[]

• print this page
• 30 Jul 2010

• Products and services
  • Prospects Directory
  • Prospects Finalist
  • Prospects Jobs & Courses
  • Prospects Law
  • Prospects Work Experience
  • Prospects.ac.uk
  • Prospects Immediate Vacancies
  • Prospects Virtual Fair
  • Prospects ChatLive
• News and information
  • Labour Market Information
  • Graduate Market Trends
  • Subscribe to GMT
  • Testimonials
• Online vacancy advertising
  • Why advertise online?
  • Packages and prices
  • Sample online advert
• How to...
  • Advertise with Prospects
  • Promote work experience
  • Use Prospects Net

YOU ARE IN » Home page > News and information main menu > Graduate Market Trends > 'Helicopter' parents (Summer 08)

'Helicopter' parents and their role in graduate employability (Summer 08)

• Summary
• Introduction
• Meet the parents
• Here come the choppers
• Babies on board
• Caution: Helicopters at work
• The rhetoric of choice
• When did you last see your postcode?
• Your life – your risk
• The longest umbilical chord in history
• Changes in higher education and work
• Contact
• References

Summary

On-campus sightings of ‘helicopter’ parents have increased dramatically this year, prompting a wider debate on the relationship between universities, students and families, writes Dr Paul Redmond, Head of Careers and Employability Service at the University of Liverpool. In this article, he will look at why some parents are starting to hover, and what it means for graduate employability.

back to top

Introduction

Visit a university careers fair and it won’t be long before you spot them – ‘helicopter’ parents. This year, they’re everywhere: buttonholing employers, consulting with careers advisers, chaperoning students from stand to stand (Macleod, 2008) [1].

And they’re not just at careers fairs. Like a Dutch lager, helicopter parents are skilled at reaching parts of a university that other parents can’t reach. From open days (where they now outnumber applicants) to induction events, and from board rooms to careers interviews, parents are far more visible, and far more assertive than ever before.

back to top

Meet the parents

The term ‘helicopter parent’ dates back to the mid- 1990s when US school administrators first used it to describe a category of Baby Boomer parents who were hyper-involved in all aspects of their children’s education. At times, this made them seem to ‘hover’ over their offspring, booking appointments, chaperoning them to endless events, swooping down like personal SWAT teams whenever needs arose (Briggs, 2008) [2].

From my research, it was evident that across the UK growing numbers of parents were attending careers fairs and university open days. At some universities, parents were even being politely turned away from lectures. What surprised me most however was that it appeared from some accounts that parents were beginning to be active in the graduate job market - contacting employers, attending interviews, even, in some cases, attempting to negotiate students’ starting salaries.

back to top

Here come the choppers

In January 2008, an article I wrote on the helicopter parent phenomenon was published in the Guardian (Redmond, 2008) [3]. The response it received was surprising. Over a dozen UK and European radio stations contacted me to discuss it on air. The story even made the BBC Breakfast News. Attracting most attention were the five categories of ‘helicopter’ parents that I had developed in consultation with academics and employers. Though undeniably crude, they seemed to resonate with people’s own experiences (see Table 1).

The response from educational professionals was, however, less positive. A number of teachers contacted me to complain about parents whose involvement in their schools and colleges was beginning to become excessive. Summing up many of their views, a head teacher, writing in the Sunday Times, claimed that helicopter parents were a ‘new and threatening’ reality:

‘They are the ones who pay such close attention to their children that they rush forward to try to prevent anything bad ever happening to them. Nor will they allow their children to learn from mistakes – sometimes even contrary to the children’s own wishes’

(Macnaughten, 2008) [4].

In a similar vein, the Daily Mail accused helicopter parents of being,

‘... typical of a growing breed of ... pushy middle-class mothers and fathers who hover over their grownup children and oversee and organise virtually every aspect of their lives’

(Smith-Squire, 2008) [5].

back to top

Babies on board

In higher education, none of this is particularly new. In fact, the trend of helicopter parents has been known for several years. As in schools, the trend for greater parental involvement has triggered strong feelings.

Amongst the most vocal critics has been Professor Frank Furedi, a leading sociologist, and philosopher. For him, the appearance of ‘helicopter’ parents on campus is symptomatic of a growing ‘infantilisation’ of higher education, the ‘celebration of immaturity’, that he claims is encouraging students to remain half-adults, half-children – or what he calls, ‘adultescents’ and ‘kidults’. Faced with this, he claims that many tutors are only too pleased to have parents engage in the curriculum. After all,

‘In practice, many educators now regard undergraduates as biologically mature schoolchildren and welcome the positive support that parents can provide to university students’

(2001) [6].

