Campus ministers seek church help with “helicopter parents”

NASHVILLE (UMNS) — College students having trouble making the transition to adulthood increasingly rely on cell phone calls and e-mails to their parents, a United Methodist campus ministers group says. So campus ministers are asking local churches to develop ministries that help parents and college freshmen adjust to this transition.

"I've had faculty members tell me they'll be discussing a grade with a student, and the student will take out their cell phone and call their mother, then hand the cell phone to the professor," said the Rev. Bill Campbell, co-chairperson of the United Methodist Campus Ministers Association and a campus minister at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro.

"Campus ministers have seen a real change in the last few years of students not being ready to take on adult responsibilities when they get to college and parents struggling with how to deal with this, not knowing how much to help," Campbell said.

The Rev. Luther Felder, a staff member in the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry’s Campus Ministry Section, agrees that churches can help parents and college students.

"This is a very important rite of passage that offers local congregations a unique opportunity to reach out to parents and young adults who are struggling with this issue. Can you imagine a ceremony that takes place just before school starts, followed by care groups that help parents to talk about the grief they experience? This could reiterate what institutions are trying to do with students," Felder said.

The Board of Higher Education and Ministry sponsors the campus ministers' association, which works closely with the Division of Higher Education on campus ministry issues.

Parents who cannot let students handle their own problems are referred to by educators as "helicopter parents" for their tendency to hover over their college-age offspring. Some parents try to intervene in problems with roommates, scheduling, dorm rooms, grade disputes and other matters.

"As campus ministers, we try to treat the students as adults and have to assume that when they make a commitment, they will act as an adult," Campbell said. Unfortunately, parents do not always support that treatment, he said."

I had a parent call to inform me that his daughter would not be going on a mission trip she had signed up for and wanted her deposit back. I told him she needed to talk to me, but I couldn't refund the deposit," Campbell said.

Steps for churches
The campus ministers' group is urging local churches to help in several ways.

First, it would like to see churches develop special Sunday school classes on parenting college students, as well as ongoing ministries for parents — especially parents of first-year students. The association's coordinating committee made these recommendations during a recent meeting in Nashville.

Annual conferences are encouraged to develop workshops on parenting of college students for parents and clergy. United Methodist campus ministers and chaplains offer themselves as consultants to help annual conferences develop college-age parenting strategies.

Association members are also asking the denominationwide boards, agencies and the United Methodist Publishing House to develop books and other resources on Christian parenting of college students and young adults.

Annoying parental behavior
An online poll of more than 400 college students conducted by Experience Inc., a provider of career services to students and alumni, revealed the vast majority of students report their parents are moderately involved, while 25 percent of them responded that their parents were "overly involved to the point that their involvement was either annoying or embarrassing." The data was gathered from students and parents who visited the site and filled out the survey, so it does not represent a random scientific sample.

Still, 38 percent of students said their parents had either physically attended meetings with academic advisers or called an adviser, and 31 percent said their parents had called professors to complain about a grade.

"Over-involved parenting hampers students' transition into adulthood, their spiritual development and career preparation," Campbell said. "As campus ministers, we have always sought to lead college students into a healthy adult spiritual development, but our opportunity to assist parents in healthy parenting roles is very limited." That is why the association is asking churches to step in, he said.

The association's coordinating committee recommends a variety of books for parents of college students, including The Launching Years: Strategies for Parenting From Senior Year to College Life by Laura S. Kastner and Jennifer Wyatt (Three Rivers Press); When Your Kid Goes to College: A Survival Guide by Carol Barkin (Harper Paperbacks); and Letting Go: A Parent’s Guide to Understanding the College Years by Karen L. Coburn and Madge L. Treegrer (HarperCollins).

Recommended readings for pastors, campus ministers and conference leaders include College of the Overwhelmed: The Campus Mental Health Crisis and What To Do About It by Richard Kadison and Theresa Foy DiGeronino (Jossey-Bass); and Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--And More Miserable Than Ever Before by Jean M. Twenge (Free Press).

*Brown is an associate editor and writer in the Office of Interpretation at the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry.