Strictly ranting: my kid is so average it hurts :(

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He sounds fine. Take up a hobby so you can flex your DC tiger parenting instincts on houseplants or something. Give the kid a break. Parents like this are why this is such a tough area to live in.

She’s literally the opposite of a tiger parent. For all the bragging about how she’s so smart, she seems out to lunch and disengaged on the parenting front. A smart mom should be able to look at her middle schooler’s tests and HW and advise him on how he can improve, OP can’t figure this out.

He doesn’t care to improve. He seems to be ok with how things are. I used to make him do this or that, and still do sometimes, but he still finds ways to eff it up tbh.

Or as suggested on this thread, he doesn't have the executive function skills to do better so is pretending it's a lack of motivation so he isn't embarrassed.

This…and instead of trying to find solutions to help him, OP’s looking for permission to wash her hands of him by declaring him “average” and thus beyond help.

Oh please. We are working on it constantly. He is just very resistant. That’s why I am tempted to wash my hands off him.

Don’t be stupid. Unplug the wifi until he does his work and he will get his crap together.

Except they majority of assignments need WiFi…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He sounds fine. Take up a hobby so you can flex your DC tiger parenting instincts on houseplants or something. Give the kid a break. Parents like this are why this is such a tough area to live in.

She’s literally the opposite of a tiger parent. For all the bragging about how she’s so smart, she seems out to lunch and disengaged on the parenting front. A smart mom should be able to look at her middle schooler’s tests and HW and advise him on how he can improve, OP can’t figure this out.

I am not a tiger parent at all, but my same-age kid is smart enough. I let him “fail” for one semester in the beginning of middle school, then explained to him calmly that all his teachers say he can do the work and he is expected to get As, needs to do the work, and all computer access is tied to the work. Then follow through. I am lenient on screen time if he gets his work done. I don’t check it, I just check the portal. He’s a straight A student now, going into high school in all honors.

Being OK with Cs is ridiculous for an average kid with modern grade inflation, especially when there is no reason other than laziness to not complete the work.

I would agree with you, for the most part. I was an A student myself. My kids are getting a mix of As, and Bs, and yes some Cs. The younger one is in a dcps middle school with some rigorous courses and some unreasonably hard teachers and a terrible math teacher who doesn’t teach at all. Shes getting a couple of low grades despite a ton of effort. Meanwhile she reads college level books on her own and plays a challenging instrument. Im not worried about her, but do have to remind myself that in this technology driven era in efucatuon, getting As is not the same as it was when we were young.theres less of a connection between students and teachers, and learning is just something that is constantly measured and recorded. It’s a pity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He sounds very sweet, OP, and he will come into his own and shine.

If his GPA is low, and he's "shy" and not focused, have you thought that he may have inattentive ADHD? My son has that (along with other issues) and ADHD meds were a lifesaver in middle and high school while he caught up. Graduated high school with a 4.67 GPA. Now he's in college and doesn't use his meds except for exam days.

Just making a suggestion.

Thank you! It has occurred to me, but it’s more like he either doesn’t want to work harder or maybe he genuinely doesn’t realize that the quality of work he produces is not up to par. Like, he will say - oh I missed assignment X and got an F, but I’ll ace assignment Y and make up the grade. Then, he gets a C on assignment Y and is flabbergasted.

PP you replied to. A little research on the nature of inattentive ADHD would not come amiss. Your son needs a lot of explicit explanations, training and hand-holding. His reactions are textbook inattentive ADHD. The "Oh, I'm so surprised it turned out this way despite my parent and everyone else warning me it would turn out this way" is very frequent in those profiles. The issue is that they are missing key steps in the process. They know what they want, but they can't get there by themselves, because executive function (task initiation, task completion, working memory, time management, organization) are missing. It comes across as laziness or lack of motivation, but it's actually a divergence in the way their brains produce and transmit the neurotransmitters necessary for planning and action, particularly that of non-preferred tasks. Conversely, someone with ADHD might hyperfocus on a preferred task (video games, or reading, or whatever). Hence why their entourage might tend to blame and misunderstand rather then correctly identify and address the underlying issue.

