MCPS parents, cut the cord!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We just drove 4 hours to help DD to start her 1st real job. Sorry OP, you either dont have a kid or haven't speak to your child for years. Feel really sorry for you.

Can you give more detail about this?

My DD was hired straight out of undergrad and I can’t imagine how we could have helped her start her new job. Her dad sent flowers and I sent a text in the morning “You got this!”, but I don’t know how our physical presence would have added anything.

We did help her move to the new city.

I think OP is ridiculous, but the above post is also ridiculous. That is over the top.

My first real job was hours away, and my parents gave me money to buy a nice suit and said, "good luck, I'm proud of you". That was it. How does a parent "help" someone start her first real job? What's so hard about starting a job?

Wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast (hopefully), get yourself to work and check in. At what point here requires parental help for a 20 something year old?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No endorphins for you, how sad to be so negative and anti-family.
Happy back to school to you too!

. Maybe take up meditation too.

Op, it’s also nice for parents to connect with each other.

Running must be difficult with that stick up your butt.

??? omg, I love you. seriously. How miserable and judgey is OP? Parents, love your kids and savor the small moments. It all goes too quickly. Just enjoy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why? My parents have not cut the cord for me and I am 50+ yrs old. They paid for my college, my wedding, helped me for months when my babies were born, helped me when I had to go back to school etc. I am very close to my parents and my siblings because we were raised by nurturing parents. We love our parents and in their old age we have all banded together to look after them. This is because my parents loved all of us and did not abandon us.


Why should I cut the cord with my children? I will continue to be involved in their lives and I will continue to have a close relationship with them. like I have with my own parents. I love my kids and want them to have as many advantages as they can have. They are learning independence but that does not mean that parents cannot teach them by example how to become better prepared in life. Doing a practice run for a new school for incoming ms and hs students was a great idea and having parents with them gives them more confidence. That is one of the reasons that MCPS has this orientation day. They want the students to have a practice run of their new routine in the new school, so that they can become comfortable and confident.

You have mixed up paying for things and loving your family with helicoptering. Giving kids advantages is not the same as constructing their lives for them-do you not have faith in your children being able to do things themselves? That's actual sad for them.

Well, I differentiate between delegation of responsibility to children vs. dereliction of duties as a parent. I feel pity for your children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We just drove 4 hours to help DD to start her 1st real job. Sorry OP, you either dont have a kid or haven't speak to your child for years. Feel really sorry for you.

Can you give more detail about this?

My DD was hired straight out of undergrad and I can’t imagine how we could have helped her start her new job. Her dad sent flowers and I sent a text in the morning “You got this!”, but I don’t know how our physical presence would have added anything.

We did help her move to the new city.

I think OP is ridiculous, but the above post is also ridiculous. That is over the top.

My first real job was hours away, and my parents gave me money to buy a nice suit and said, "good luck, I'm proud of you". That was it. How does a parent "help" someone start her first real job? What's so hard about starting a job?

Wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast (hopefully), get yourself to work and check in. At what point here requires parental help for a 20 something year old?

You are completely missing the point. There is no reason for parents to do anything for their children once they are adults. Yet, we support them. cheer them on, share in their milestones and teach them what being part of a family means.

Why did your parents give you money for a nice suit? You could have earned some money and bought it yourself? Why did you not do that? And if your real job was hours away then you would have needed either a place to stay near your job or a vehicle to drive you there? What help did your parents provide in that?

Basically, you are ok with taking the amount of help your parents were willing to give to you or able to afford to give to you; and extrapolate that it was the correct amount of "involvement" from your parents. I disagree. Maybe your parents were emotionally unavailable, did not have the time or were not able to afford more involvement. They did what they could do and no more. All parents do what they can do and they are doing it.

You may have had a Dickensian childhood but that does not mean everyone else does. Frankly, you sound a lot like the current President who thinks that by removing parents from children and keeping children in cages will not harm them emotionally. You seem very stunted in a lot of ways.

[Anonymous]

I’m a school counselor who absolutely would walk my new middle schooler to the bus for orientation day. He has to do middle school on his own, but he will know I’m here to support him. One of the ways I show that is by acknowledging that it’s a milestone and that he might have some nerves, but I know he’s got this. I’m just saying “bon voyage” as he heads on HIS journey. Once he’s out of sight I can then chat with other parents who get that this is a milestone for us too. Now if you start doing their homework etc., then it’s helicoptering...

[Anonymous]

My DD is a sophomore in high school and I walk with and wait with her at the bus stop every morning. We laugh and talk. Given how busy her day is I probably won't see her until later that evening. I also have a senior so I know how quickly this time passes. I don't walk with her because I don't think she's capable, I do it because I love being with her. She is currently downtown alone at the book fair via metro so she's got plenty of freedom. You don't know what people do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Went for a run this morning, while all the 6th grade middle schoolers were waiting at the bus stop for their orientation day. Could not believe how many parents were with them. Really, they can get on the bus themselves. You do not need to walk them to the bus stop, and wait for the bus to arrive, in 6th grade!

