Good Grief! And a Pimp for Whirlybirds.

[curiouswombat]

You know I am not really surprised at this article that Petzi pointed out to me. I found myself shaking my head more in sorrow than in amazement any more.

I guess some parents will just feel the need to make all the funeral arrangements for their kids in advance before they shuffle off this mortal coil themselves, eh? They already seem to be organising everything else!

ETA - woops - I meant to post this at The Helipad - home of whirlybirds - but as I had also been thinking of pimping the community, perhaps I will cross-post it.

I realise that I have quite a few new friends since we set up whirlybirds and it is coming up to the time of year where some people might find it a useful community. So even if it is not relevant to you, if you have people on your FL that might find it useful, perhaps you could pimp the community to them?

whirlybirds is primarily a support group for parents whose teenaged offspring are leaving home for college/university.

It is called The Helipad, and the members Whirlybirds, from the concept of 'The Helicopter Mom'.

Helicopter parents either hover over their offspring at all times, or come flying in to school/university etc. to 'rescue' them from essay dead-lines, sniping flatmates, inability to use a washing machine etc.

'Whirlybirds' because we are likely to be mostly female, and all of a whirl about the offspring. Males are however very welcome.

Remember - Young people with helicopter parents are often derided by their peers!

So it is a community where you can worry, rant, whinge, panic as you see fit, whilst not leaving the Helipad.


Prospective members might find that the flurry of posts last summer may already contain info that is useful - or at least give them an idea about the community.

Comments

[bogwitch.livejournal.com]

As I am now technically in HR for a company that takes on a lot of graduates, I get to hear all about these types (and speak to them sometimes when I pick up recruitment's phone). We had one call up and tell the Recruitment Manager that their son shouldn't have to do any psychological testing because he got 'intimidated by tests'.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Aaaargh! I hope the Recruitment Manager told them that this conversation was a very good reason why he was unlikely to offer their little darling a job!

[bogwitch.livejournal.com]

I don't know what he said, but it gave us all a laugh.

You have to wonder how he managed exams though.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

His Mum probably rang up and spoke severely to his tutor...or the Head of Department.... or the Chancellor. Told them that if her son didn't just get a nice mark without having to do any nasty tests she would come and give them a good slap!

Although she probably didn't believe in corporal punishment - she'd come around and make them sit on the naughty step?

[jerusha]

Um...can I just say how grateful I am that my parents were quite rational about me going off to school?

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Can you just imagine your mother coming down to tell off the men in your office when they annoy you?

[zanthinegirl.livejournal.com]

Heh! Though my parents bought me a grave site last year for my birthday, so who knows. (They bought one for my aunt. She commited suicide last spring and they finally found her body in late summer) They're usually pretty rational but I have to say that was a little disturbing!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Well I have to say it would go into a list of 'unusual' gifts.

I remember your aunt going missing - it must have been both a shock and a blessing when they found her body.

[anaross.livejournal.com]

But what if you weren't pretty competent and driven? What if you were about to fail, and the intervention of a parent- and by that I don't mean parent calling teacher but helping you organize your study time, etc-- could keep you from wasting a whole semester???

Not that I'm rationalizing or anything. :)

But really, everyone seems to think it's easy to draw the line. But what's being helpful and what's interfering? And frankly, what if it's YOUR money that's paying for that semester and you really don't want to waste it?

Rationalizing like mad here....

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Ah - but are you rationalising on your own behalf, or just generally? ;~)

Feel free to come over and join in either way!

The Whirlybirds community actually was set up purely as a support group - where we could say 'I'm frightened leaving her in the big city', 'I miss her,' 'How do you cope when they ring home from 1,000 miles away and sound really upset?' 'What are the kitchens like at your kids' dorms?' etc.

It was one of the pre-members when we were considering the group who mentioned the helicopter parents as being a basis of a catchy name - it was not a common phrase outside the US then, but is fast becoming so!

We try hard not to hover, or to swoop in like an attack force, but all of us are supportive parents I think - for example there was a long discussion about advice for a student who had a fairly slow reading speed.

And of course it is our money!

But what if you weren't pretty competent and driven?

To be brutally honest if you aren't competent and driven you shouldn't be at university - it's not a finishing school that people should have an automatic right to attend and complete, it's a place you go from choice to learn a subject that you want to learn. The university should weed out the incompetent and only offer places to the competent, if they get it wrong then the student will not be happy - this happened with one of my daughter's house-mates - she left after the first term - and being pressured to stay by her parents would not have made it any easier for her to get a grasp of her subject - those who were doing the same subject said that she must have had an awful lot of 'help' to get the grades to get in in the first place - and it hadn't really 'helped 'her at all - she just wasn't up to it academically.

And being driven should be a given! If they don't buckle down and learn they may as well earn instead - and parents should either point it out, or be supportive rather than combative if that is the route they decide to take - which also happened with one of my daughter's friends after her first term.

However, as a student who dropped out of my first degree, stopped going to lectures, seminars etc. and failed my end of first year exams so being kicked out, I do understand that it doesn't always work that way! My excuse is that actually I discovered that that was not the right subject - second time around I was a very dedicated student ;~)

[anaross.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, but in the US, most decent-paying jobs require college, and there is very little respect anymore for the crafts and manual labor (and I'm the granddaughter of a carpenter, and I remember when that was respected). So everyone urges kids to aim at college, and it gets ridiculous. I had a student (first year college) who was from Chile, and a very good soccer player, and the hile national team came recruiting him and wanted him to play for big bucks and maybe end up with a great career. And he came to me, all shamed, because he wasn't sure whether he'd be a "quitter and loser" for leaving school... you know, to go to a fabulous time-sensitive job (no one would want him as a soccer player in 10 years) that was going to pay $200K a year. I said, "Are you NUTS??? Grab the job! College will be here when you want it, if you want it, but this opportunity isn't going to come back!" He said that several people had somberly told him he "had" to stay in college.

What would help is avenues to success and decent pay that didn't assume every single job needs you to have taken a bunch of classes you can't remember.

Cranky here. :)

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

What would help is avenues to success and decent pay that didn't assume every single job needs you to have taken a bunch of classes you can't remember.

Cranky here. :)

Actually if you find yourself being not so much a lecturer as a baby sitter for kids who really should be somewhere else I'm not surprised that you're cranky!

I would certainly have told your young Chilean exactly the same thing that you did!

The education systems in the US, the UK and our other European neighbours are somewhat different - but whirlybirds is a good forum for us to compare and contrast as well

Britain still has Colleges of Further Education as well as Universities - and you don't usually leave home to go to a CFE you go to the local one. CFEs do the practical stuff - our local one says on its website that "The Isle of Man College provides Further Education study for students wishing to enter trades, professions or businesses."

Number 2 niece is going to the CFE to become a qualified plumber, her cousin has just gained his HNC in engineering (Higher National Certificate)at the same college, whereas her older sister went straight from school to work for Barclays International, where she works in the anti-money-laundrying department, and is doing financial exams on day release at the college.


Our daughter is the unusual one, going to university to do academic studies.