Snowplow Parenting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You’re hurting your kid if you’re still checking homework or helping with projects by the end of elementary school.

This is bullshit. Even in many workplaces, there is a level of review: review for content and typos. My briefs and memos and investigative reports get reviewed by 1-3 people depending on who the audience is.

Checking their homework and flagging issues to reconsider or wrong answers is not a problem. That's life. If your doing their work and giving the answers, that is the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’re hurting your kid if you’re still checking homework or helping with projects by the end of elementary school.

This is bullshit. Even in many workplaces, there is a level of review: review for content and typos. My briefs and memos and investigative reports get reviewed by 1-3 people depending on who the audience is.

Checking their homework and flagging issues to reconsider or wrong answers is not a problem. That's life. If your doing their work and giving the answers, that is the problem.

Interesting, my workplace is not like that. You are expected to have a polished product on your own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’re hurting your kid if you’re still checking homework or helping with projects by the end of elementary school.

This is bullshit. Even in many workplaces, there is a level of review: review for content and typos. My briefs and memos and investigative reports get reviewed by 1-3 people depending on who the audience is.

Checking their homework and flagging issues to reconsider or wrong answers is not a problem. That's life. If your doing their work and giving the answers, that is the problem.

Interesting, my workplace is not like that. You are expected to have a polished product on your own.

Sounds like the federal government to me. It’s kind of insane how many levels of bureaucracy are required to comment, edit and approve some of these things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it is people who think they didn't do something, didn't go for it...have regrets for not traveling, doing something fun or daring themselves. Basically, most of people, that just went with the flow and nothing much happened to them. But, I also think that is societal pressure today to be "something." When we were growing up, I don't recall a single teen that was trying to be famous, travel the world, play 2 sports, go to Ivies..sure rich people did that, but now that is the desire of all kids and parents, due to social media. It is unrealistic and makes people unhappy with their perfectly happy lives and nice kids. Being nice is being average, being ok at your job is being a loser today. No wonder people are going nuts with their kids, you are directed from all sides to do better ,give more, pay more...it is so tiring.

This is so true! As my DH says, most people are average. We lose sight of that in today’s social media focus. Every house is beautiful, every outfit lovely, every kid gifted. Average can be nice life as well: regular job, affordable home, hobbies, community. Today it’s “be great or go home”, sadly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it is people who think they didn't do something, didn't go for it...have regrets for not traveling, doing something fun or daring themselves. Basically, most of people, that just went with the flow and nothing much happened to them. But, I also think that is societal pressure today to be "something." When we were growing up, I don't recall a single teen that was trying to be famous, travel the world, play 2 sports, go to Ivies..sure rich people did that, but now that is the desire of all kids and parents, due to social media. It is unrealistic and makes people unhappy with their perfectly happy lives and nice kids. Being nice is being average, being ok at your job is being a loser today. No wonder people are going nuts with their kids, you are directed from all sides to do better ,give more, pay more...it is so tiring.

This is so true! As my DH says, most people are average. We lose sight of that in today’s social media focus. Every house is beautiful, every outfit lovely, every kid gifted. Average can be nice life as well: regular job, affordable home, hobbies, community. Today it’s “be great or go home”, sadly.

Yes, think of the normal distribution. Even the most successful people also turn out to have average offspring like the children of Stephen Hawking, Einstein etc. I guess that's also why the college admissions scandal existed in the first place- even kids with all the advantages of being the product of successful parents weren't cut out for college on their own. Regression to the mean no matter how brilliant you are as a parent.

[Anonymous]

Snowplow parenting happens when you have failed in actual parenting beginning when the kids were very young.

Parented property from a young age kids are equipped to do well later in HS, college and beyond..

[Anonymous]

My observation is that kids mature at different rates and acquire skills at different points.

My other observation is that schools have become clerical minefields. More is required clerically of our kids at younger ages than ever occurred back in the day.

We all have to make choices about how best to get our kids to emerge as strong and confident people.

Sometimes that means helping more, and sometimes less.

Those of you who think that your kid's success is a sign that there was only one right way to do things are closed minded and your kids are damned lucky.

Kids learn lessons from everything. The ones I didn't want my kid to take away from his early school struggles were "I am a loser, why even bother" and "I'm all on my own for anything important."

