Grow up.

Students must start accepting responsibility for their actions without parents help.

I get it. You got a bad grade on a test and you’re positive you did everything in your power to get an A. The teacher’s methods aren’t actually helping you learn anything. So you turn to your parent.

You have a dispute with someone or something at school. You don’t like the book you’re reading, the activity you’re doing, etc.. So your parent sends an email, or makes a phone call on your behalf.

This has to stop. A majority of the population at ETHS is only a few years away from 18, from college and from the workforce. The attitude towards letting parents throw you a ladder for every mildly challenging situation is irresponsible and damaging.

For one, having a parent talk to a teacher about your grades and performance in their class for you is just dishonest. Your academic career should be based of your achievements and faults, and your work ethic. Asking a parent to step in for you, to take your responsibility from you, is not living up to those academic standards and is a little deceitful.

It’s also unfair to teachers. If you have a problem with a teacher or a staff member, you personally should be dealing with that, in a calm and respectful manner. Yet people still have their mom or dad email a staff member, or their boss, usually blowing the entire situation way out of proportion. Hint: you will have much better luck working out a problem with a teacher than your parent.

Not only is this kind of parent involvement questionable and honestly a bit whiny on students part, but it can actually harm students in the long run. According to Psychology Today, so-called “Helicopter Parenting” can cause self-esteem and anxiety issues with students in college. If a parent has micromanaged a student for their whole life, when that student gets to college they won’t know how to deal with outside pressures.

Now, this doesn’t mean that parents can’t get involved in student’s lives. Parents should know what’s going on and what issues their kid is having. Obviously, parents take a lot of responsibility in the issue of helicopter parenting. Yet, as students are get closer and closer to adulthood, they must realize that if they want to be successful and confident in college and the “real world”, they must start taking on their own issues, and parents must let them.

High school is supposed to prepare students for the real world, and help shape them into model citizens, this cannot happen if parents are holding students hands the entire time. So students must take control of their lives. It’s the only way students will be successful in the future.