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Parent trap: Letting go as kids hit college

Part of me would find it amusing if this generation of parents, after having over-supervised and over-scheduled their children from birth, ended up with their kids falling apart in the unstructured environment of university.

The reality though is mostly I pity the profs. In my day, the parents had no idea who the profs were. You went to university, you got your marks, that was it. The profs now will either give in with massive grade inflation for demanding obsessed parents, or spend all their time trying to explain to the parents that there are no parent-teacher meetings because the parents are supposed to be out of the equation.

In informal surveys last year of about 200 parents of incoming students at both the University of Guelph and the U of T, an overwhelming majority said they expected the university to call them about everything, from their child failing a course to winning a prize, getting sick, being depressed, or even quitting university all together.

In fact, in none of those situations would the university call a parent.

posted by Richard at 14:12 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)