Some parents add themselves to college packing list

By BETH QUIMBY, Portland Press Herald Writer

Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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Staff photo by John Patriquin Seth and Debbie Bradstreet move a mini fridge Friday at Saint Joseph's College, where their daughter Sarah is a freshman.

Kim and David Lavallee of West Gardiner admit they are hoverers.

Installing their second and youngest daughter, Sarah, 18, in her freshman dorm at Saint Joseph's College in Standish on Friday, they said they would be talking to her often, at least once a day, but more likely two or three times daily.

"You worry about crime. There are a lot more demands and decisions," said Kim, who expected to be in almost daily contact with the student-affairs office as well - as she was for her first daughter - to work out the kinks.

The Lavallees are part of a new group dubbed "helicopter parents" by college and university administrators. They say the baby boom generation of parents are so involved in their children's college lives they risk preventing their children from growing up.

Today's college students are e-mailing their papers home for their parents' inspection before turning them in. Their parents in turn are stepping in to solve roommate problems, helping students pick out courses and demanding improvements to their rooms.

Michael Sullivan, 22, of Kennebunkport, a resident at Knox Hall at the University of Maine in Orono, said parents want to attend their children's adviser sessions.

"I would be embarrassed. Then again, it is kind of common," said Sullivan.

It was a different world when baby boomers went to college.

"When I went to college mom and dad dropped me off, said, 'Great. See you later. Go ahead and put your room together and have a good time,' " said AnneMarie Reed, associate director for residence life and programs at UMaine.

Back then, dorms were equipped with a single pay phone at the end of the hall and the ritual weekly call home was made on Sunday nights when the long-distance rates were cheapest.

"We tried to keep some distance between us and our parents at college. Now they are connected," said Tedd Goundie, dean of students at Bates College in Lewiston.

ELABORATE ORIENTATIONS

Today, many colleges and universities stage elaborate orientation programs geared to helping parents detach. This week, motivational speaker Mike Weber of the Leadership Institute in Atkinson, N.H., made appearances at Colby College in Waterville and Bates. His subject: "Letting Go Without Saying Goodbye."

Weber said he tries to suggest parents use their children's college years to rediscover their own lives. He asks them how long they intend to run interference for their children with their academic or roommate problems.

"If you had someone in your office you didn't like, would you ask your mom to talk to them?" asked Weber.

The phenomenon is the subject of an article in the next issue of Colby Magazine. The past two conferences of the Maine Association of Student Affairs Practitioners focused on parental involvement in higher education. Participants grappled with such issues as how to educate a generation of college students who are used to having their lives organized for them, and understanding the fine boundary between emotionally connected parents and dependent parents.

The task of helping parents separate is a delicate undertaking, say college counselors. While some colleges have lavish three-day parent orientations and offices devoted to addressing parental concerns, others take a more blunt approach when asking parents to butt out.

"We have a pretty consistent approach," said Margaret Hazlett, dean of first-year students at Bowdoin College in Brunswick.

There is no orientation for parents, and the first-day program for freshmen firmly states parents are to go home at 4:30 p.m., said Hazlett, who jokes she is not the dean of first-year students but the dean of first-year parents.

"Some years I get a call a day (from the same parent)," said Hazlett.

Colby College takes a middle-of-the-road approach to hovering parents.

"Our philosophy is, we don't mind the calls but we want students to make their own decisions," said Janice Kassman, vice president of student affairs and dean of students at Colby.

At Bates, parents are told the college considers the student their client, not the parent.

"We say feel free to call us but don't expect to hear a lot of information back about your student," said Goundie.

Theories abound about why baby boomer parents as a group have such a hard time letting go.

"My personal theory has to do with the electronic age," said Patti Newmen, director of counseling for the past 18 years at Colby.

Newmen said cell phones, e-mail and instant messaging has made it almost too easy to stay in touch.

"They tell me they speak to their parents multiple times during the day," she said.

TOO MUCH INFORMATION?

With such frequent contact, parents learn about all of their children's frustrations, from a bad meal at the dining hall to roommate conflicts. Newmen said the urge is strong among baby boomer parents to smooth away the issues.

Robert Dana, dean of students at UMaine, credits sophisticated consumerism by parents who are paying out tens of thousands of dollars to educate their children.

Also, today's parents are much more likely to have gone to college themselves, compared with their own parents. So today's parents may be more savvy about what to demand.

Others speculate the reason baby boomer parents are so clingy is that they remember their own wild, flower-child college years. They want to spare their children similar experiences.

"It makes them anxious," said Hazlett.

Guilt on the part of working parents may also contribute to the trend, said Kassman at Colby. She said baby boomer parents worried they didn't have enough time with their kids growing up, so they tried hard to overcome that and find ways to show love and attention. Then, parents find it hard to turn off that urge when their children go off to college.

College counselors say too much closeness can backfire. Newmen said frequent parental contact can exacerbate a bad case of homesickness. Sometimes Newmen has to encourage students to wean themselves of the contact with home and engage in life at college. Some parents need to back off, she said.

"They are sitting there saying, 'I wonder what Susie is doing now.' They need to be content to just wonder rather than call her," she said.

Back at Saint Joseph's, Seth and Debbie Bradstreet of Newport were helping their youngest child, Sarah, move into St. Joseph's Hall.

Debbie said she has been preparing for separation shock since last spring. Up until this year, she and her husband spent five or six nights a week at their children's sporting events.

"I've started quilting, knitting and scrap-booking," she said.

Staff Writer Beth Quimby can be contacted at 791-6363 or at:

bquimby@pressherald.com