The helicopter parents won - a look back

[Anonymous]

Parents will complain about their kids free time, if they have free time all they'll do is stare at a screen. But, excessive screen time is still an option with their kid. It should be pretty simple to fix this. Kids need to figure out what to do without screens and organized activities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents will complain about their kids free time, if they have free time all they'll do is stare at a screen. But, excessive screen time is still an option with their kid. It should be pretty simple to fix this. Kids need to figure out what to do without screens and organized activities.

Well, back in my day kids were drinking, smoking and having sex. Should we go back to that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents will complain about their kids free time, if they have free time all they'll do is stare at a screen. But, excessive screen time is still an option with their kid. It should be pretty simple to fix this. Kids need to figure out what to do without screens and organized activities.

Well, back in my day kids were drinking, smoking and having sex. Should we go back to that?

No of course not, but not all kids back in the day or now will do that either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents will complain about their kids free time, if they have free time all they'll do is stare at a screen. But, excessive screen time is still an option with their kid. It should be pretty simple to fix this. Kids need to figure out what to do without screens and organized activities.

Well, back in my day kids were drinking, smoking and having sex. Should we go back to that?

DP. I didn’t drink or smoke or have sex in high school, nor did I play sports or have organized activities. There are a lot of ways to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents will complain about their kids free time, if they have free time all they'll do is stare at a screen. But, excessive screen time is still an option with their kid. It should be pretty simple to fix this. Kids need to figure out what to do without screens and organized activities.

Well, back in my day kids were drinking, smoking and having sex. Should we go back to that?

No of course not, but not all kids back in the day or now will do that either.

What's wrong with the activities? You'd prefer they do anything but that without saying why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents will complain about their kids free time, if they have free time all they'll do is stare at a screen. But, excessive screen time is still an option with their kid. It should be pretty simple to fix this. Kids need to figure out what to do without screens and organized activities.

Well, back in my day kids were drinking, smoking and having sex. Should we go back to that?

No of course not, but not all kids back in the day or now will do that either.

What's wrong with the activities? You'd prefer they do anything but that without saying why?

Nothing wrong with organized activities if kids really want them. But, kids are overscheduled and do need to learn what to do without so many activities and screens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m sending my youngest to college next year. He got into a good school early addmission and all of my kids did well. But as I look back on this parenting experience it occurs to me that the kids with the fanaticaly involved parents did the best - academically and athletically.

When the kids were in early elementary school, I remember shaking my head as my fellow parents talked about advanced math tutoring for their kindergartener or plotting to get their second grader on the most competitive travel team. At the time it seemed so silly to chart out the life of a kid who still needed naps. However, looking at those kids now - those are the kids who are going on to play sports at top colleges.

My takeaway is that even if you are a committed free range parent - your kid is in a competitive environment competing for scarce opportunities to go to top schools and play for competitive school teams.

I’m not unhappy about how my kids turned out or their experience in high School. But I don’t think I realized the the decision not to push advanced math in grade school meant a diminished opportunity to go to Tech or UMD. I definitely didn’t realize that only doing town baseball (and not travel) meant that they wouldn’t make the highschool team.

It not like my kids were slouches. They played on at least one rec team every season. Swim team in the summer and got good grades and scores on standardized tests.

But I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve pushed harder our results would’ve been much better.

Your perspective seems terribly naive and black and white, OP. Life is not all about dictating sports and academics, with a tutor for each subject, each, day, or nothing. There is such a thing as too much.

The parent's job is not to choose a major and subject for their child, but to find out what the child is good at, and go from there. Yes, they need activities, but they also need a healthy balance, and that depends on each kid.

Naturally smart kids do not need tutors each day for each subject, nor do naturally athletic kids need training 24/7 for their sport.

Do they need the mindset, talent, and to be committed? Of course.

That is incredibly naive of you.

DH and I are high achievers. We went to HYP, have a seven figure income and our kids are also good/great at a lot of different areas and sports is one of them but only one. We do not expect them to become professional athletes. They may or may not be good enough to be recruited athletes for college. They may be able to walk on a team.

I don’t think you know what it takes to get into a competitive college these days.

