On a weekend, this very weekend, in August several years ago now, I started at UND. My mom, sister and friend Dan, helped me move my stuff into the dorms. After the move, my mom wished me luck, call if I needed anything and went on her merry way. I spent the rest of the weekend finding the ins and outs of the place that would be my home away from home for the next several years.
Flash forward to 2006. I'm now back at the first weekend of school behind a desk and able to watch the goings on of this formative first weekend. My job has given me new insight into PeopleSoft (more wicked than I thought before if you can fathom that) and a chance to observe the newbies on their first days. What I have been stuck by is all the helicopter parents. This is a new term that I've picked up in the last year or so, but I've never seen it in action. The scene is set by mom in the lead followed by either a defeated looking son or daughter, or dad in tow. The parents ask all the questions and the student nods glumly in response. Or the student is in the lead, but receiving prods from the parents.
I think back at how I would react to being lead around campus by the nose on my first weekend. Let's try mortified. Part of the college experience is to learn to do things for yourself and that lends itself to be difficult with a parent or two in tow. Time to break out of your shell kids. Also, time to let go parents, this is slightly bigger than the first day of kindergarten.
Geez, there's another one! Where is the independent spirit here?
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