"super" parenting.
 

we are currently flush with interns. personally, i hope i never get assigned one again. while it is an awesome and rich experience; it is a lot of work. and i think others should share the love.

there is this one guy that comes by every four days. he drags along this kid - hoping to find him a summer internship job. i dont think he is even studying engineering! not CE. the old man does 100% of all the talking. he knows i handled our last two interns and pokes his head in every 4 days!! he is just going from supervisor to supervisor from San Rafael to Santa Rosa, CA. the kid just stands there with his hands in his pockets.

i want to tell him, that i would never hire a kid that needed a chaperon to find a job. (i put on a shirt and tie and drove around pleading my case to get my college internships. they were a hot commodity!)

this older dude has to tell the kid, "now Scott, shake the man's hands"

i dont have kids of my own. i cant say if i would be good at being a parent. maybe, maybe not. what i know being a child doesnt count..not under the dictatorship of a chinese mother. that is also not a good parenting style :) i think this intern-hopeful needs to spread his own wings. find his own voice. i havent even heard him say he WANTS the job.

I see that same kind of behavior and it makes me shake my head. I think they call it helicopter parents. I don't get it.
Giving a kid everything and doing all his thinking for him keeps him from thinking for himself.

My son just completed his first year in engineering school (2 months early) and is actively pursuing an internship and has a couple of promising leads.
I mentioned that my company has an internship program and if he'd like i could find out some info on it. He said he already checked into it, they target a few select schools and have a waiting list but he applied anyway.

He's got a linked-in page and all sorts of stuff like that, and if I tried to get involved and help he'd say "it's OK, I got this".

It sure is more difficult than what I expected it to be . Before I had kids, I was always that guy saying " if that were my kid "
Life has humbled me some

My oldest is 6. I figure by the time they are 18ish they need to be flying mostly solo and my intervention is only when specifically asked for. We'll see how that holds up over the next 12 years.

you and me both brother!!!

they aren't cars where you can just turn the wheel in the direction you want them to go, apply brakes when you want them to slow down, etc.

We raised 3 and two of them are thriving, champions in their respective fields. The third leads with her emotions and makes life much harder than it needs to be.

We were involved parents that showed up to the games and musical performances. We NEVER interfered in their relationship with a coach, teacher, or future employer. They were expected to solve their own problems.

My wife is now retired. Back when she was the HR director at a local university she talked about parents coming in with their college student kids to apply for a student job. They would fill out the application for the COLLEGE student child. Then do most of the interview for the kid. She was always astonished any parent thought they were really helping the kid.

Wow, that's sad.

My guess is that he doesn't want the job, but his dad wants him to have the job.

Find him a job that involves relocating.

Problem solved?

There are deep ocean fish.

There are shore fish.

There are lagoon fish.

There are lake fish.

There are river fish.

There are pond fish.

That's the thing, these are people with their own personalities. You can, at best, nudge them a certain direction, and hope for the best. What you do that's successful in one may not work in another.

A big part of how a person turns out comes down to that person and their personality. You can have kids that come from great parents that turn out horrible and you can have kids from horrible parents that turn out great.

I work with a guy now that's intelligent and successful. He came from a background and home-life that if you heard about it on Jerry Springer, you'd think was "dramatized for TV".
It's a shame. Those parents think they are helping the kids, but they are hurting them on so many levels. Or hell, maybe the kid is pretty much a loser that's only gotten as far as they have because the parents have done everything. Maybe the parent is giving the kid a better life than they would have on their own.

I think we often make the mistake of assuming that everyone has the same potential to be level headed, rational, reliable and at least moderately successful, but the same way that some folks have blue eyes and some brown, some folks are natural athletes and some are not, some are naturally intelligent and some aren't, the same goes for the personality traits that make us successful or not.

You never know what someones story is.

My son will be 15 this year.

High functioning Aspergers.

Kid is kindest, sweetest compassionate soul you'll meet and he's smart, funny, makes me smile a 100 x's a day.

But he is nearly virtually incapable of social interaction.

And it's getting worse as he gets older, not better.

I suspect it has to do with as he gets older it being easier to see his personality is not like other kids his age.

When he was younger it "fit" within what one might expect of a 5 or 10 year old.

Now he just comes across as incredibly immature but that's not what it is.

It closes him off from other people. He knows he's different in some way and rather than call attention to himself he tunes out.

His older sister came to us about a year ago, she said "I get it now" and her attitude towards him completely changed. Not that they had a bad relationship before, they got along great, it's that she now understands his not trying to be an annoying little ****.

She even had the sense to say to us "I guess I'm always going to have to be close by when you guys are not here any more"

This **** ain't easy.

Cut people some slack unless you know for sure what they are dealing with.

That's one thing, but if something like that is an issue, then the parents need to lead with "I'm here because...." especially if the "child" is of college age and trying to get a job as a professional (or in a professional workplace).

I suspect there are parents that are just doing it wrong, probably more than there are parents in your position.

Meanwhile ......

Couple seeks court's help to evict 30-year-old son from their home | Fox News

Clearly that guy's parents enabled him to get to this point. He's obviously been hanging out with free everything, I'm sure they've been covering all of his bills. It sounds like he doesn't have a job. I suspect he lives there like a 14 year old with no chores. Why would he want to leave that sort of situation (other than to have a life as an adult).

Here at a university, they are not called helicopter parents, they are called road-grader parents.

I had one caring parent that called and ripped the department chair and department manager apart because their precious pre-med daughter had not taken/passed a required safety quiz for a lab class. The department caved and gave the precious little one another chance which she failed. She was given yet another chance at the same quiz which she barely passed.

Methinks med school is a bit out of the kids reach or a great big wake up call.

LOVE IT!

social interaction gets more and more complex as kids get older. not all kids develop at the same speed (not necessarily relevant to this thread but a great subject) and kids that lag tend to be underestimated in both intelligence and thoughtfulness.

kudos to your family.

but i think this is a vastly different topic altogether.

That is 100% correct. If any of the interns we hire had any undisclosed issues (medical, social, food allergies, etc.) that caused problems because we were not aware in advance, see ya.

We all have out parenting methods. My wife and I tried to tailor unique approaches to each child since they are very different. Do what you think is best.

I can tell you that when my son went for his ROTC interview with an Army Colonel, I stayed in the car. Five minutes later he came out and said the Colonel would like to meet me.

The Colonel, a great guy, told me that that had never happened before, that he usually has to ask the parent(s) (almost always the mother) to leave after introductions are made, shoo them out so he can interview the applicant.

His next question was, "Where is your wife?"

Not here.

His expression was priceless.