anyone regardless of their age who is in crisis like that needs someone to help them get the help and if the parents are too far away, then contacting the school is the right move. I have actually heard and read from College Admins that this is one time that they want parents to intervene.
This is what I meant when I wrote the comment. If the parent is across the country and a child calls them suicidal then I think that calling the school to help ensure that they get the help they need in the crisis is the right time to intervene. Anyone regardless of their age who is in crisis like that needs someone to help them get the help and if the parents are too far away, then contacting the school is the right move. I have actually heard and read from College Admins that this is one time that they want parents to intervene.
One of my daughtes was an RA. If she weren't on her honeymoon, I'd ask her if she had any suicide training. My other daughter had an RA who didn't even have a thermometer she could use to take her temperature, so I'm dubious. I did complain to the college about that! We do send our kids off to these dorms thinking that all efforts will be made to take good care of the students.
As far as when college admins want parents to intervene, the admin at one of my daughters colleges said they are more likely to notify parents for physical illness than for anything else. That's out of the horse's mouth.
I only deal with my two sons' colleges when it comes to financial matters. Adding/dropping classes and dealing with grades is their own issue.
Even the college professor who in class openly bad-mouthed a political candidate that my elder son supports while running for office herself, well that was his "welcome to the real world" issue to work through.
I come from a working class background, and my family's attitude, and those of most of my friends, is that when the kid turns 18, they're on their own. Like most of the posters in this thread, they feel like the kid has to learn to stand on his own two feet, and the parent backing off is the way to do that.
But I joined a church that has a lot of rich people, and I got to be pretty good friends with them, and they often had their adult children come visit them and talk out problems. There are a lot of issues that come up after the age of 18 that could use the advice from people who've been through it. And the parents would give advice - important advice. There are huge decisions that have to be made between the ages of 18 and 25+, and telling the kid to do it on their own really cuts their chances of making good choices.
I think that's one of the reasons the best predictor of future earnings is how your parents did.
If your college-age kid is dealing with a bad professor, and they have learned to come to you for help, they are not necessarily asking that you go in and yell at the dean, or even contact the college. They want your perspective on what is reasonable to expect, and what the lines of authority and responsibiilty are. They need to have a better sense of what their options are. Certainly one of the most valuable lessons you learn in college is how to deal with a bureacracy, and how to deal with obstreperous people, and how to recognize that soon enough to get out before the transfer period is over.
Be on your kids' side. Give them whatever advice you can. It's unique to each situation. Tenure does NOT mean professors can't be fired, there are lots of tenured professors that get fired, but usually because they are not politically correct, not because of poor performance in the classroom.
At one the universities I attended, almost all the professors were there because they were able to bring in millions of dollars for research grants. Most professors acted like they considered undergraduate class time as an intrusion upon their real work. I wasted a year of my life, and dropped out. When it came time for my daughter to choose her school, I was sure to help her choose one where educating the undergraduate was a top priority, and helped her pick out schools like that.
Stay involved, be on their side, give them the benefit of your experience. That doesn't mean that you should go in yourself, that's the kids' job.
Great Advice! Also agree that many RAs are trained on monitoring and observing problems in the dorm, as well as the steps needed to report it to the appropriate authorities.
Some schools offer a inclusive study/student life experience, usually in the freshman year, where there is a professor living in the dorm complex with the students. Generally, the professor offers open hours where the students can drop in and socialize or certain organized events. They are not there to monitor drinking or policing the students, nor any counseling, but rather to guide a positive atmosphere for an introduction to living away from home.
Status:
"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
(set 3 days ago)
35,614 posts, read 17,940,183 times
Reputation: 50634
So I was at a parent orientation session when one of my kids was entering college. A man got up and gave the speech about allowing your adult sons and daughters to navigate their own way, this is a learning experience, they should advocate for themselves and so on. No one can disagree with that. Then he said he'd seen two generations of freshman classes come through, and this was the first time they had to create a "parent liaison" office to deal with parents who helicopter and want to do their kids stuff for them.
So a dad in the audience said maybe it's because colleges have stopped being reasonable, and students are sometimes unable to get results with their reasonable requests, and so parents have more and more had to use their stronger voices of authority to right wrongs. You could have heard a pin drop. Because yeah. If reasonable student requests were respected, parents (who usually don't want to get involved, frankly) wouldn't have to step in.
I stepped in a couple times, interestingly, for computer glitches that happened and the university acknowledged my son's schedule was dumped accidentally, and another son was removed from the choice dorm and placed in the worst dorm (oops, sorry, we see he did register and pay the deposit on the first day the registration opened, and through a computer glitch he and the other first 20 students to register were also dumped. We can try to work him in after school starts. Um no, actually, that's not going to work).
So yeah. After my kids tried and hit closed doors advocating for themselves, I did it. Because I was listened to.
"Well, it sounds like you won't be able to resolve this issue. Please transfer me to someone who can". Done.
Had the universities in these cases treated my kids like the adults they were, I wouldn't have had to step up and demand they be treated fairly.
I think y'all are making the assumption that whatever happens, is always the students fault. Which is not true. I've tried to make it clear I'm not talking about lack of studying or lack of trying. I'm talking things that only the professor and college can fix. And we all know that the college will support the professor regardless. Once they get tenure, they're untouchable regardless of how poor their performance. Had one when I went through that was so bad the entire class staged a walk out and went to the dean. You know the dean's answer? "Yes, we know how bad he is, but he has tenure so there's nothing we can do about it."