Some people may be satisfied living MC lives with rec playing teenagers. Some of us want more for our kids.

So you are assuming that DH and I did not attend HYPS? Interesting!

How do I know who you are? There are many people posting on this thread.

I was a nerdy girl. I’m not an overly competitive person. DH is hyper competitive as are my boys. They love their sports, the three of them together. They like to play sports, watch sports, talk about sports, etc. DH explained the appreciation of athletic excellence. I do not share this joy of sports. DH also is one of those guys who is annoyingly good at everything. My boys take after him and they also excel in many ways and hang out with other boys who are the star students, athletes, attractive and also happen to be nice kids.

We got lucky that our kids all turned out well and healthy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents will complain about their kids free time, if they have free time all they'll do is stare at a screen. But, excessive screen time is still an option with their kid. It should be pretty simple to fix this. Kids need to figure out what to do without screens and organized activities.

Well, back in my day kids were drinking, smoking and having sex. Should we go back to that?

No of course not, but not all kids back in the day or now will do that either.

What's wrong with the activities? You'd prefer they do anything but that without saying why?

Nothing wrong with organized activities if kids really want them. But, kids are overscheduled and do need to learn what to do without so many activities and screens.

As busy as my kids are, they hang out with their friends plenty. Their sports and activities are with their friends so they hang out before or after practice, carpool, eat before and after games, etc. Even after seeing one another, they may jump online and play games together. Sometimes if I see my kids playing with their friends online, I may suggest that just get together instead.

My kids are 12 and 15 so they aren’t playing with toys anymore. While we spent years digging worms and playing with rocks and sticks outside, that sort of play doesn’t interest them anymore either.

[Anonymous]

Pp here. If my kids did not have the ability, I would not push them. They want to improve and we have the resources to support them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents will complain about their kids free time, if they have free time all they'll do is stare at a screen. But, excessive screen time is still an option with their kid. It should be pretty simple to fix this. Kids need to figure out what to do without screens and organized activities.

Well, back in my day kids were drinking, smoking and having sex. Should we go back to that?

No of course not, but not all kids back in the day or now will do that either.

What's wrong with the activities? You'd prefer they do anything but that without saying why?

Nothing wrong with organized activities if kids really want them. But, kids are overscheduled and do need to learn what to do without so many activities and screens.

Kids are over scheduled? How so? And why do they need to learn to do without a schedule? Is your life unscheduled? Also what age are you talking about 6 or 16?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m sending my youngest to college next year. He got into a good school early addmission and all of my kids did well. But as I look back on this parenting experience it occurs to me that the kids with the fanaticaly involved parents did the best - academically and athletically.

When the kids were in early elementary school, I remember shaking my head as my fellow parents talked about advanced math tutoring for their kindergartener or plotting to get their second grader on the most competitive travel team. At the time it seemed so silly to chart out the life of a kid who still needed naps. However, looking at those kids now - those are the kids who are going on to play sports at top colleges.

My takeaway is that even if you are a committed free range parent - your kid is in a competitive environment competing for scarce opportunities to go to top schools and play for competitive school teams.

I’m not unhappy about how my kids turned out or their experience in high School. But I don’t think I realized the the decision not to push advanced math in grade school meant a diminished opportunity to go to Tech or UMD. I definitely didn’t realize that only doing town baseball (and not travel) meant that they wouldn’t make the highschool team.

It not like my kids were slouches. They played on at least one rec team every season. Swim team in the summer and got good grades and scores on standardized tests.

But I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve pushed harder our results would’ve been much better.

Your perspective seems terribly naive and black and white, OP. Life is not all about dictating sports and academics, with a tutor for each subject, each, day, or nothing. There is such a thing as too much.

The parent's job is not to choose a major and subject for their child, but to find out what the child is good at, and go from there. Yes, they need activities, but they also need a healthy balance, and that depends on each kid.

Naturally smart kids do not need tutors each day for each subject, nor do naturally athletic kids need training 24/7 for their sport.

Do they need the mindset, talent, and to be committed? Of course.

That is incredibly naive of you.

