Handling ‘Helicopter Parents’

The days of parents dropping off their student on campus and waving good-bye are gone. Enter the world of the parent coordinator.

By Lydia Lum

On any given day at California Polytechnic State University, Nona Nickelsen fields phone calls from parents about their children’s tuition or dormitory meal plans. Nickelsen also might be lobbed a question like this one, posed by a worried mother: “My son’s classmates all have girlfriends and boyfriends. What can I do to help my son find someone?”

Welcome to the world of parent coordinators, who now work at about 70 percent of the nation’s four-year colleges and universities. Although their job titles vary from one campus to another, their duties typically include organizing campus events for annual parent weekends, producing regular newsletters and staffing telephone hotlines — some of them toll-free. The coordinators field questions ranging from financial aid and academic advising to homesickness and how to get a student to wake up in time for class.

“This is a whole new career field,” says Dr. Gwendolyn J. Dungy, executive director of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, which represents about 11,000 student affairs officials.

Once upon a time, parents would help their children move into dorm rooms and apartments, then wave good-bye for the semester. Not anymore. Baby boomers have arguably been more involved in their children’s educations — and their lives in general — than any preceding generation of parents, university observers say. And boomers see no reason why that hands-on approach should change just because their children have moved out of the house and onto campus. In fact, their hovering nature has earned baby boomers the nickname “helicopter parents” by coordinators. It’s a moniker some parents proudly claim as they deluge college offices with their questions. And in this era of instantaneous communication, helicopter parents expect detailed answers right away.