Hovering parent, snowflake child

I know the commenters sneer at the "obviousness" of the conclusions, but still:

'Helicopter' parents tend to have neurotic kids.

Pull quote:

""We have a person who is dependent, who is vulnerable, who is self-conscious, who is anxious, who is impulsive, not open to new actions or ideas; is that going to make a successful college student?" Montgomery said. "No not exactly, it's really a horrible story at the end of the day."

(Makes me wonder how much of the success of so-called "indoctrination" on college campuses is coming in part because the students just swallow what's told them because that's how it was with their parents)

One thing they note is that kids who are "over parented" are less open to wanting to try new things. In some regards, that might be a GOOD thing (for example, if all your friends are getting high on animal tranquilizers, being someone unwilling to try new things might serve you well there). But on the other hand, I've seen enough college students who just clam down - who go "I can't DO this" - when they're presented with a challenge.

My parents were good parents - I mean, I learned stuff like, "If all your friends are getting high on animal tranquilizers, you should say no to it because animal tranquilizers can really mess up your brain and could even kill you" but they didn't hover. I don't remember them EVER calling any of my campuses (not even high school) to resolve a problem on my behalf. I DO remember my dad sort of sighing over the phone, when I had some kind of crisis-that-wasn't-really-a-crisis and saying, "You're smart enough to deal with this" and then expecting me to.

Also, I was kind of one of those "free ranger" kids. I don't know if it was my own personality (my mother has commented on how, even as a fairly small child, I was pretty independent, in the sense that I could make my own peanut butter sandwiches and stuff, and I would take books or some of my toys and go off somewhere and she wouldn't hear from me for hours) or if that was my parents' influence (I was allowed to do things - like climbing trees out all by myself - that probably a lot of parents would be horrified by because, you know, it's kind of DANGEROUS. Well, I never fell out of the tree and I knew it was high up and I could fall and I was respectful of heights and fairly careful...)

So I don't know. But I do think some of the Millennial frustrations that those of us who teach have may come as a result of some students being still rather childlike and dependent. From what little I've read of the ideas behind parenting, it does seem that over-protecting your children, trying to cushion them from every disappointment and save them from every failure, is not doing them any favors. I learned fairly early on that other kids can be mean, that teachers are sometimes unfair, that you don't always win at stuff, that you don't always get invited to birthday parties....and I adapted. And I think I adapted better learning that at 6 or 8 or whatever than I would have learning it for the first time at 18.