DH and I are high achievers. We went to HYP, have a seven figure income and our kids are also good/great at a lot of different areas and sports is one of them but only one. We do not expect them to become professional athletes. They may or may not be good enough to be recruited athletes for college. They may be able to walk on a team.

I don’t think you know what it takes to get into a competitive college these days.

Some people may be satisfied living MC lives with rec playing teenagers. Some of us want more for our kids.

So you are assuming that DH and I did not attend HYPS? Interesting!

How do I know who you are? There are many people posting on this thread.

I was a nerdy girl. I’m not an overly competitive person. DH is hyper competitive as are my boys. They love their sports, the three of them together. They like to play sports, watch sports, talk about sports, etc. DH explained the appreciation of athletic excellence. I do not share this joy of sports. DH also is one of those guys who is annoyingly good at everything. My boys take after him and they also excel in many ways and hang out with other boys who are the star students, athletes, attractive and also happen to be nice kids.

We got lucky that our kids all turned out well and healthy.

Are you saying that your kids are all grown and that you don't even have a horse in this race?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m sending my youngest to college next year. He got into a good school early addmission and all of my kids did well. But as I look back on this parenting experience it occurs to me that the kids with the fanaticaly involved parents did the best - academically and athletically.

When the kids were in early elementary school, I remember shaking my head as my fellow parents talked about advanced math tutoring for their kindergartener or plotting to get their second grader on the most competitive travel team. At the time it seemed so silly to chart out the life of a kid who still needed naps. However, looking at those kids now - those are the kids who are going on to play sports at top colleges.

My takeaway is that even if you are a committed free range parent - your kid is in a competitive environment competing for scarce opportunities to go to top schools and play for competitive school teams.

I’m not unhappy about how my kids turned out or their experience in high School. But I don’t think I realized the the decision not to push advanced math in grade school meant a diminished opportunity to go to Tech or UMD. I definitely didn’t realize that only doing town baseball (and not travel) meant that they wouldn’t make the highschool team.

It not like my kids were slouches. They played on at least one rec team every season. Swim team in the summer and got good grades and scores on standardized tests.

But I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve pushed harder our results would’ve been much better.

Your perspective seems terribly naive and black and white, OP. Life is not all about dictating sports and academics, with a tutor for each subject, each, day, or nothing. There is such a thing as too much.

The parent's job is not to choose a major and subject for their child, but to find out what the child is good at, and go from there. Yes, they need activities, but they also need a healthy balance, and that depends on each kid.

Naturally smart kids do not need tutors each day for each subject, nor do naturally athletic kids need training 24/7 for their sport.

Do they need the mindset, talent, and to be committed? Of course.

That is incredibly naive of you.

DH and I are high achievers. We went to HYP, have a seven figure income and our kids are also good/great at a lot of different areas and sports is one of them but only one. We do not expect them to become professional athletes. They may or may not be good enough to be recruited athletes for college. They may be able to walk on a team.

I don’t think you know what it takes to get into a competitive college these days.

Some people may be satisfied living MC lives with rec playing teenagers. Some of us want more for our kids.

So you are assuming that DH and I did not attend HYPS? Interesting!

How do I know who you are? There are many people posting on this thread.

I was a nerdy girl. I’m not an overly competitive person. DH is hyper competitive as are my boys. They love their sports, the three of them together. They like to play sports, watch sports, talk about sports, etc. DH explained the appreciation of athletic excellence. I do not share this joy of sports. DH also is one of those guys who is annoyingly good at everything. My boys take after him and they also excel in many ways and hang out with other boys who are the star students, athletes, attractive and also happen to be nice kids.

We got lucky that our kids all turned out well and healthy.

Are you saying that your kids are all grown and that you don't even have a horse in this race?

Her kids are bums

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All these people saying playing just for fun have kids ages 8 and under.

My experience was anytime a parent said this about their 8 and under kid and it was clear their kid was one of the best on the team or getting the highest scores, etc, they had private coaching and lots of practice lined up for their kid. What they said out loud and what they did in reality were opposite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is all about inner drive. Full stop.
Beyond that, if you do happen to have a genuinely driven kid it is a parents' core responsibility to support them in time, money and encouragement to fulfill their potential.

