Denis Waitley is an American motivational speaker, writer and consultant. Waitley comments, “the greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence” (Waitley). In other words, Waitley believes that it is important to show children responsibility and the privilege of being independent. This connects to the issue of the decline of student resilience due to lack of responsibility and the outcome of children’s actions over the years.Waitley seems to disagree with parents lacking the ability to teach kids responsibility. In fact, in Psychology Today’s article “Declining Student Resilience; A Serious Problem for Colleges”,research shows that the decline of student resilience is caused by the increase …show more content…
of hovering parents not giving kids the opportunity of being independent and results in teachers “mothering” students rather than solely teaching. A major factor in the decline of student resilience is the increase of hovering parents over time. Americans today tend to believe that a hovering parent is acceptable for the child because they are protecting what they feel is right for their child. Hovering parents are not helping their children at all. From holding their kid’s hand when they were three years old, to not wanting them to go away for college since it means those kids will not have their parents every step of the way. One reason that a parent is over protective of their child is the possibility that their parents were never around or they had a bad experience with a situation. If they did experience a bad situation, now they are afraid for their children to be disappointed if they get a bad grade on a test or simply presenting a project in front of the class. When students are brought into the college environment, after they have had their parents hold their hand every step of the way, there can be a situation where their roommate calls them a “bitch” and then they are traumatized. The cause of this is solely because when they were younger and had fights with friends, their parents were the ones to solve the issues or call up the other kid’s parent to tell them that their children are in a fight. These hovering parents that will not give their children any form of responsibility or the ability to be independent with the smallest things causes these college students to overreact and think they need counseling. This puts a toll on the teacher’s job, because now in college, their students need to be independent and more mature and ready for whatever college assignment is given to them. “Students are afraid to fail; they do not take risks; they need to be certain about things. for many of them, failure is seen as catastrophic and unacceptable. External measures of success are more important than learning and autonomous development,” (Psychology Today). Basically the article is saying that these teachers are blindsided because they are not expecting students to break down crying to them for getting a “C” on an assignment. These teachers end up “mothering” their students by telling them to “calm down” or “it's okay.” Students need to realize sometimes it is okay to get a bad grade, that is the only way to learn from mistakes. When you get knocked down you keep getting up to fight. “Less resilient and needy students have shaped the landscape for faculty in that they are expected to do more handholding, lower their academic standards, and not challenge students too much” (Psychology today). In other words the article states that after all these incidents with emotional students that can not handle hard assignments and bad grades, colleges have started to “dumb down” the curriculum and assignments. If parents were not as protective and constantly hovering over their kids, students would not be as sensitive and emotional in school environments causing the increase in students that need counseling for the smallest of incidents. On the other hand, people argue that students have recently started seeking help thinking that school and teachers is the issue and it is too stressful for students to handle.
They think that schools should dumb down the curriculum because school has become stressful and the outcome is not helpful at all for the students with interactions between other students or even reacting to grades. They are contradicting their argument because college curriculum or the school/on campus environment is not the main cause for students to be diagnosed with different illnesses. They contradict themselves because teachers have been cornered over the years by parents and students for the increase in handholding and school work for home . This is not something new to the world, but society responds to this topic as some shock. Yes, students get stressed from school, but we should not take a small amount of stress into a mental disorder or blame the teachers. Back then doctors were aware of mental illnesses, but no one took them as seriously as they do now. This proves that mental illnesses were not just caused by colleges and curriculum. “Students need to “Buck up, this is college,” and realize that their teachers and other faculty at the campus along with their own parents should not sit around all day making sure they live in a perfect world where nothing bad happens” (Psychology …show more content…
Today). Responsibility is an important factor to be able to carry in life especially transferring from being a kid to adult years.
Ultimately, what is at stake here is the fact that parents are making excuses for students who do not want to work hard in school or are not able to handle it, therefore, parents need to stop making excuses for adults and let them decide their paths in life. If parents stop excusing their kids, then teachers can continue the challenging work for student resilience to increase. College is a privilege, not every child in the world can experience and no one said it would be easy, but no one said it was acceptable to hold each student’s hand for the ride
either.
