When kids good with academic shine
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Anonymous
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My ES DC is not sporty even though I have pushed for him to do swimming, basketball, soccer, tennis and ice skating. He is not good in any sports. He probably gets looked down and laughed by some mean kids from school because they all sometimes happen to be in same rec. team based on which school one go to. All these are outside of school sports.
He attends one of the local CES school as a 3rd grader. I know that he can get in compacted math because of his very high score and teacher has hinted at me. I know that his high reading score guarantees him to get into lottery, and I will see if he can get luckily selected. My question is when academic excellence matters to other kids to save him some face and confidence. 5th, middle school or high school? His confidence level is not high due to his weakness in sports and kids not being nice to him in team ( partially because he is a weak player). Unfortunately he loves to play sports, and he is not really interested in academic. He just has a smart brain to do well in academic without trying at all for now. |
Anonymous
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You need to change your thinking, OP. You need to celebrate his strengths and tell him to find friends that value them too. Do not dwell on shame and guilt. It's so regressive.
In elementary, kids like these often suffer from that "muscle first" sort of experience. But middle and high school are when academics start to matter a lot more, and when schools get larger, with more friend opportunities. Unless he has lower than average social skills, he will find a nice group of friends. - BTDT with my son, who played ZERO sports. |
Anonymous
| If he can focus on making friends with other kids who are not great at sports then he will make friends and gain confidence. If if tries to make friends with kids who only value sports talent, he will set himself up for disappointment. Once he decides to pursue and enjoy academics he can shine within academic groups like robotics, journalists, math Olympiad etc…. For now since he does not like academics activities like Boy Scouts, Improv, martial arts, video game coding class etc…might be a good fit. In high school and middle school kids who are good at athletics do get lots of attention from peers, but there are plenty of other ways for kids to gain recognition and confidence within whatever their area of interest happens to be. It sounds like you need to encourage him to join some not sport based activities where he can shine. |
Anonymous
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My DS is not athletic at all and was fine in ES and beyond. His best friend is a talented athlete but it doesn’t seem to matter to their friendship that they are so different. In the CES, being smart was definitely a point of pride for the kids. In middle school they don’t seem as braggy about scores and such but DS was not happy when he was accidentally placed in the non-enriched social studies section. We switched him to the higher level, of course, and he was relieved to be with his friends.
When I was a kid I was also not athletic and it took awhile for me to find my people but I did in middle and high school. |
Anonymous
| My kid found his people in the magnet programs. Aim for the HS ones. No one brags about academic stuff so you have to get used to the sports bros constantly flexing wherever you are |
Anonymous
| It's the DMV area. If you moved to NY, the popular kids are not the athletic ones, but the super smart ones who play an instrument and score high in NYSSMA and science competitions like Intel. |
Anonymous
Why would you think that? I doubt it. There are lots of kids on these school based rec teams who aren't the best player and most of the time they don't get made fun of IME. The only time DS was made fun of was when he was on a team for a different school and one of those kids had his own issues. He was a good player but was made fun of by the other kids for doing things like making fun of DC. I think the question you should be asking is when will academic ability matter to your kid? I know a lot of kids who were very confident in academics starting in elementary and they had a group of likeminded friends who also respected kids with high academic ability or achievement. Some were good at sports and some not. One kid is extraordinarily good at sports and academics and even when he was 6 or 7 took notice of kids who were smart. They are in HS now and all still friends. Your child needs to stop measuring himself according to just one type of ability. |
Anonymous
+1. We know kids across the spectrum who are good at academics: sporty kids who have high academics, kids who do music or robotics or other clubs and interest and high academics, kids who pay video games and still do high academics. Academics has to matter to your kid and family before he’ll be able to get friends who talk about the same. |
Anonymous
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Op here. I come from a culture that put too much importance on academic and almost zero on sports. I try to raise my kids differently. I want kids to be have fun childhood and get the opportunities to explore interests. I don't put too much effort on his academic because I expect him to get all As. It is so easy for him to get straight As, so I don't pay too much attention to his academic achievement even though I know that is his strength. Ipay a lot of attention on his weakness which are strength and sports.
He loves sports even though he is a weak player. A few kids have called him out because of his skill level. His 9 weeks summer camp is all about sleep away, kayaking, creeking, multi sports etc, to get himself sweaty and dirty, nothing related to academic because he does not want to. I don't expect him to be good in sports, but he gets more awareness that he is not good in every sports when other players do really well at his age level over time. No parents I know cares or talks to me about academic , and we live in a school with more than 50 percent white. |
Anonymous
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Probably no parents around you "care" about academics because the kids are in 3rd grade. Your DS is doing very well in that field, great. No need to do anything different there.
If he loves playing sports, why should he stop? He won't make the elite teams, so the other kids he plays with aren't amazing athletes either. People--kids and adults--should have the freedom to enjoy hobbies even if they are not "good" at them. Enjoy your kid. Encourage him to enjoy his life, too. |
Anonymous
| Academically advanced kids are typically most respected during elementary school. The will be high status in middle and HS only if they get into one of the magnets. Even that is far from a guarantee but it helps. Middle school is the worst. |
Anonymous
| CES starts in 4th. How is your child a 3rd grader? |
Anonymous
I think OP is saying that she is hopeful her 3rd grader will receive a spot in CES for next year. -NP |
Anonymous
My kids chose not to apply to middle school and high school magnets because they were zoned for schools with enough high achievers to be a good cohort for them. Middle school was surprisingly better than I expected based on my own experiences, and they had good high school experiences. I think experiences can be very school-dependent. In some cases, the magnet might be the way to find peers, but it's not always necessary. |
Anonymous
I think you have your own answer. You "pay a lot of attention on his weakness." You are the one say it's. a weakness. You are the one pushing him into sports. It's not exactly "fun" when your parent thinks it's a weakness and is pushing you into it. Why can't you let him choose his activities and have "fun" with academic things too? Why do you care if he's good or not? |