An evaluation might be in order. Generally ADHD kiddos benefit not only from meds, but also from executive function coaching, either informally from parents, from a resource teacher or counselor at school with the services and accommodations of a 504 plan, or from an executive function coach you hire.

Agree with this 100%. DP.

Ditto. FWIW, my son in MS was a solid B student who seemed lazy and apathetic about school. It all went to hell in 9th grade and we finally got him evaluated. Diagnosed with ADHD (same as DH, we really should have seen it sooner). Meds and executive function coaching helped a lot. By junior year he was a straight-A student taking several AP classes. Now a solid A college student majoring in applied math and working this summer at a great internship. He's still pretty laid back overall, quiet, not competitive, doesn't win awards but is a good friend, a good employee (he's also a TA during the school year), happy and doing well.

Thank you for telling your son’s story! He seems like a very fine young man.
I think I need to get mine evaluated. I was thinking about it earlier, I even emailed a teacher who expressed concerns about his work ethic, but the school said they won’t evaluate because he isn’t failing.
I guess I need to go through the medical route.
I just… I was really hoping he would just mature. But I guess I owe it to him.

It may still be just maturity and attitude, not ADHD. Regardless he may benefit from executive function coaching, especially if the coach/tutor is a young man. My son really benefited in 9th-10th grade from working with two tutors (one for French, one for EF) that were guys recently out of college. They really inspired him to aim higher. He took the message a lot better from them than Mom/Dad who clearly don't know anything.

This is great to know, thank you for sharing! -OP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He sounds fine. Take up a hobby so you can flex your DC tiger parenting instincts on houseplants or something. Give the kid a break. Parents like this are why this is such a tough area to live in.

She’s literally the opposite of a tiger parent. For all the bragging about how she’s so smart, she seems out to lunch and disengaged on the parenting front. A smart mom should be able to look at her middle schooler’s tests and HW and advise him on how he can improve, OP can’t figure this out.

He doesn’t care to improve. He seems to be ok with how things are. I used to make him do this or that, and still do sometimes, but he still finds ways to eff it up tbh.

Or as suggested on this thread, he doesn't have the executive function skills to do better so is pretending it's a lack of motivation so he isn't embarrassed.

This…and instead of trying to find solutions to help him, OP’s looking for permission to wash her hands of him by declaring him “average” and thus beyond help.

Oh please. We are working on it constantly. He is just very resistant. That’s why I am tempted to wash my hands off him.

Don’t be stupid. Unplug the wifi until he does his work and he will get his crap together.

As I said many times before he IS doing his work. He just doesn’t do it well enough. I am not quite sure why. Maybe he isn’t as smart as I thought; maybe it’s adhd, maybe lack of motivation. I honestly don’t know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't read much of this, but I read enough that I really feel sorry for the OP's son.

Me too. I’m picturing this shy, polite, sweet kid reading his books and assuming that he is cherished by his mom, who is actually ashamed of him and sees nothing to admire or be proud of. Ouch, I’m hurting for him.

As long as he doesn’t know my true feelings it’s fine imho. I would of course prefer to believe in him despite the Cs, but I am human, too.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I think everything’s been said and done, I have some very important things to think about, and thank you for talking to me about it all, that way I was able to refrain from unloading it all on my kid. He graduated this morning and just came back from a bbq at his friend’s house. All is well, and thanks again!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know I know I should be grateful he is healthy and reasonably good looking , and he actually reads for pleasure, and tries to eat healthy. However, this is about all of his accomplishments.

He is just so perfectly average, at least for our area, that it hurts. I was a good student, top of the class, elementary through college. I didn’t live in such a competitive area with great talent but still. I don’t earn a ton of money, nor do I have a high powered job, but I am quite often the smartest in the room, I know what I want and I usually achieve whatever I put my mind to. He, however, is always somewhere in the middle of the pack.

