Further over the top

Further over the top

Last fall, I wrote about a wave of parental anxiety over kids’ academic performance. I wondered whether incessant parental worry about achievement might represent an unspoken struggle between working and stay-at-home noms. Are they each trying to prove, mostly to themselves, that their way is the right way to parent; witness their successful kids?

Now, in recent weeks a startling news story suggests support for that notion. It reported a rash of electronic parental academic surveillance which, in my view, is truly over the top. The headline of the lead article in the New York Times Sunday Styles section was "I Know What You Did Last Math Class." It told of parents’ routinely logging on to sites such as ParentConnect for exhaustive info on their children’s test grades, class cutting or lateness, missed or failed assignments, up to the minute grade point averages and class standings. And this isn’t the only site with such a mission. Others include Pinnacle Internet Viewer, PowerSchool, and Edline. The opportunity to get such current info on kids’ school performance is not new, but lately the practice has become very popular with parents and schools throughout the country.

I frankly find it offensive, going against the developmental grain of adolescents struggling to trust their parents while growing more independent. Some speak openly about resenting the indignity and lack of privacy, and accuse their parents of "snooping." It knocks the wind out of their sails to have their every move in school monitored by family. In some cases, parents know their children’s grades on tests before the students themselves have received the results.

The Times article reports, "the software can certainly be a boon to working parents," as well as divorced or otherwise absent parents. So involved parenting no longer implies being there physically, as long as there is internet access to achievement data. Dogging their children may be becoming the new model for would-be superparents. Fortunately, not all have bought the online monitoring idea; and some schools distinguish constructive and caring parental involvement from hovering. But for all too many worried parents, the ends justify the means when it comes to the brass ring of academic achievement.

Quoting a parent interviewed for the Times article: "'It can be hard to resist. It speaks to all your neuroses as a parent, all this need to control, that pressure to make sure everything is perfect… How are these kids going to learn to be responsible adults?'"

I wonder about that too.

August 4, 2008

Comments

[Vassili]

In my eyes, these are excesses. If parents were to spend more time with their children in the early years, giving a stronger base/start to life, then the following years would be easier for the kids and their parents.

As parents, my wife and I believed in that concept and started created games to help ourselves and other parents teach through playing the basics of social life, safety, good manners,... all things my wife and I thought were fundamental.

You can see the results on www.4bambini.com

[Elena Renard]

We bought one of the games from 4Bambini (the one about good manners) for our 5 years old and it is a super game I must say. It is quiet simple but it really worked with Alexis who really wanted to win and memorized all the asnwers quickly. The only trouble is that now he corrects us when we forget to say please or thank you.... :-)