Helicopter Parents

I just read this term the other day, and then had an experience with it myself soon after. Apparently, these are parents that hover over their children and are super involved in their school and other activities and help run the kids' lives without letting the kids figure things out for themselves and make mistakes and learn and fend for themselves.

I just gave a 2 question, short quiz in calculus. I thought it was doable. The related rates problem involved a right triangle, so I expected the students to look at it and think, "hmmmm, right triangle, what sorts of equations do I know about right triangles" and then go from there. Well, oh my god, you'd have thought I asked them to prove Fermat's last theorem. One girl immediately started hounding me about it. Then after class she hovered and said that I shouldn't count that question as a grade. Then 20 minutes later I notice my message light is on for my phone, and it's her mother saying that E. was upset about the test and didn't feel prepared and could I please call her. Ewww. It creeped me out.