Having a hard time letting go is okay. Hovering, not so much.

After a whirlwind day of hauling belongings, tracking new faces and darting from information sessions to the opening convocation ceremony on the Quad, new Stanford students and their parents return to the residences for an event simply entitled “Welcome Home” on the New Student Orientation (NSO) schedule. The description of the event is understated, yet clear: “The conclusion of this event is the typical time for you to say goodbye to your student.”

But for some parents, the concept of “goodbye” is open to wider interpretation. While their children may now reside somewhere else, some parents–commonly referred to as “helicopter parents” for their tendency to hover overhead–go to great lengths to remain heavily involved in their college students’ lives.

“In my experience, helicopter parents are those who want to do the heavy lifting for their student–remind them of deadlines, fix things for them, find answers for them–and be a constant presence in their lives,” said Dean of Freshmen and Undergraduate Advising Julie Lythcott-Haims ’89.

Lythcott-Haims, commonly referred to by students as Dean Julie, wrote in the Chicago Tribune on the topic of helicopter parents in 2005. She explained that colleges and universities began to notice this phenomenon of increasingly involved parents who were “staying beyond drop-off to ask questions, meet with advisers and question the fairness of policies and processes” in the early part of the decade. Since then, this group of parents has only continued to grow, even following children into graduate school and the workplace.

“We know that their actions are rooted in love and they do it to be helpful,” Lythcott-Haims said. “But if they stopped to think about it for a minute, I think they would see that they are undermining their ultimate goal, which is to raise a human from childhood to self-sufficient adulthood.”

“Their behavior also sends quite a discouraging message,” she added, “which is, ‘I don’t trust you to be able to handle this on your own.’”

Many Stanford students felt their parents’ presences in college, especially during the initial adjustment months away from home, but few felt that Mom and Dad’s actions were overbearing or oppressive.

“My parents literally flew from Texas like every weekend my first fall at Stanford,” remembered Kit Garton ’10, a Human Biology major from Dallas. “They claimed it was to go to the football games, but that was back in the day when the football team was awful.”

However, Garton didn’t mind her parents’ periodic visits and even cited several benefits that stemmed from them.

“When they came, they always offered to take me and my new friends out to eat, which was always appreciated,” she said. “It was nice because now all my college friends know my parents and my family. And they never hung around the dorm or anything.”

Others, like Karen Nesbitt ’11, a senior lacrosse player, felt that having an older sibling who had already been through the “off-to-college” routine eased the farewell for both her and her mother.

“My mom came out with me to move-in–I’m from Ohio,” said Nesbitt. “I think I was too wrapped up in the excitement of moving in and being on my own to really be sad that I was moving across the U.S. My mom had done the same thing two years before with my older sister, so we kind of had the drill down, I think.”

Without being physically present, Nesbitt’s mother sent “lots of packages” to Karen through the mail as a friendly reminder of love from home.

“I’m a senior now and she still does,” Nesbitt said. “Christmas lights, Halloween decorations, Easter baskets, finals ‘study-break’ materials [like] trashy magazines, food, all the good stuff. She even includes things for my roommates.”

But not all parents are so benignly involved. Calling and e-mailing multiple times a day or contacting professors with grade complaints on behalf of their children, for example, may be more debilitating than helpful in this transition to independence.

Both Lythcott-Haims and Greg Boardman, the vice provost for student affairs, emphasize that parents still have an important role in their children’s development, albeit probably different than the role they held for the previous 18 years.

“We often say that our primary relationship is with students, and we view parents as our partners in promoting students’ success,” Boardman said. “We want parents to know that we appreciate their involvement, and at the same time we expect students to develop and grow as individuals during their undergraduate careers.”

Lythcott-Haims mentioned outreach efforts by the University to parents that are intended to “convey both our respect for the important role they still play in the lives of their adult children and our philosophy of treating the student as an adult.”

These outreach efforts include an annual letter from President Hennessy, a quarterly newsletter, a Parent Guide, a parent tab on the University website, a “helpline” for routine questions ([email protected]) and a set of events on the first day of NSO designed to answer frequently asked questions.

Boardman feels that an open dialogue may help parents and students reach a comfortable middle ground and alleviate some of the tension and anxiety both parties can feel.

“I suggest that parents and students have a conversation about this separation and what each person is feeling,” he said. “It may be possible to agree on a regular check-in session by text, e-mail or phone so parents feel involved and students don’t feel their new lives are being unexpectedly interrupted.”

As freshmen finish moving in and the goodbye approaches, Lythcott-Haims and Boardman say they hope to provide empathy and reassurance for the parents of the Class of 2014.

“Parents of Stanford students have worked hard to help their student get to this point, and although they may feel great pride and satisfaction there is also a great deal of wistfulness,” Lythcott-Haims said. “My advice is simply that parents allow themselves to experience both the joy and pain of this separation. These feelings are real and the University is quite empathetic about it all, so there is no need to hide these feelings on move-in day.”

“It’s understandable that parents want to feel connected to their sons and daughters whom they’ve worked hard to raise,” Boardman added. “I encourage them to have faith in their children and trust that their children will make good choices as they continue to grow and mature.”