Principal posts problem solving sign at Catholic High School for boys in Little Rock,Arkansas, to dissuade overeager parents

Arkansas August 20The all-boys private school in Little Rock has long had a rule barring parents from coming to the school to drop things off — such as forgotten lunches, assignments and sports equipment — for their children, but parents occasionally forgot about it and had to be turned away at the front door. So the school decided to post a sign as a reminder as this school year got underway.

Adorned with a red stop sign, the placard reads: “If you are dropping off your son’s lunch, books, homework, equipment etc., please TURN AROUND and exit the building. Your son will learn to problem-solve in your absence.”

An alum in charge of the school’s Facebook page posted a photo of the sign online on Aug. 10, under the message “Welcome to Catholic High. We teach reading, writing, arithmetic, and problem-solving.” By Friday, it had been shared nearly 120,000 times and received more than 3,700 comments, with parents debating whether it was ethical, fair or wise to punish teens when their memories fail them.

The debate about the policy at the small school in Arkansas comes as many people — including high-ranking school officials — raise concerns that today’s young people are not self-reliant enough, the result of parents who are too involved in their lives and too prone to swoop in and rescue them in the face of any challenge. And some argue that parents who are trying so hard to help their children might actually be hurting them, leaving them less resilient and less able to cope with failure

“The policy is one of the many policies that we have, hoping to help build self-reliance and self-advocacy in our kids,” Straessle said in an interview with The Washington Post. He said the school urges boys to think “beyond the default switch” of relying on their parents when they need help. “We just want a boy to figure out what comes next when Mom or Dad are not there to guide them. … We’ve been amazed that a school teaching self-reliance and personal responsibility seems like a novel idea.”