You are upset that parents went to the bus stop with their sixth-graders on ORIENTATION DAY FOR STARTING AT A NEW SCHOOL.

Do you also post on the college forum with complaints that the parents dropped off their freshmen, even though the freshmen are perfectly capable of getting themselves to college?

New poster here. Err, I packed 2 suitcases, flew 3,000 miles, and got myself to my college without mommy and daddy's help. I was 18, fer chrissake, not 8.

DP Bully for you. We all do things differently in life or do you think we all should live life and do things like you and your parents?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a school counselor who absolutely would walk my new middle schooler to the bus for orientation day. He has to do middle school on his own, but he will know I’m here to support him. One of the ways I show that is by acknowledging that it’s a milestone and that he might have some nerves, but I know he’s got this. I’m just saying “bon voyage” as he heads on HIS journey. Once he’s out of sight I can then chat with other parents who get that this is a milestone for us too. Now if you start doing their homework etc., then it’s helicoptering...

Exactly right!
In addition to ongoing emotional support there should also be ongoing academic support. The goal should be that they are nearly completely self sufficient (academically) by the time they enter high school. You don’t remove the parental scaffolding all at once. In 6th grade I checked in with my dc everyday to ask if they had homework. In 7th grade I checked in once a week. Since then I mostly just ask “how was your day?” and don’t ask about school work unless dc brings it up. I used to check edline grades every couple of weeks in 6th grade and now (10th grade) I don’t check it at all although I do remind dc to check for accuracy a week before grades are finalized.
Until dc gets to college I will continue to get involved periodically when he takes on new challenges. So I will work with him to figure out how he should prepare for the SAT (self study or class), and check on his progress during the college application process. These are new challenges and he will need some guidance even though he will do the work himself. I worked as an academic counselor to college students for many years and now teach college and so I will ask him to confer with us before he picks his classes for the first two semesters as I know from experience that this is when the most painful and expensive mistakes are made. He can pick his own classes of course but he needs to demonstrate that he has done his homework

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We just drove 4 hours to help DD to start her 1st real job. Sorry OP, you either dont have a kid or haven't speak to your child for years. Feel really sorry for you.

Can you give more detail about this?

My DD was hired straight out of undergrad and I can’t imagine how we could have helped her start her new job. Her dad sent flowers and I sent a text in the morning “You got this!”, but I don’t know how our physical presence would have added anything.

We did help her move to the new city.

I think OP is ridiculous, but the above post is also ridiculous. That is over the top.

My first real job was hours away, and my parents gave me money to buy a nice suit and said, "good luck, I'm proud of you". That was it. How does a parent "help" someone start her first real job? What's so hard about starting a job?

Wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast (hopefully), get yourself to work and check in. At what point here requires parental help for a 20 something year old?

You are completely missing the point. There is no reason for parents to do anything for their children once they are adults. Yet, we support them. cheer them on, share in their milestones and teach them what being part of a family means.

Why did your parents give you money for a nice suit? You could have earned some money and bought it yourself? Why did you not do that? And if your real job was hours away then you would have needed either a place to stay near your job or a vehicle to drive you there? What help did your parents provide in that?

Basically, you are ok with taking the amount of help your parents were willing to give to you or able to afford to give to you; and extrapolate that it was the correct amount of "involvement" from your parents. I disagree. Maybe your parents were emotionally unavailable, did not have the time or were not able to afford more involvement. They did what they could do and no more. All parents do what they can do and they are doing it.

You may have had a Dickensian childhood but that does not mean everyone else does. Frankly, you sound a lot like the current President who thinks that by removing parents from children and keeping children in cages will not harm them emotionally. You seem very stunted in a lot of ways.

oh.. this post made me laugh.

1. My parent lived several hours from me, and I drove *Myself* to the job. See, I moved away to find a job. I wasn't holding onto my parents' apron strings.
2. I grew up poor, worked my way through college. I was a latchkey kid who lived in a 1br roach infested apartment with six other people when we first came to the US. It was by no means a dickenson childhood. Maybe that made me emotionally stunted.. who knows, but I don't think helping your adult child get to their first job is a sign of NOT being emotionally stunted. More like a sign that you have stunted your child's maturity into adulthood, and maybe the parent is emotionally stunted by still seeing their child as a 12 year old who needs "help" getting to work.
3. They gave me money for a suit because that was their "gift" to me for graduating college and getting a good paying job.

And I posted up thread that OP was ridiculous for her post. But I draw the line at "helping" my grown up child get to her first job unless her car broke down or something. I would definitely roll my eyes at this one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a school counselor who absolutely would walk my new middle schooler to the bus for orientation day. He has to do middle school on his own, but he will know I’m here to support him. One of the ways I show that is by acknowledging that it’s a milestone and that he might have some nerves, but I know he’s got this. I’m just saying “bon voyage” as he heads on HIS journey. Once he’s out of sight I can then chat with other parents who get that this is a milestone for us too. Now if you start doing their homework etc., then it’s helicoptering...

