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The most common back-to-school message from educators and parenting experts is: Get involved with your children, their school, their activities. Then there's the small caveat: But not too much. "The major problem nationally is underinvolved parents," said psychologist Michael Thompson, co-author of "The Pressured Child: Helping Your Child Find Success in School and Life." "But in affluent suburban neighborhoods, you get a lot of parents who are way overinvolved. Call them controlling, pushy, enmeshed or hyper: Parents who've become too invested in their child's success (or failure), be it in academics, sports, appearance or social life. This includes parents who: Write their high-schoolers' college essays or insist on a particular university. Take over a homework project because the child isn't doing it right. Ignore a child's own interests and insist on certain activities to build a "résumé" for the best schools, from preschool to college. Yell and criticize their child , coach or referee at games. Consistently step in to solve every issue with friends, teachers or youth leaders. Expect perfection from children. Overinvolvement "reflects some emotional need on the parent's part, not the best interests of the child," said Dan Neuharth, author of "If You Had Controlling Parents." "Parents' hopes and fears for themselves are transferred onto the child." While there have always been hard-to-please parents, some experts say parental micromanagement has gone mainstream. Everything from books (recent example: "Raising Your Child to Be a Champion in Athletics, Arts and Academics") to Baby Einstein videos to the specialization of youth sports encourages the idea that it's up to parents to ensure their kids are the brightest and most athletic. Not taking advantage of every learning opportunity, one author notes, is practically considered middle-class child neglect. "Overinvolved parents and overscheduled children are the recommended ways to raise children these days," said Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld, co-author of "The Over-Scheduled Child: Avoiding the Hyper-Parenting Trap." "And it's really not to anyone's good. "Parents have to ask themselves, 'Do my kids feel they're the authors of their own lives, or do they feel they're living a life someone else scripted for them?" It starts early and hard, beginning with new parents, says Muffy Mead-Ferro, who wrote a backlash memoir, "Confessions of a Slacker Mom." When she was pregnant, "I started to feel intense pressure to perform as a mom and make my baby to perform too," she said. "I was already expected to be molding and shaping her even while she was in the womb." She decided that giving her kids, now ages 4 and 6, the opportunity to solve their own problems — and save herself a lot of hassle — would contribute more to their success than piping in Mozart. "We have to examine our own motivation for overparticipating in our children's lives and driving them to accomplish and achieve at a very young age," she said. "It hurts when your 3-year-old says 'Get out of my way' because you want to be a part of everything they do. But we have to be willing to let them do things themselves, and do it imperfectly." Life intrusion "For low achievers with moms who had controlling
responses, kids' grades went down over six months," she said. When
parents offered encouragement and supported the child's problem-solving
skills, kids had better grades in the same time period. Parents shouldn't help unless a child asks for assistance, Pomerantz said. If a child is having difficulty, parents can sit next to children as they work and ask guiding questions. "If you simply give the answer, you're not helping your child in the long run," she said. "The more you step in, the more your child becomes dependent on you for the next time," agreed Michael Murphy, head of Seattle Country Day School, an independent private school with kindergarten through eighth grade. "Parents can't constantly rescue children from every mistake. Kids have to slip and stumble sometimes for their longterm growth." Young kids will attempt to please their parents, then burn out and "just throw you over" when they're old enough to assert their independence, Thompson said. Neuharth agrees: "If you make decisions for your child, like making him try out for the school play because you always wanted to, the probable effect is alienating your child as he grows older." Parents might get their A pluses, but aren't teaching kids life lessons. "If you push too hard, kids respond to you, instead of the material," Thompson said. "They're dutiful students instead of inspired ones." The consequences can also stretch into relationships and future workplaces. Controlling parents often refuse to let children disagree, or negate their anger, said Neuharth, a marriage and family therapist in California. If children feel they have to act a certain way to gain their parents' love or respect, "one possible legacy as an adult is that it's hard to be oneself. It's hard to have a full emotional range." Also, when children grow up, they either rebel against authority or always want someone else to make a decision, Neuharth said. Neither attitude wins points with bosses. Grade control "One of the things that bugs teachers the most is when
parents have a completely unrealistic idea of their child's ability,"
said Thompson. One dad told a private-school administrator, "I didn't
send my son to your school to get Bs." Parents who rush into situations often justify it with love and the desire to protect a child. But the underlying messages to the child are: Educators are not trustworthy. Other children are dangerous. We don't believe you can work out problems on your own. More than half of teachers said districts that back down from assertive parents contribute to schools' discipline problems, according to a spring survey of middle and high-school teachers by Public Agenda, a nonprofit research organization. In March, a university professor posted this rant on an Internet education forum about students demanding better grades: "I recalled their demeanor: some arrogant ('Well, I think I deserve an A'), some polite, some bewildered, some desperate, telling me how they have to get all As, they have to get into law school, they have to keep their scholarships, a B will ruin their lives forever, or — most upsettingly — their parents will be furious if they get a B-plus. "And then I thought, 'So that's where they come from.' They've grown up with their parents storming down to their schools and pitching hissy fits over every low grade. Or they've grown up with the threat of 'Make straight As or else' hanging over their heads. Or possibly both. "What is with these parents who yell at the school board? ... Do they not pause to think about the example they're setting for their offspring? 'OK, Junior, you're not allowed to make a mistake and learn from it. Not ever. Remember, your having a 4.0 GPA is more important than your actually learning anything.' "
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