After reading this post, I actually laughed because this is exactly what I predicted would happen to the kid whose parents were too over-protective. I’m curious if the kid ever talked to his parents about how he is never allowed out—not to mention to his own senior prom—if he does well in school and takes above average classes? Maybe the situation would have played out differently and they would have slowly but surely let him do more things. Or maybe he could have just not listened to them for once and gone out on his own. Forgiveness is much easier to ask for than permission (as I recently just learned in my business class!).
Now, the kid has started college and with all this freedom he went a little crazy and his grades slipped. I was afraid that this was going to be my problem. My dad is really strict and he always gets pushy with taking AP courses and joining a lot of extracurricular activities. Fortunately, my parents are divorced and I have more lenient mother who I can talk to. She usually persuades him in the direction of letting me make my own decisions because I get treated like an adult in every other aspect—paying for my car, bills, doing my own chores, etc. I came to Drexel and I was surprised that students go out on Wednesday and Thursday nights. Occasionally, I’ll go out on a weekday and think nothing of it...but then sometime it'll hit me that it's a Tuesday or a Thursday and I'll stay in.
What I think is important for the kid mentioned in the post is that he should live by the expression “Work hard, play harder.” This is college and you don’t have too many restrictions but if you buckle down for a few hours a day and study and do your school work, you can still go out whenever you want. Limit yourself, however, to a few drinks (if that’s the case of his grades slipping) so you’re not regretting that night the next day at your 9am class. This isn’t an uncommon case and I think with time, once priorities get straightened out, everything will balance out.
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