He is bright but I think he lacks focus and motivation. He also isn’t super likeable or charming, more on the shy side (also not like me).

I will never ever show my disappointment to him but I just feel very sad sometimes. They had an award ceremony at school today and a kid whom I knew as very average had a 4.0 GPA, while my kid has a 2.9. He also didn’t get a single award in any subject or area. It’s middle school but still.

That is all. I don’t think there’s anything to do about it but I wanted to get it off my chest.

Hi OP. I could relate to some of your post . . . I was always the smartest (or one of) growing up, without really trying (though I was intrinsically motivated and naturally curious). And so that shaped how I view myself. Life has thrown me some curveballs; I have a chronic illness that has forced me to be a forever-SAHM, and that experience made me shed some of the protective layers I wrapped myself in. Well, I'm not a runner/athlete anymore. I'm not a teacher anymore. I don't bring in any income, and most of the time I can't even cook or keep the house straight. So who or what exactly am I? Do I even exist? I had to really examine the myth that achievement equals worth. It wasn't easy.

Though on the flip side, I do have high achieving kids. My older DD is pretty much always the smartest in the room; teachers say she is way above the other "smart kids." She's off to a governor's school next year. Her youngest sister is "normal smart person," I think? She actually is probably smarter than I give her credit for, as she's inevitably (and unfairly) compared to her sister. That's my challenge to navigate.

My sister is even higher achieving than I was, and her husband is too, and yet all of their kids are very average. She used to joke that one of her kids wasn't going to go to college (he's still in high school so time will tell . . . but he always seeks out his teachers for extra help and works hard to get average grades). I've never been like, "Hey, your kids seem dumber than mine, want to talk about it?" so IDK how she really feels, but she seems pretty content to accept them for who they are.

High intelligence is just an accident of genetics and chance. It's a privilege and an advantage, but we did nothing to gain it, and we can't help if we don't have it. This is an opportunity for you to learn this lesson, over and over, in each moment that you choose to focus on the positive and accept what can't be changed.

The truth is that our kids have so many advantages; the vast majority of them are going to be just fine. Do you get a medal if you go to Harvard and become an astrophysicist or make bank on Wall Street? Well, I guess, if that's what floats your boat. But why can't teaching community college float your boat?

We all feel anxiety about giving our kids enough resources and skills to leave the nest; it's programmed into our DNA. I suggest you think through all the "What Ifs." What if he goes to a state school that's not highly ranked? Then what? Instant homelessness? No, he'll probably be just fine. We have so much more than almost every human being who's ever lived; how much more do we need? IME, we find the most peace in the simple things . . . celebrating the seasons with the people we love. We can do that with a wide variety of incomes and degrees.

I don't think there's anything wrong with your vent, OP. It's very normal to expect that our children's experiences will be like ours. As parents, we do this away from our kids for their sakes.

[Anonymous]

P.S. I bolded the above because I wanted to point out that I don't think those things are mutually exclusive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know I know I should be grateful he is healthy and reasonably good looking , and he actually reads for pleasure, and tries to eat healthy. However, this is about all of his accomplishments.

He is just so perfectly average, at least for our area, that it hurts. I was a good student, top of the class, elementary through college. I didn’t live in such a competitive area with great talent but still. I don’t earn a ton of money, nor do I have a high powered job, but I am quite often the smartest in the room, I know what I want and I usually achieve whatever I put my mind to. He, however, is always somewhere in the middle of the pack.

He is bright but I think he lacks focus and motivation. He also isn’t super likeable or charming, more on the shy side (also not like me).

I will never ever show my disappointment to him but I just feel very sad sometimes. They had an award ceremony at school today and a kid whom I knew as very average had a 4.0 GPA, while my kid has a 2.9. He also didn’t get a single award in any subject or area. It’s middle school but still.