Other academics, however, adopt a more pragmatic approach. According to Alex Callinicos, professor of politics at York University, the changing relationship between parents, students and universities represents a ‘quantum leap’ from the period of the mid to late 1980s (Phillips and North, 2005) [7]. The difficulty, he argues, lies in managing expectations which in some cases can be unrealistically high, particularly when fees are involved. How you convey this message, he concedes, is easier said than done.

back to top

Caution: Helicopters at work

But if higher education is still trying to acclimatise to helicopter parents, the challenge facing graduate recruiters is even greater. Several recruiters have reported incidents recently whereby parents have contacted them to try to renegotiate their son or daughter’s starting salary. Others have had parents contact them to complain about a ‘child’ who has been overlooked for promotion.

Bosses have also expressed concerns that parents are impairing graduates’ motivation and reliability. One senior investment banker told me last year how recruits to her firm were still chronically unreliable when attending off-site meetings. Despite earning salaries exceeding £40,000, their attendance or punctuality could never be taken for granted.

Employers also grumble that overprotective parents are producing a generation of ‘graduate divas’ who thanks to their serial over-protection are ‘unrealistic, fickle and expect everything to fall into their laps’ (Clark, 2008) [8].

Fortunately this view is not yet universal. No employer wants to risk becoming a casualty in the ‘War for Talent,’ which means that many firms are now adopting a ‘can’t beat them, join them’ attitude. More enlightened recruiters also recognise that to attract the best university leavers, parents also have to be won over. Bob Athwal, graduate recruitment manager at RWE npower said,

“We have certainly experienced this shift in generation. Over the last couple of graduate recruitment seasons we have notice that parents play a much more significant role in helping their children find the right employment. This stems from them attending fairs and helping to prepare their children for assessment centres. Once an offer of employment is made we are also aware that they the parents will decide along with the children which offer to take. Therefore it is essential that we strive to be an employer of choice not only for the graduates but also their parents.”

In this, UK recruiters could be said to be mirroring their US counterparts. For several years, Enterprise Rent-A-Car has openly invited dialogue with parents of applicants and, after making an appointment, sends the family a pack of information about the firm. As one manager at Enterprise said,

‘While we don’t encourage parents to come with them to attend induction sessions – we see that as being a little too much like a child’s first day at school – we do believe in building on the family network’

(Matthews, 2008) [9].

So what is it that drives a helicopter parent – and what does their appearance on campus mean for the future of graduate employability?

back to top

The rhetoric of choice

One theory on why some parents are now adopting more assertive strategies in their children’s education focuses on political policies, which in recent years, have focused on the closely linked themes of ‘choice’ and ‘parent power’.

Since the election of New Labour in 1997, ‘more choice for parents’ has been a cornerstone of successive educational policies (Brown et al., 2003) [10], and in a speech at 10 Downing Street in October 2005, Tony Blair argued for more ‘power and choice for parents’ (Blair, 2005) [11]. Parental choice would become one of the key themes of the Labour Government’s White Paper which argued for ‘freedom for schools and power for parents' (DfES, 2003) [12]. The subsequent publication of league-tables and OFSTED reports has only served to reiterate this mantra (HEFCE, 2008) [13]. And parents took note. The speed that parents responded to Blair’s ‘rhetoric of choice’ policies has been startling. It’s also led to new problems – particularly for schools.

back to top

When did you last see your postcode?

Since the election of New Labour, British parents have spent in excess of £1.8 billion per year buying houses in catchment areas of popular schools (McNally, 2006) [14]. Some have even taken out second mortgages to meet schools’ qualifying criteria.

One survey by ING Direct, found that some British parents were paying up to £25,000 extra in house prices to ensure that their child qualified for the ‘right’ school. Worryingly, YouGov found that one-in-four parents were willing to lie about their address to get them a place at a coveted school (Harrison, 2001) [15].

All this reveals an interesting dynamic in the debate on helicopter parenting. As education becomes increasingly driven by choice and parent power, parents are automatically assuming a more active role in the management of their child’s education. This approach, once developed, continues into higher education.

back to top

Your life – your risk

But of course choices never take place in a vacuum. Nor are they ever without consequence. This is something that helicopter parents seem to recognise only too well. And so they should: it’s they and their children who stand to carry the risk if the choices they make should go wrong.

More than any other factor, risk is the fuel that drives helicopter parents.

In recent years, much has been written about risk, particularly in an educational context. The leading expert in risk is German social scientist, Ulrich Beck. In an essay entitled ‘Living your own life in a runaway world: individualisation, globalisation and politics,’ Beck argued that we currently live in an age in which the most powerful current is the ‘ethic’ of individual self-fulfilment and achievement’ (Beck, 2000) [16]. It is the sheer individualisation of this ethic, the sense that your destiny is in your own hands, that for Beck explains why educational success is taken so seriously today and why some groups of parents remain so actively engaged in their child’s life even after they have left university.

back to top

The longest umbilical chord in history

But it’s not just risk that keeps parents hovering. Technology has also played a major contribution in changing the dynamics between parents, children and educational institutions.

