By Natalie Hill

Parents bring a wide range of leniency. There are the parents who wouldn’t even notice if their child was missing, ones who have a balance, and then there are the so called “helicopter” parents.

Most students are already overloaded thinking about grades, extracurricular activities, and college. For some of these students they also have the extra burden of parents being excessively paranoid.
These parents can over react about the smallest things. In Mesquite, a boy in Pre-K was sent home because of to the length of his hair. His parents fought for days with the school administration to fight for his hair. In the end he received the ability to wear his hair in French braids.

How much does this 4-year-old care about his hair? Now once this boy grows up he can look back at his pictures looking like a girl. Thanks mom and dad.

If you look back on all the movies where there were overbearing parents they usually end with a kid lashing out. I don’t think parents realize the affect of an overprotective parent on a kid especially in high school. This is a point in time when they need to learn how to stand on their own two feet and live up to their own mistakes.

Parents’ spoon feed their children through their life and when they go to college or move out they are completely lost in what to do. If parents shelter their kids all through high school they will be crushed in the real world. In school, jobs, and life they won’t necessarily see the bad or lies people can tell as obviously.

When students go to college away from home it is seen as this whole new freedom. If they have spent the first 18 years of their life under a spot light this freedom could eventually lead them down the wrong path. They don’t have someone looking after every single thing you do, which could lead some to foolish behavior.

At the same time parents shouldn’t let their kids run “foot loose and fancy free”. Principal Brad Hunt feels that there is a needed balance.

“They need to make mistakes and learn from them and make choices for themselves,” Hunt said. “Parents also need to be there for their kids. There are so many temptations these days that they need help staying on the right track.”

The effects of overbearing parents can follow a person far after childhood. They can have severe physiological problems and depression. Many times they will have no control in life.

Some parents don’t even realize how overbearing they actually are. Some parents even live their dreams out through their children. This is a major problem in many homes of other cultures. Their parents or grandparents came to the United States searching for the “American Dream”. They want the best for their kids and to excel in life which causes the ever controlling behavior.

I myself have been lucky to have parents with this unspoken balance. I have to suffer the continuous college talks and “what will you do in the future?” conversations, but my parents overall expectations of me are reasonable and can be feasibly met.

It scares me when I see someone beat themselves up over a failing test grade or not getting an “A” in a class. We shouldn’t drain on grades because in the working world employers aren’t going to care if you got a 50 on a Spanish quiz. Our school career is important but the “do or die” mentality is completely overrated.

We need to get our expectations straight and that includes parents.