Exactly right!
In addition to ongoing emotional support there should also be ongoing academic support. The goal should be that they are nearly completely self sufficient (academically) by the time they enter high school. You don’t remove the parental scaffolding all at once. In 6th grade I checked in with my dc everyday to ask if they had homework. In 7th grade I checked in once a week. Since then I mostly just ask “how was your day?” and don’t ask about school work unless dc brings it up. I used to check edline grades every couple of weeks in 6th grade and now (10th grade) I don’t check it at all although I do remind dc to check for accuracy a week before grades are finalized.
Until dc gets to college I will continue to get involved periodically when he takes on new challenges. So I will work with him to figure out how he should prepare for the SAT (self study or class), and check on his progress during the college application process. These are new challenges and he will need some guidance even though he will do the work himself. I worked as an academic counselor to college students for many years and now teach college and so I will ask him to confer with us before he picks his classes for the first two semesters as I know from experience that this is when the most painful and expensive mistakes are made. He can pick his own classes of course but he needs to demonstrate that he has done his homework

sorry the last sentence should end “demonstrate that he has done his research “ meaning that he is aware of pre reqs, graduation requirements and isn’t taking on too much

[Anonymous]

omg, this helicoptering has got to stop. Once the kid reaches 16, cut the strings!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We just drove 4 hours to help DD to start her 1st real job. Sorry OP, you either dont have a kid or haven't speak to your child for years. Feel really sorry for you.

Can you give more detail about this?

My DD was hired straight out of undergrad and I can’t imagine how we could have helped her start her new job. Her dad sent flowers and I sent a text in the morning “You got this!”, but I don’t know how our physical presence would have added anything.

We did help her move to the new city.

I think OP is ridiculous, but the above post is also ridiculous. That is over the top.

My first real job was hours away, and my parents gave me money to buy a nice suit and said, "good luck, I'm proud of you". That was it. How does a parent "help" someone start her first real job? What's so hard about starting a job?

Wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast (hopefully), get yourself to work and check in. At what point here requires parental help for a 20 something year old?

You are completely missing the point. There is no reason for parents to do anything for their children once they are adults. Yet, we support them. cheer them on, share in their milestones and teach them what being part of a family means.

Why did your parents give you money for a nice suit? You could have earned some money and bought it yourself? Why did you not do that? And if your real job was hours away then you would have needed either a place to stay near your job or a vehicle to drive you there? What help did your parents provide in that?

Basically, you are ok with taking the amount of help your parents were willing to give to you or able to afford to give to you; and extrapolate that it was the correct amount of "involvement" from your parents. I disagree. Maybe your parents were emotionally unavailable, did not have the time or were not able to afford more involvement. They did what they could do and no more. All parents do what they can do and they are doing it.

You may have had a Dickensian childhood but that does not mean everyone else does. Frankly, you sound a lot like the current President who thinks that by removing parents from children and keeping children in cages will not harm them emotionally. You seem very stunted in a lot of ways.

Not the PO you are responding to, but wow, you have issues if you think letting a 20-something college grad figure out their own housing is equivalent to separating child migrants from their parents. Like, you really see your adult DC as facing the same physical risks and psychological harm in moving to a new city as a three year old in a cage in a new country?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS is a diverse county.

In other (non-white) cultures, it is not commonly accepted that parents need to detach from their kids as they reach their teen years. Parents in Latin American cultures, or in some Asian cultures are very family oriented and believe that it’s somewhat sad to see kids doing things by themselves. It’s just nicer to have some family members around and some family support.

Get out of your white, American Bubble and realize that there are other ways to do things. That may work just as well (maybe better, since American teens have lots of issues).

I'm taking off the morning to walk my son to his before care (a friend is watching him). My daughter, who's in HS, is walking with us and then she'll head off to school on her own.

I don't hover, but as a parent who works FT out of the house, each new school year is a milestone in my children's lives. I do think that culture has A LOT to do with it.

- Italian-American mom

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:omg, this helicoptering has got to stop. Once the kid reaches 16, cut the strings!

It's not helicoptering if you want to share in a milestone with your children. We are not talking about writing your kids' college essay or spoon feeding them. What is so wrong with being with your kid and seeing them off. Hell, when family members come to visit me, I drive them to the airport and sometimes even walk them in to see them off. It's just a nice thing to do. You people are misinterpreting what helicoptering is. You want to create a shallow relationship with your family where people come and go as they please as it doesn't seem to matter, that's your business. But there are some of us who still find join and seeing our loved ones hit a milestone.

[Anonymous]

My DD started 1st today at a new school. She didn't even want us walking into the school with her! Oy vey!