So I "hovered" and taught the exec skills the school was not. He is in college now studying engineering and doing well. We do not talk about grades and I do not monitor his work in any way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Snowplow parenting happens when you have failed in actual parenting beginning when the kids were very young.

Parented property from a young age kids are equipped to do well later in HS, college and beyond..

Maybe. There are no guarantees.

When larger families were the norm, everyone accepted that one or two kids wouldn't turn out well, irrespective of parenting. When you only have one or two children, those kids had better be successful!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’re hurting your kid if you’re still checking homework or helping with projects by the end of elementary school.

This is bullshit. Even in many workplaces, there is a level of review: review for content and typos. My briefs and memos and investigative reports get reviewed by 1-3 people depending on who the audience is.

Checking their homework and flagging issues to reconsider or wrong answers is not a problem. That's life. If your doing their work and giving the answers, that is the problem.

and "checking homework" can mean many things.

a) pretty much doing it for the kid to make sure hte product is perfect, don't do that.

b) making sure your exec fctn challenged kid turned the page over.

c) helping your kid who is struggling with math concepts to learn the math...

d) having your kid have a great idea for their science project but not know the math so use you as a statistical consultant and document that in the writeup.

So, blanket statements are what's really bs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Snowplow parenting happens when you have failed in actual parenting beginning when the kids were very young.

Parented property from a young age kids are equipped to do well later in HS, college and beyond..

Maybe. There are no guarantees.

When larger families were the norm, everyone accepted that one or two kids wouldn't turn out well, irrespective of parenting. When you only have one or two children, those kids had better be successful!

To me, children represent the worst ROI in the 21st century. The level of input expected from parents in terms of the schelpping and actual mental and emotional labor (cooking meals that they will eat, summer activties, ensuring that they do homework..like WTF? etc.) is beyond what I ever experienced myself as a child of a single mom. I never received anyacademic help past the age of 10 because my mom didn't go beyond high school herself, and I figured out college on my own. Received a full-ride scholarship and am now pursuing a PhD in Economics. What I couldn't get at home I was able to figure out by approaching my teachers and professors. As a result, I'm very self-sufficient and don't understand young people of today. Which is strange to say because I'm only 30.

[Anonymous]

I describe my parenting style as "leave no man behind." Which means, to me anyway, that I expect my now-teens to have the skills and the drive to do what needs to be done, but in a crisis I'll do what needs to be done.

In terms of what constitutes a crisis, it's NOT "I didn't do a damn thing for the last 4 months on my science fair project and now it's due in a week!" But right now we are dealing with some pretty major health stuff with one my kids and because of that I'm dealing directly with the school a lot to make sure that they understand what my kid can realistically handle in this moment and what has to go by the wayside. Once we get an all-clear from the doctors (which is thankfully on the horizon), I'm stepping back and handing the reins back to my kid.

That said, because they are teens, I don't expect them to be perfect but I also don't expect to do their thinking for them. So I do check in daily about things like homework but I don't go online and look at assignments, because that's their job. I do ask them if they have what they need when they leave in the morning but I don't go through some big checklist or check for them. And as they get older I'll back off on these things too.

Self-sufficiency is like any other skill, it takes practice and repetition in order to be good at it. As far as I'm concerned, it's the single most important skill necessary for a happy and productive adult life. If you can't meet your own needs, solve your own problems, and advocate to get what you want, how can you ever accomplish anything?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of my kids just had a project due that is directly in my area of expertise. I could have helped her knock it out of the park.

But I didn't help my kid other than to ask a few questions like "what's your main point?" and "how are you going to explain it?" Then I let her do it all herself. I suggested she re-read the whole thing for spelling and punctuation errors, but I didn't tell her what to change.

She turned it in as is. More than half of the projects in the class were obviously done by parents. How can kids learn if their parents do the work for them? My child got a decent grade. She would have gotten top grades with my help. But it's all HER work, not mine. As it should be.

