When John Coyne was young, his mother used to fix his hair and try to choose his clothes. When he came to college at SMU, it only got worse. She’d call him everyday, all day.

“Once I tried to put some distance between us,” 21-year-old Coyne said. “She managed to call me a hundred times in two days trying to get a hold of me.”

Amanda Johnson, his former roommate, said Coyne’s mother would even call her looking for her son.

“Even in the middle of the night, I’d get calls because he wouldn’t answer his phone,” she said.

Coyne’s mom is a helicopter parent. They’re the ones constantly hovering over their children, managing their lives and over-involving themselves in all of their activities. And, the behavior can continue even when their children go off to college. Helicopter parents continue to involve themselves, sometimes even calling administrators to complain on their children’s behalf.

In fact, the over-involvement of parents in the past 10 years has been one of the biggest challenges on college campuses, according to a recent report by The Washington Times.

Some colleges and universities, including SMU, have even begun offering new resources to help parents find appropriate ways to involve themselves in the campus.

Students don’t learn how to handle situations on their own if they are in constant contact with parents, said Cathey Soutter, the director of SMU’s Counseling and Testing Center. They can’t handle uncomfortable situations and become upset if things don’t come out even.

“I get so many students who come to me who can’t navigate something as simple and also as complicated as SMU,” she said.

In a recent online survey of 400 college students and recent graduates, 25 percent said their parents were “over involved to the point that their involvement was either annoying or embarrassing.” Thirty-eight percent of students say their parents either called into or physically attended meetings with academic advisors, according to the study, which was conducted by Experience, Inc., a provider of career services that support students and alumni. Thirty-one percent said their parents had called a teacher to complain about a grade.

Helicopter parents are usually well educated and want to provide their children with advantages they never received, said Soutter. For many baby boomers, being a good parent means being involved. But that often leads to parents wanting to help their children with everything.

Soutter also credits the cell phone and e-mail for the growing number of helicopter parents. Cell phones make students more accessible, and e-mail allows for much faster communication. Soutter compares the cell phone to a current-day umbilical cord.

“When I would ask a student eight or 10 years ago how often they would talk to their parents, it was once or a couple of times a week,” she said. “Now when I ask them, it’s everyday, and sometimes more than once a day.”

Vice President for Student Affairs Jim Caswell said the university has seen an increase in the number of phone calls, e-mails and visits by parents.

“In the last five years, parental involvement has increased significantly in all aspects of students’ lives,” he said.

So much so, that the university has had to find new resources for them. A part-time parent liaison was hired by the Student Affairs Office. And, the university also has brochures, newsletters, AARO activities and a handbook, all for parents.

Deanie Kepler, the parent liaison, serves as the advisor for the Mothers’ and Dads’ Club, as well as for individual parents. Her job is to promote appropriate parental involvement, she said.

“I usually get calls from parents about roommate situations or professors,” Kepler said. “I usually try to get them to encourage their students to handle the situations on their own.”

Caswell said he deals with parents during a crisis.

“I usually get calls for alleged violations of the university code,” he said. “That’s the time parents try to sweep in and rescue their child.”

Coyne’s mom, in fact, used to come to SMU to try and save him from getting in trouble with professors and administration.

He said his mother even once saved him from getting suspended.

“She managed to turn the whole situation into a health problem and got me medical leave instead of suspension,” he said.

Today Coyne is a student at the University of Oregon, where he transferred, and said his mother doesn’t call as much.

“My family lives in Japan, and she’d come to the States the day after something happened,” he said.

Soutter said students often worry about letting let their parents down when they are so invested in their lives. In fact, 65 percent of young adults still seek counsel from their parents on their academic and career paths, according to the Experience, Inc. study.

Unfortunately, some students with helicopter parents tend to misrepresent themselves because they don’t want to disappoint their parents, Soutter said.

“Students are afraid their parents will be upset if they make the usual, common mistakes all college students make,” she said. “We often find, though, that most parents take it all pretty well.”

This article was previously published on smudailydata.com