Even after the competitive race to get into desirable colleges has subsided, students are still finding themselves relying on the pressures of success to motivate them and push them forward. In Barbara Ehrenreich’s article “Bright-Sided”, Ehrenreich explains a mindset shared by those in the market economy that is also internalized by students in college and even workers in the workforce, “If optimism is key to material success, and if you can achieve an optimistic outlook through the discipline of positive thinking, then there is no excuse for failure” (Ehrenreich 538). Through Ehrenreich’s proposed positive thinking concept, the stress and pressures that young adults place on themselves are self-imposed and intertwined with their logic and reasoning, but those pressures are initially driven into their mindset by society. People in current society are brought up to believe that they as individuals must take responsibility for their own success; students think that if they use positive thinking, they will get exactly where they want to be, and if they fail, it is because they did not work hard enough. It is exactly this ideology that leads to students presenting “signs of depression, anxiety, and suicide ideation” (Alicia Kruisselbrink Flatt, The College
The main point to Caroline Bird’s article is that college has never been able to work its magic for everyone (15). I totally agree with this statement. Many of the high school graduates today are not mature enough to attend college immediately out of high school. Since they have been in school for thirteen years, students are thinking of some “me” time after graduation. They are not ready to settle down in a serious academic environment. My oldest daughter graduated from high school in the spring of 2009 then attended her first semester of college the following fall. She dropped out after her first semester because college was harder than she thought. She was working part-time in addition to going to school full time. There was always an outside distraction to keep her from her studies. Her grades were positive proof that students must be serious about college to gain something from attending to college.
As the economy evolves and the job market continues to get more competitive, it’s becoming harder to have a successful career without some kind of college degree. This creates a belief in many young students that college actually is a commodity, something they must have in order to have a good life. There’s many different factors that influence this mindset, high schools must push the importance of the student’s willingness and drive to further their education. College isn’t just a gateway to jobs, but it is an opportunity to increase knowledge and stretch and challenge the student which in return makes them a more rounded adult and provides them with skills they might lack prior to
The author believes that students in the current generation are under more pressure than preceding ones. “William Alexander, director of Penn’s counseling and psychological services stated, ‘A small setback used to mean disappointment…’ Now? ‘For some students, a mistake has incredible meaning.’” The specialists that the author chooses to cite are all credible, which helps to build her view on this subject. The research that Scelfo uses also illustrates the fact that a student’s family plays a big role in their overall mindset. For example, Alice Miller, a famous psychologist, observed that “…some especially intelligent and sensitive children can become so attuned to parents’ expectations that they do whatever it takes to fulfill those expectations- at the expense of their own feelings and needs.” Being able to support her argument with the findings of psychologists and doctors avails Scelfo in swaying the reader’s
Parents are forcing students to take classes they don’t want, leaving the student dull and unheard. Parents focus their kids to take challenging classes in order to satisfy their fear of the child getting into a good college. Students are told by parents and the school system that they must take this challenging class and extracurricular just meet ‘the standard quota” but reality it’s not true. For instance, Zinsser’s did a survey on Yale students and asked the students a question about their parental guidance and why they follow it. The results were scary, most students stated: “well my parents want me to be a doctor… They’re paying all this money….” (Zinsser
Although perhaps supportive of higher education their parents and Family members may view their entry into college as a break in the family system rather than a continuation of their schooling. In families, role assignments about work, family, religion and community are passed down through the generations creating intergenerational continuity. When a family member disrupts this system by choosing to attend college, he or she experiences a shift in identity, leading to a sense of loss. Not-prepared for this loss, many first-generation students may come to develop two different identities one for home and another for college, the student might feel he needs to do better in college then his parents. So the student might start feeling the pressure, that there is too much going on in his life and at home, because the parent is putting too much pressure to do better but the student just can’t stay focus on their studies, and they eventually will develop low grades he or she might just drop out of school, the parent might want them to work and go to school that could be difficult for the student. A student need to be successful in college to succeed, parent needs to be more supportive, and maybe their child can finish
Imagine turning into someone unrecognizable and watching as your life rips apart, a life that you worked so hard for, because all hope is lost. You have hit the bottom of “the well of life”, and deep inside this “well of life” you understand it’s all because of students.
One of the statements I agree most with is “if college is so wonderful how come so many kids stop out.” (Linda Lee) I have never thought about the percent of students who stop going to college, so I did some of my own research. In my research, I have found an article by Dr.S called “The emotional abuse of our children: Teachers, school,
It seems as though the majority of college students these days aren’t looking to further their education because it’s what they really want, they do it to please their parents, to be accepted by society, or because there’s nothing else for them to do (Bird, 372). These expectations have led to students being unhappy and stressed, and have pushed them into a school or a job that they don’t particularly care for.
Society puts too much pressure on high school students to attend a 4-year college right after graduation. Though this is an attainable goal for some, a great majority of students are not fully prepared for the demands of college. 4-year schools require an incredible amount of maturity and preparation, leaving very little room for mistakes. Schools often overlook this aspect because their main goal is to get as many students into 4-year college as possible. This is a great goal to have however they send students off to college who aren’t ready to be handle the difficult of their courses while being away from home. My senior year of high school, my family and I came to the conclusion that we were not going to be able to afford four-year college tuition. This upset me at first because I felt like all my hard work and good grades went to waste. I dreaded the thought of going to community college because my who...
However, parental involvement is still important with college aged students, especially when dealing with the stress of moving away from home, tough classes, and the cost of college education. Wartman and Savage, in Parental Involvement in Higher Education: Understanding the Relationship Among Students, Parents, and the Institution, share that parental involvement is especially important with the encouragement and support for their student’s choice to attend college, along with their tangible support such as providing a college fund for their student and joining the student for campus visits and other preparation events the institution may offer (59-60). Although parental involvement at this level is still important, independence also needs to be established with this new chapter of their lives. Parents should not need to help their college student budget their time or schedule times for them to get started on their homework. At this age, students should be able to handle such tasks themselves, with the prior knowledge and help they have gotten from their parents at a younger age. Wartman and Savage also add that one of the most important ways parents may be involved in their college student’s academics is to be a firm support system (91). Students may need financial and/or emotional support in which
This article informs the reader about the benefits of building resilience in their students. The article explains that academic performance has increased in 11 states who have implemented
In our society, a college education is no longer an option or privilege, but rather a necessity. The main reason people go to college is not because they want to, but because they have to. Guidance counselors and parents pressure most high school seniors to go to college because it is “the right thing to do.” Our society has it in our mind that if a person does not go to college they will not become successful. Exactly one year ago I was in high school, and being a senior was probably the most stressful year. Most seniors worried about filling out college applications and deciding what major to do. Inputting all your grades and knowing that you were not the best student is especially stressful. For most people, going to college seems
The next generation of young adults is not being taught the important life skills needed to thrive in today’s world. Adults who have never had to challenge themselves are not going up the ladder of success. Dr. Whelan, a sociologist who has taught at many universities, has three books, and several notable achievements wrote the article, “Helping first year students help them...
Are the new standards and expectations the world has for teenagers really creating monsters? The amount of stress that is put on students these days between trying to balance school, homework, extra curricular activities, social lives, sleep and a healthy lifestyle is being considered a health epidemic (Palmer, 2005). Students are obsessing over getting the grades that are expected of them to please those that push them, and in return, lose sleep and give up other aspects of their lives that are important to them, such as time with friends and family, as well as activities that they enjoy. The stress that they endure from the pressures of parents, teachers, colleges, and peers has many physical as well as mental effects on every student, some more harmful than others. The extreme pressure on students to get perfect grades so that they will be accepted into a college has diminished the concept of actually learning and has left the art of “financing the system” in order to succeed in its place (Palmer, 2005).