If you paid $40K for a car that turned out to be a lemon, would you say "well, life's not fair, guess I'll have to accept it" or would you be raising holy heck over it? That's my point for this -- we let colleges off the hook on too many things because "students need to deal with it" or "they need to learn life's not fair" or similar platitudes that do nothing to fix the underlying problem. Poor performance isn't acceptable in other walks of life -- why is it acceptable in education?
I haven't seen anyone make that assumption. What people are saying is that college students should handle their own problems. My daughter was unhappy with a professor and changed classes early in the semester. She didn't like the situation and fixed it. No one is saying that problems should not be dealt with--just that the student should be the person who deals with it, rather than the parent.
I know perfectly well what you are talking about, but the problem is bolded.
Had similar problem when my kid was in college. He was in tech field, but his English Writing class ( or whatever) teacher was a plain nuisance. What mattered to HER was the "headers and liners" - the particular format she insisted the home works should be done. And if it was not done the perfect way she wanted, she was greatly downgrading otherwise good essay. Things like that. He was wasting his valuable time on nonsense like that, instead of paying more attention to tech. classes that REALLY mattered.
At the end, he had to retake that class. I HAD to complain to the dean about all this nonsence, but you can imagine how it ended.
Luckily enough, he had a different teacher next semester, so he passed that English class with no problem.
Wow. My daughter told me this weekend that she lost 30 points on an essay because she didn't put the heading on the correct side of the page. So I did.....nothing. She had a meeting with the TA to discuss proper formatting.
I assume she'll figure out how to do it correctly or make a bad grade in the class, which will hurt her chances (not mine) of getting into a program she claims is important to her.
So I was at a parent orientation session when one of my kids was entering college. A man got up and gave the speech about allowing your adult sons and daughters to navigate their own way, this is a learning experience, they should advocate for themselves and so on. No one can disagree with that. Then he said he'd seen two generations of freshman classes come through, and this was the first time they had to create a "parent liaison" office to deal with parents who helicopter and want to do their kids stuff for them.
So a dad in the audience said maybe it's because colleges have stopped being reasonable, and students are sometimes unable to get results with their reasonable requests, and so parents have more and more had to use their stronger voices of authority to right wrongs. You could have heard a pin drop. Because yeah. If reasonable student requests were respected, parents (who usually don't want to get involved, frankly) wouldn't have to step in.
I stepped in a couple times, interestingly, for computer glitches that happened and the university acknowledged my son's schedule was dumped accidentally, and another son was removed from the choice dorm and placed in the worst dorm (oops, sorry, we see he did register and pay the deposit on the first day the registration opened, and through a computer glitch he and the other first 20 students to register were also dumped. We can try to work him in after school starts. Um no, actually, that's not going to work).
So yeah. After my kids tried and hit closed doors advocating for themselves, I did it. Because I was listened to.
"Well, it sounds like you won't be able to resolve this issue. Please transfer me to someone who can". Done.
Had the universities in these cases treated my kids like the adults they were, I wouldn't have had to step up and demand they be treated fairly.
When I was in college the age of majority was 21. Parents could and did intervene at times. My mom was the most non-interventionist person around; she'd put some of the "hands off" people on here to shame. But she did, once, go talk to one of my nursing profs, not about grades, personality clashes, or anything like that but about whether I had a future in nursing. (Turns out I did!)
Yes, if kids have tried and gotten nowhere, I can see getting involved in some situations, particularly with freshmen who are after all only 18. I'd stay out of teaching disputes, however.
The job of a parent is not to fix all the problems their kid may encounter--it's to prepare their kids to fix the problems themselves. Giving advice is another matter. Parents never stop being parents in that regard.
But complaining to the school about a bad professor? At best, they will only be rebuffed since legally college students are adults. A person can only speak/act on behalf of an adult if there is a power of attorney in place and the person is incapacitated (yes, there is a form that some schools use to allow parents to see grades, but it's just the grades, not everything else).
I think it's an important question, in general, at what ages should parents intervene, for what scenarios should they intervene, and how should they intervene? Unfortunately, my parents refused to intervene even in K-12 school. I was often left to myself in situations that an elementary or middle school student was not equipped to handle on his own. I didn't really have any serious problems in high school or college.
I do agree with the majority of posters who say that parents should not directly intervene in college (but I disagree with the posts saying that problems are always the students fault. I disagree with posts saying that professors are infallible. And I disagree with posts saying that students should just accept life not being fair. What parents should be doing in college would be for them to not intervene directly, but give their students advice as to how to handle a situation (no, saying "Life isn't fair" is not advice, and neither is "you are here to get a degree, not an education). In particular, parents should be giving advice about when to fight and when to fold: what situations to persue, higher up the chain if needed, and what situations to just let go and allow to blow over.
One case where my parents did give me useful advice in college was when I received blatantly unfair grades in two different classes in the same semester. One was in a class outside my major, with a professor that I would likely never see again. The other was in my major, with a professor who taught 2 more required classes, which no other professor taught. The advice, which makes a lot of sense, was to persue the grade in the outside my major class, since I would never see that professor again, so there was no risk of making an enemy with him. But in the class in my major, even if the professor did change my grade, I would have made an enemy, and it would likely come back to haunt me in the future. That is how parents should help college students, by giving advice, not direct intervention.
The one exception would be anything involving legal action, since a college student would not have enough money to hire a lawyer. That is when students may need direct intervention from parents.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
