A new moniker, "snowplow parents," refers to those who not only hover like helicopter parents but also plow ahead to pre-emptively eliminate any obstacles from their child's path. These are the folks who would like to hand-select their young child's classmates, or who bribe coaches for more playing time, or who encourage teachers to pay extra attention to their child at the expense of other students.
For those of us who work with college students, there are tales of parent calls for catchup notes from a missed class, daily requests for lists of salad-bar ingredients, and parental involvement, via Skype, regarding a dispute between roommates over a missing jar of peanut butter.
As a student-affairs administrator, I've worked with my share of snowplow parents. I hear the concern in their voices. Often such calls end with a better understanding — for me, of their kid; for parents, of our policies. Sometimes the calls are more frustrating and sound more like a scraping plow than an invested parent.
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