Being world weary takes a lot more than just academic ability
COLUMNIST
Helping my daughter empty the contents of her room into boxes and bags to head off for her second year at university I am wondering if it is the right thing to do. Maybe she would be better off without me?
We are ankle deep in a soup of clothes, posters, duvet covers and books. There is a half dead cactus, which I try to tell myself is actually half alive as the daughter forces it into a jar narrowly avoiding injury. “Be careful,” I shriek. Perhaps I should leave her alone to be cut by the possibly toxic and certainly dangerously sharp spikes? The plant looks as though it breaks all health and safety rules.
I am certain my mother never helped me pack a cactus. She would have left me to it.
Helicopter parenting has been blamed, in part, for a surge in numbers of students seeking help from university counselling and mental health services.
Today’s undergraduates are less resilient and less able to fend for themselves, student welfare officers in Wales and beyond warn.
Figures from universities in Wales and around the UK are, on the face of it, alarming.
There has been a 21-fold increase in numbers accessing student support services at Swansea University and a threefold increase at Cardiff University, in recent years.
Across the UK more than 43,000 students had counselling at Russell Group universities in the academic year 2014-15, compared to 34,000 only three years earlier, it has been reported.
In that time tuition fees have trebled to £9,000 – just one of the many stresses today’s students have which those in the past did not.
So, not only are today’s children beginning their education “less school ready” according to teaching unions, they are also heading for further education “less university ready”, it appears.
That’s only part of the story. Students are also more likely to access university mental health and counselling services because higher education institutions have become far better at providing them.
Services are higher profile, there is less stigma around mental health and more conversation surrounding it.
Whether it is chicken or egg it does seem that today’s young people are not allowed to fail as we were back in the heady days of the past – that time and place parents are so fond of returning to when they grapple to understand the present.
Today’s primary school sports days are laughably uncompetitive and those who can afford it hire private tutors to get the grades their children need if they don’t get the marks first time.
There are those who fail, of course, and often the ones who can least afford to, but a new breed of alpha parent has emerged along with our national obsession with exam league tables.
Schools drill young people through tests and exams which they, in turn, are measured on. Parents, repeatedly told how important exam grades are, often put them first, above all.
I was the first to say my teenagers should revise rather than help me wash up, cook and clean during exam season (which is every term these days).
Why get your teenager to launder their clothes when their time would be better spent chasing that elusive but all-important A*?
But education is so much more than passing exams. Being world ready takes more than academic ability, even if that is the icing on the cake.
If you can’t cook, clean, budget and manage your time then life quickly becomes stressful. If you can’t look after yourself or communicate who will want to employ you?
When I picked up my daughter from university halls at the end of the university year last term I was shocked to see how some of the students had lived. It looked as if some had barely washed up in their kitchens for the last few months. Others were binning possessions they couldn’t be bothered to clean or pack as their parents piled remaining belongings into cars.
Gone are the days of taking the National Express coach home alone with three plastic bags full of fraying clothes.
Some students, especially boys, had arrived in halls unable to cook a basic meal, my daughter told me.
Others, like her, had no real idea how to budget. You can pass maths GCSE with a top grade without being able to manage your money.
On top of that students have to develop the knack of teaching themselves, of having to plan a day of study when there is only one hour of lectures or the strain of having back to back study and work.
Most undergraduates have to borrow eye watering sums of money to get the qualifications they need with many juggling jobs and study. They are also constantly barraged by social media images comparing their lives with those of others.
It’s no wonder they have wild parties.
To cap it all they have been raised by parents, some of whom would rather they stayed safely at home hooked to a screen than roam the streets, possibly in danger, finding out about the world for themselves.
Where once teenagers travelled independently there are now holiday companies running organised gap year and holiday ”experiences”. Why let your young person risk being alone in Bangkok searching for a hostel when you can pay for a glorified package tour?
It is hard to let go and allow your young person to take risks, to fail and make mistakes. Risks can, and do, involve injury and death, as any parent knows. But not allowing them to learn how to manage life alone can also be fatal.
Lack of resilience when things go wrong (as they will), lack of independence and an inability to bounce back can all lead to low self esteem and the spiralling problems that can cause.
It feels counter-intuitive but watching my teenagers make the same mistakes I did and letting them do it could be the best parenting I ever did.
I am trying to tell myself that as I watch my nearly-20-year-old light a cigarette as she packs.
Gagging my desire to remind her of the health risks or tell her how hard it was to give up I tell myself it’s better she works it out for herself.
Action is better than words so I grab a handful of my daughter’s bags and head for the door.
As I do a cactus spine scrapes me through the fabric.
“Careful mum,” my daughter says, “You’re knocking my cactus.”