Did the teacher mark ever single thing that was incorrect and give comments on how to make it better? If not, that is a good reason for parents to step in. When my kids were young, they got great grades for mediocre work, so I stepped in to teach them what they should be striving for. Before turning it in, they were motivated to work with me. If I had waited until afterwards, they would not have been as willing to learn from me. There’s a big difference between teaching and doing a kid’s work for them, so that’s important. It took a lot more time to have to work with me, but they learned valuable stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a snowplow parent and don’t apologize for it or feel bad. Social media allowing me to connect back with people I knew growing up has taught me that who you are as a teen is who you are as an adult and the ones who change are exceptions not the rule.

The kids who were smart, involved, organized, out going and put together as teens are the adults who are still that way and have great careers and have done very well. You can tell by their career choice, place they live, activities they do now, etc. this is the kind of thing you glean not from their over happy posts but the background in the posts and their LinkedIn profiles and in some cases published work, and so on

The kids like me who were in the middle - did ok, got by went to college, got a normal job and so on - stayed the same in adulthood. We may have talked a good game back in the day about having ambition but we weren’t going to do anything to hard to achieve them.

I can also see now but couldn’t see when I was a teen that social skills build on themselves and kids who miss out on developing them at each stage life do end up a bit farther behind the curve each year and catching up becomes very difficult.

I know there are going to be plenty of posts telling me how wrong I am but remember exceptions are what people advertise and talk about. No one brags about the literal millions who do not become exceptions.

Op here. I think you touched on a deeper layer of my fear. I think of the opportunities I missed out on as a teenager due to laziness and ignorance. I was asked by a teacher to move to an advanced science class in 9th grade. I said no because I didn’t want to work that hard. So many other social opportunities I rejected because I felt more comfortable with my friends from the neighborhood. Don’t even get me started about bad dating choices. I learned from my mistakes. I was raised middle class and am still middle class. I just want better for my children. This drives the compulsion to know everything, to comment on everything, to intervene and give advice about everything! I’m not proud of my parenting right now.

I appreciate all the responses and will check out the book suggested.

I think it is finding balance. My parents wouldn’t have let me not take an advance class. They would have (and did)recognized I was smart enough to be in the class. And, if you didn’t get an A in the hardest class - that’s okay as long as you tried. I didn’t have to be on varsity or on a certain club team - I did have to be involved in activities of my choice and commitment to them. Couldn’t skip practice or games just because I didn’t feel like it.

[Anonymous]

I have three teens. It's difficult, but my boys learn the best by making their own mistakes. They could listen to our talks and warnings, but they still make their own mistakes. I'd rather them do it now, while I can help them correct, then to make life easy now and have them out on their own making mistakes. I'm hoping it will make them better adults in the long run, but honestly I have no idea. I'm just living day to day, and trying my best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of my kids just had a project due that is directly in my area of expertise. I could have helped her knock it out of the park.

But I didn't help my kid other than to ask a few questions like "what's your main point?" and "how are you going to explain it?" Then I let her do it all herself. I suggested she re-read the whole thing for spelling and punctuation errors, but I didn't tell her what to change.

She turned it in as is. More than half of the projects in the class were obviously done by parents. How can kids learn if their parents do the work for them? My child got a decent grade. She would have gotten top grades with my help. But it's all HER work, not mine. As it should be.

I agree with this, and don't think you're too far off from what the PP was saying. I'm the teacher that commented, btw. It's obvious when a parent does the project. What you're describing is called scaffolding, and that's appropriate to a certain extent. You're teaching your child what an acceptable standard is. You're giving them expectations. However, this should really be happening at a lower grade level and then you taper off. By middle school it should really be hands off unless there are other special needs. At that point, it should be more consequence driven. Like, you understand the expectations, you've demonstrated in the past you're capable of achieving them. Now that you didn't, this household consequence occurs. Middle school is when you want kids to really refine their self management skills. Failing is not nearly as consequential as high school, which is when guidance needs to be at a minimum. I can't tell you how many snowplow parents I've seen whose kids fail out of the first year of college because they have no idea what to do.

Did the teacher mark ever single thing that was incorrect and give comments on how to make it better? If not, that is a good reason for parents to step in. When my kids were young, they got great grades for mediocre work, so I stepped in to teach them what they should be striving for. Before turning it in, they were motivated to work with me. If I had waited until afterwards, they would not have been as willing to learn from me. There’s a big difference between teaching and doing a kid’s work for them, so that’s important. It took a lot more time to have to work with me, but they learned valuable stuff.