Almost everyone has had a point in their life where they think their parents didn’t provide enough leniency, and who’s to say you’re wrong? Between our social lives and school work, where’s the fine line barrier of personal space?
Academic:
In our academics it’s important for our guardians to make sure we aren’t failing out of high school. What is not their job, however, is to do all of our homework and projects for us. Once we graduate, we can’t be phoning up Mom when we can’t solve a math problem or need help with an essay.
Personal work ethic is an important part of being an adult, and if you have to grasp this skill while juggling endless piles of homework, you’ll be sitting in a pile of anxiety.
When you are at the stage of high school, you should make it your personal goal to take matters into your own hands. Whether this is finding tutors in subjects you’re not sure of or remediating a test when your grade is a bit under the weather, it should be you.
It is not your parents job to nag you for days because you didn’t pass a test. They should not be emailing the teacher and solidifying the idea in your head that your best isn’t good enough.
In the world of Northern Virginia, the pressure to always have an A is on. The thing that everyone needs to remember is that your best is good enough, even if your best is a B.
Social:
Every high-schooler can agree that he or she loves a little down time, especially when it means hanging out with friends.
As teenagers, we are mature enough to venture out into the big world and head over to the movies just down the street with our friends, without a parent and hourly check ups.
Guardians should respect their teens enough to trust them to choose the right friends. If it comes down to it, they have a right to meet those friends, but not because it’s a requirement, because it is a regular social interaction.
Teens have to be responsible—fully understanding the fact that if one morning, a parent woke up expecting their child to be at home and he/she is not there, a freak-out session is permitted.
But many social behaviors that worry parents are harmless and acceptable. Hanging out with friends at the mall or a dinner-date with a boyfriend or girlfriend are regular social interactions that adults and teenagers can both enjoy.
A high-schooler, who may well be 18, will not live at home forever. It is important to introduce teenagers to the real world before they are introduced to a frat house. Social freedom, far from being a privilege reserved to adults, is something every teen needs to experience while he or she still lives near the parents.
Academic and social freedoms are a necessity for every student to succeed in life. The recent accounts of over-the-top helicopter parents following their teens to college are merely controlling high school parents who never let go.
At some point, parents have to let teens become adults.