The helicopter parents won - a look back

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can’t imagine losing all my weekends to travel sports just so my kid had a better chance of going to a higher ranked university. It’s all a bunch of who cares. I went to state school and work side by side with former rich kids who went to Ivy leagues.

It is not just travel sports. There are dance recitals, concerts, academic competitions, etc.

We are a busy three kid family. My kids do play competitive sports. We also travel a lot and have very active social lives. I know some people look at us and may not want that lifestyle.

Some people are just go getters.

[Anonymous]

Define won?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Define won?

Mom can brag to her friends.

[Anonymous]

Eh. My kids never did travel sports, extra tutors, weren't in private schools, etc. We enriched them with our family hobbies, which they all wrote about in their essays, and got accepted almost everywhere they applied, even "reach" schools. You just have to stand out.

[Anonymous]

Sports parents are actually worse than tiger moms.

[Anonymous]

Good parenting doesn't mean kid needs to make your dreams come true, it means they get your support to figure out their dreams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sports parents are actually worse than tiger moms.

Unathletic mom of athletic boys. My boys fortunately take after my husband and are athletic.

One of my sons likes to play basketball. I don’t push at all. I barely encourage it. He wants to play. We have encountered all kinds of sports parents and to succeed in this sport, the kid has to want to play. It is not about the parents.

We know some dads who were D1 athletes who have kids who aren’t very good at sports. You can drag your kids to rec sports but at some point, your kid will get cut.

[Anonymous]

I posted once about my friend who was pushing her daughters to play travel when her kids didn’t even want to go to rec. The parents themselves are not very athletic but wanted their kids to be athletes. Kids got cut from travel teams in elementary. You can push all you want but if your kid doesn’t like it or want to do it, s/he will not excel.

[Anonymous]

Just pay for their undergrad and grad/professional schooling and let them figure out the rest. Its not your job to plan and fix their whole lives.

[Anonymous]

*if you can afford it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your post is giving me anxiety, my kids are in elementary. So are you saying that we should invest in math tutors?

Unless you can do it yourself YES

DH and I both majored in STEM and are very strong in math. My kids always did well in math in elementary. We never did math tutoring for them. When my oldest took Algebra in 7th grade, he struggled. He had a B and just couldn’t get an A. He lacked math foundation despite always getting good grades in math. Granted he just came out of covid. We got him a math tutor and he pulled his grade up to an A.

Now my second kid is in 7th grade and also getting Bs in Algebra. I think there was a learning gap between elementary and algebra. We got him a math tutor and now he is getting A pluses on his tests.

We have a third child in elementary. She is also doing well in math. We are considering putting her in some sort of math problem so she gets strong math fundamentals.

I thinj there is a problem with how math is taught in elementary. I went to a school meeting recently and my 7 year old does most math on the computer. I asked the teacher about paper and she said they do small group math centers. My friend has a 9 year old daughter who was also getting good grades in math. Recently she had a bad assessment and upon doing some more digging, my friend was really upset to learn that her daughter does not have basic math fundamentals. They play math games at school. Parents don’t see paper quizzes. Our school has a no homework policy. It is a real problem.

My kid started 7th grade at age 11 so there was no way I would let him take algebra. His math teacher said that her own kids will take algebra in eighth grade because of brain development and the way they understand abstract concepts (less important for algebra but for the higher courses). My son is getting an a in pre-algebra honors and that's just fine by us. He of course plays three instruments and does a travel sport

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I posted once about my friend who was pushing her daughters to play travel when her kids didn’t even want to go to rec. The parents themselves are not very athletic but wanted their kids to be athletes. Kids got cut from travel teams in elementary. You can push all you want but if your kid doesn’t like it or want to do it, s/he will not excel.

But it takes both. If the super talented kid doesn't have a ride to the tournament or practice, he's not going to get far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your post is giving me anxiety, my kids are in elementary. So are you saying that we should invest in math tutors?

Unless you can do it yourself YES

DH and I both majored in STEM and are very strong in math. My kids always did well in math in elementary. We never did math tutoring for them. When my oldest took Algebra in 7th grade, he struggled. He had a B and just couldn’t get an A. He lacked math foundation despite always getting good grades in math. Granted he just came out of covid. We got him a math tutor and he pulled his grade up to an A.

Now my second kid is in 7th grade and also getting Bs in Algebra. I think there was a learning gap between elementary and algebra. We got him a math tutor and now he is getting A pluses on his tests.

We have a third child in elementary. She is also doing well in math. We are considering putting her in some sort of math problem so she gets strong math fundamentals.

I thinj there is a problem with how math is taught in elementary. I went to a school meeting recently and my 7 year old does most math on the computer. I asked the teacher about paper and she said they do small group math centers. My friend has a 9 year old daughter who was also getting good grades in math. Recently she had a bad assessment and upon doing some more digging, my friend was really upset to learn that her daughter does not have basic math fundamentals. They play math games at school. Parents don’t see paper quizzes. Our school has a no homework policy. It is a real problem.

My kid started 7th grade at age 11 so there was no way I would let him take algebra. His math teacher said that her own kids will take algebra in eighth grade because of brain development and the way they understand abstract concepts (less important for algebra but for the higher courses). My son is getting an a in pre-algebra honors and that's just fine by us. He of course plays three instruments and does a travel sport

We are in FCPS and it seems the normal track for an AAP student is algebra in 7th grade. You need high grades, advanced pass on SOL and a high score on the IAAT (96th percentile I think). I didn’t push my kids to be in algebra. That was what the teacher recommended and what the vast majority of their AAP peers were doing. These same kids are the ones who load up on AP classes in high school.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand why high schools spend so much money on sports played by less than few percent of students. Wouldn't it be better to use that money for free math tutoring and better guidance counselors?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted once about my friend who was pushing her daughters to play travel when her kids didn’t even want to go to rec. The parents themselves are not very athletic but wanted their kids to be athletes. Kids got cut from travel teams in elementary. You can push all you want but if your kid doesn’t like it or want to do it, s/he will not excel.

But it takes both. If the super talented kid doesn't have a ride to the tournament or practice, he's not going to get far.

This is true. I posted above that my kid likes basketball. It isn’t like in the movies where some kid just plays street ball and becomes some NBA player. Maybe this can happen somewhere with some 7 ft talented basketball kid who somehow manages to train himself.

From what I see, the talented players often have a parent or parents who were athletes themselves. They may have been high school, college or pro but the parents were some type of athlete. These kids start early. They may do some switching of sports but they all play sports from young ages. By the time they are 10-12, they are already on competitive teams whether it is basketball, soccer, tennis, baseball or lacrosse. The days of just walking on a team in high school are gone.