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Cheezburger
  • 1/28/2025
These overprotective moms are trying to move into their kids' college dorm rooms so they can keep babying them.

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Transcript
00:00Is it too much to ask the college to install cameras in my child's dorm room? I just want
00:05to make sure they're sleepy enough and staying on top of their cleaning and laundry.
00:11That's psychotic. These overprotective moms are trying to move into their kids' college dorm
00:16rooms so they can keep babying them. Most parents of college students are eager to support their
00:20kids' independence. But for overly involved helicopter parents, sending their kid to
00:24college sends them spiraling with fear and unable to control their wildly inappropriate meddling.
00:29Posts from a Facebook group for parents of college freshmen at Purdue University went
00:33viral for examples of helicopter parenting that need to be seen to be believed. Does anybody have
00:39this RA's phone number? I need to get in contact with someone to decorate my child's door for his
00:43birthday. Is there any way we can get the housekeeping team who does the bathrooms to
00:48go into my son's room? He's just really having a hard time keeping it clean without me there.
00:52The term helicopter parent refers to an overprotective and highly involved parenting
00:57style. Just like a helicopter hovers, so do these parents. They typically involve themselves in all
01:02aspects of their children's lives, sometimes doing more harm than good for their kids. So what
01:06happens when the child of a helicopter parent is preparing to fly the nest and head off to college?
01:10In recent years, forums and Facebook groups have popped up for the anxious parents of college
01:15students who are forced to hover from a distance. In online communities for parents of incoming
01:19freshmen at different universities, questions, complaints, and concerns about their kids'
01:23well-being range from excessive to outrageous. Is it appropriate to email my child's professors
01:28at the start of the semester to introduce myself and establish a line of communication?
01:33I just want to make sure I'm aware of any issues before they become a problem.
01:37How involved do other parents get with their child's professors? Where can I get a list of
01:42professors' emails? You may be wondering what's so bad about a parent who still wants what's best
01:47for their child, even if the child is away at college. Well, some college-aged children of
01:51helicopter parents are sharing just how stressful and even damaging their parents' obsessive
01:56behavior can be. Last year, a few anonymous college students shared their helicopter parent
02:00experiences in an article for Slate. One student's mother tracks her location non-stop. Mom watches
02:05as she leaves her dorm and heads to the dining hall, then leaves the dining hall to go to class,
02:09and finally to the library to see just how much studying her daughter is getting in. Another
02:13student shared that when she was a freshman at a college about 1,000 miles away from her hometown,
02:18her parents constantly monitored her location and called her to ask why she was where she was.
02:23Once, she overslept by 20 minutes and missed her parents' check-in call and woke to the campus
02:27police knocking on her door. Despite their best intentions, experts say that overly controlling
02:32parents of teenagers often experience the opposite results. Like the old saying,
02:36strict parents raise sneaky kids. Parental urges to help and fix can actually discourage
02:42their children from learning independence and add unnecessary stress to their lives.
02:46So how can parents support their kids' transition to college in a healthier way?
02:50One university psychologist suggests that parents try focusing on fostering concrete skills like
02:55teaching their child how to make appointments or do laundry or refill medication. Otherwise,
03:00they run the risk of going viral for all the wrong reasons.