LITS and Devil I think you both have valid perspectives.
I get Devil's position because for our kids, they left for school at 6-6:30 a.m. and didn't come home until 9-10 pm.
~~ DS1 was a lifeguard that ran in the house and changed into his guard uniform, worked M,T,W,F, and Sat. 4 -9 yr round. Summer hrs 9-5 M-F
~~ DS2 played football. Summer camp (mandatory) was 6 a.m. to 4 pm. School yr his schedule until Nov; could be later if they made champions was 6:30 am to 6:30 pm M-T, F 6:30 a.m. to 10-11 pm.
There was no available time to contact anyone when it came to time sensitive issues unless, we as a parent called on their behalf.
I think that you are misconstruing why Devil did what they did for their children. Trust me, I did it too. I would come home and see a blinking light on the answering machine. I knew my child's schedule and I had no problem picking up the phone and saying to that person, This is Mrs. Bullet, DS will not be home until 10 pm tonight, can I assist, or can he email/voicemail you the response when he gets home?
Sometimes it was a simple answer that we could assist, and sometimes they needed to talk to the candidate personally...i.e. email, voicemail.
I am not dogging you, because I do agree to a point, I am just illustrating the reasons why some parents that assist should not be viewed as helicopter parents. You need to understand how competitive not only the SA's are, but college and scholarships too. EC's are a big factor in their resume, thus because of that they are not hanging out at home after school playing XBOX.
I do agree with LITS, if you come into save the day, you harm your child. I took that as his point.
dtkdarnoc said:
Best way we've found to do any of this is not so much to BE a helicopter parent, but to THREATEN TO BE a helicopter parent
+1
DS actually would vent to Bullet and I, but he would always premise DON'T DO ANYTHING!