That is all. I don’t think there’s anything to do about it but I wanted to get it off my chest.

Hi OP. I could relate to some of your post . . . I was always the smartest (or one of) growing up, without really trying (though I was intrinsically motivated and naturally curious). And so that shaped how I view myself. Life has thrown me some curveballs; I have a chronic illness that has forced me to be a forever-SAHM, and that experience made me shed some of the protective layers I wrapped myself in. Well, I'm not a runner/athlete anymore. I'm not a teacher anymore. I don't bring in any income, and most of the time I can't even cook or keep the house straight. So who or what exactly am I? Do I even exist? I had to really examine the myth that achievement equals worth. It wasn't easy.

Though on the flip side, I do have high achieving kids. My older DD is pretty much always the smartest in the room; teachers say she is way above the other "smart kids." She's off to a governor's school next year. Her youngest sister is "normal smart person," I think? She actually is probably smarter than I give her credit for, as she's inevitably (and unfairly) compared to her sister. That's my challenge to navigate.

My sister is even higher achieving than I was, and her husband is too, and yet all of their kids are very average. She used to joke that one of her kids wasn't going to go to college (he's still in high school so time will tell . . . but he always seeks out his teachers for extra help and works hard to get average grades). I've never been like, "Hey, your kids seem dumber than mine, want to talk about it?" so IDK how she really feels, but she seems pretty content to accept them for who they are.

High intelligence is just an accident of genetics and chance. It's a privilege and an advantage, but we did nothing to gain it, and we can't help if we don't have it. This is an opportunity for you to learn this lesson, over and over, in each moment that you choose to focus on the positive and accept what can't be changed.

The truth is that our kids have so many advantages; the vast majority of them are going to be just fine. Do you get a medal if you go to Harvard and become an astrophysicist or make bank on Wall Street? Well, I guess, if that's what floats your boat. But why can't teaching community college float your boat?

We all feel anxiety about giving our kids enough resources and skills to leave the nest; it's programmed into our DNA. I suggest you think through all the "What Ifs." What if he goes to a state school that's not highly ranked? Then what? Instant homelessness? No, he'll probably be just fine. We have so much more than almost every human being who's ever lived; how much more do we need? IME, we find the most peace in the simple things . . . celebrating the seasons with the people we love. We can do that with a wide variety of incomes and degrees.

I don't think there's anything wrong with your vent, OP. It's very normal to expect that our children's experiences will be like ours. As parents, we do this away from our kids for their sakes.

This is a really sweet post, not the OP, but I appropriate your thoughtful response

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a you problem OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The more I read from OP, the more this reads as a troll

+1 agreed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:P.S. I bolded the above because I wanted to point out that I don't think those things are mutually exclusive.

Thank you! I just wanted to say that I will be happy if he goes to a state school, I think it will be an achievement for him actually.
What’s more realistic is community college and then…the state school. Hopefully.

What I realized from reading the comments is that intelligence doesn’t equal any sort of achievement, even if it’s simply being an organized person and going through life step by step and keeping it together. I am not saying my DS is highly intelligent; I am saying that even if he is, it doesn’t mean he has his shite together enough to make use of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The more I read from OP, the more this reads as a troll

+1 agreed.

I can understand this. I know several very bright, “power” couples or where at least one parent is extremely smart and high achieving. And in most cases, their kids are very average and not really motivated. I can imagine there is some degree of coming to terms with this. I think most parents want or hope their kids are “better” than they are or at least equal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The more I read from OP, the more this reads as a troll

+1 agreed.

I can understand this. I know several very bright, “power” couples or where at least one parent is extremely smart and high achieving. And in most cases, their kids are very average and not really motivated. I can imagine there is some degree of coming to terms with this. I think most parents want or hope their kids are “better” than they are or at least equal.

That’s the troll-ish part. It’s the meanness of OP assuming she’s extremely smart and bad mouthing other people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The more I read from OP, the more this reads as a troll

+1