Thanks to the invention of the mobile phone - the longest umbilical chord in history - parents can now speak to their children on a daily, even hourly basis. And as lecturers have found all too often, they do.

The mobile is central to understanding the reach of the helicopter parents. Once, phoning home meant queuing up for hours once a fortnight in a draughty foyer clutching a bag of change. Not anymore.

But while the public payphone was undoubtedly inconvenient and unreliable, it had one big advantage: it was virtually impossible for parents to phone in. As a result, students had to learn to be independent and self-reliant. They had no choice.

back to top

Changes in higher education and work

The final explanation for the rise of helicopter parents relates to the expansion of higher education and the competition for ‘personal capital’ (Brown and Hesketh, 2004) [17].

The expansion of university places has led to increased competition for premium graduate jobs. Studies suggest that obtaining these jobs is partly dependent on a mixture of formal academic skills and credentials, plus a range hard to pin down, informal ‘aesthetic’ qualities, such as extracurricular attainments, access to networks, and what some recruiters refer to as ‘personal fit’ (Hesketh et al., 2006) [18]. It is this subtle blend of the formal and the informal that lies at the heart of graduate employability.

It is in these informal aspects of graduate employability that parents can and do play a vital and often pivotal role in boosting student employability. Parents can set up work placements, arrange ‘information interviews’, make introductions, provide access to key networks, and, if the need arises, phone-up employers. And the paradox is that as higher education has expanded and the competition for ‘premium’ jobs has grown the contribution that parents make in shaping graduate employability has never been more important or more decisive.

But I suspect that today’s ‘helicopter parents’ are already well aware of this. It’s why you’ll find them at careers fairs.

back to top

Contact

paul.redmond@liverpool.ac.uk

References

1. MACLEOD, D. (2008) In they swoop to direct their children's career: the helicopter parents have landed, The Guardian, London, 3 January 2008.

2. BRIGGS, S. (ed) (2008) Confessions of a 'Helicopter Parent', in 'Parents Survival Guide' by Experience Incorporated, Boston, USA. www.experience.com/alumnus/channel?channel_id=parents_survival_guide&page_id=helicopter_parents

3. REDMOND, P. (2008) Here comes the chopper, The Guardian, London, 2 January 2008.

4. MACNAUGHTEN, A. (2008) Hovering - but not helping, The Sunday Times, London, 13 April 2008.

5. SMITH-SQUIRE, A. (2008) Curse of the helicopter mothers, Daily Mail, London, 17 January 2008.

6. FUREDI, F. (2001) Values crushed by compulsion, Times Higher Education Supplement, London, 29 June 2001.

7. PHILLIPS, S. & NORTH, M. (2005) Big Mother is watching you, Times Higher Education Supplement, London, 24 June 2005.

8. CLARK, L. (2008) The graduate divas: Bosses mourn arrival of Generation Y, the graduate divas who want it all, Daily Mail, London, 31 January 2008.

9. MATTHEWS, V. (2008) Meet the parents. Personnel Today, 3 June 2008.

10. BROWN, R., HESKETH, A. J. & WILLIAMS, S. (2003) Employability in a Knowledge-driven Economy. Journal of Education and Work, 16, (2), 107 - 126.

11. BLAIR, T. (2005) Speech on education at 10 Downing Street, 10 Downing Street, London.

12. DfES (2003) Widening participation in higher education, Department for Education and Skills, London.

13. HEFCE (2008) Counting what is measured or measuring what counts? League tables and their impact on higher education institutions in England, Higher Education Funding Council for England, London.

14. MCNALLY, S. (2006) Education, Education, Education: the evidence on school standards, parental choice and staying on, Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) at the London School of Economics, London.

15. HARRISON, V. R. (2001) Simple questionnaire studies. Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, 17, 228-238.

16. BECK, U. (2000) Living Your Own Life in a Runaway World: Individualisation, Globalisation and Politics. IN HUTTON, W. & GIDDENS, A. (Eds.) On the Edge: Living with Global Capitalism. Johnathon Cape, London, 164 - 174.

17. BROWN, P. & HESKETH, A. J. (2004) The Mismanagement of Talent: Employability and Jobs in the Knowledge Economy, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

18. HESKETH, A. J., BROWN, P. & WILLIAMS, D. (2006) How to get the best graduate job, Pearson Education Ltd, London.

Content last updated: July 2008