Rationalize as many do, but any parent who does not do so has seriously done a disservice to their child.

My husband loves tennis. He never had formal tennis lessons. He did make his high school tennis team. He would never make the team around here but back in the early nineties, being athletic and able to hit a tennis ball was enough.

My kids have played tennis since preschool. They played daily during Covid. We have the resources to provide them with the right coaching. A kid who is playing for fun has no chance against my kid who has played almost every day since being able to hold a racquet.

And who really cares? The commodification of sports/intense focus on success in sports as the end is doing more harm than good for your kids. They're burning out, getting injured, suffering mental health, and parents are overspending chasing the delusion that they can mold their kid into an athlete when the ultimate goal should be enjoying the process of sports. Your unathletic but well coached tennis player is not going to play in the U.S. Open and it's weird and unhinged to compare him to a casual for parental bragging rights

Truth right here

It sounds like a defeatist sad sack mentality. Your kid will never be good so why bother even trying? But, how would you know without trying? There are so many good life lessons in the process. Why would you discourage a kid from trying their best, setting goals, challenging themselves? What's the alternative? Sounds like it's doing nothing and just hating on everyone else.

There's a huge difference between pushing a kid to try their best as a process to develop the kids and teach them life lessons vs pushing a kid beyond what's reasonable/healthy so they can reach a pie in the sky elitist goal. This whole conversation started with an OP lamenting that their seemingly well-adjusted, healthy and happy kids enjoyed a peaceful life and got into good schools but not ivies or aren't playing on scholarship. It's borderline sickness to be disappointed in your child if they don't achieve a status that's reserved for approximately 1-2% of the population.

We had a different read on the OP. OP seemed to think by casually playing rec you could walk onto the baseball team in high school. Turns out that wasn't the case. And then you're taking it to the furthest extreme to mean that OP expected a D1 baseball scholarship by forcing them through all available means to do something they hated and had no talent for. Plenty of kids play youth sports and are happy doing it beyond a rec level without their parents forcing them or having a sickness. There's a whole middle ground between doing nothing and expecting to be elite.

I don't think our read was that different. I think the OP provided their kids that middle ground of playing youth sports and the kids being happy with it. Unless a child shows natural ability AND a desire to throw their life into sports That middle ground SHOULD be the end all be all.

OP's position seems to be (and if I'm wrong, I'm wrong) that they somehow failed because they didn't push their kid for a D1 scholarship despite it sounding like their kids are doing well. It's the comparison to an highlight elite percent of athletes/academics that is robbing OP of the joy she should have in raising kids that are on track to be successful and she did it in a way that worked for her family. Strive a hard as you want but it's the process of striving that's more valuable than a predetermined result (uber-elite college or D1 scholarship)

That’s silly. As long as they try that’s what is important.

Actually what the OP is saying is "as along as they try that's what is important" was a silly attitude and she wished she had realized it sooner.

FWIW I agree with OP and we have had the same regrets they expressed.

Only because of college admission?!?

Put your energies into figuring out how to help them find well-paying jobs they like. It starts with good internships.

That's your do-over.

No not at all. We are old enough now to realize that those kind of kids who excelled when younger continue to excel. They pick up a lot of soft skills and social skills along the way that come with competitive environments that benefit them in the long run career wise.

[Anonymous]

OP, college is 4 years. It's the years after that which demonstrate the influence of parenting.
I've known a good amount of Ivy graduates who are failures to launch in life. I don't know them well, but I was keenly aware of their family circumstances which usually involved the parents subsidizing them for years and years post-college.

My own kids are fairly high achieving but I worry that they've had almost every hour of their lives programmed. The summer after my oldest finished high school, I didn't bother to help her figure out her summer plans. She managed to carve something out but in the 3 weeks downtime she really didn't know what to do with herself and was very bored. She indulged herself and took a summer sewing class at a design college which was supposed to be fun but that high school mentality of worrying about gpa invaded the fun. She worried about her grade...in a sewing class.
She lucked out on an internship for the rest of the summer but it wasn't something she worked hard at securing. It basically fell into her lap because we were at a dinner party and she was talking about her interest in skincare routines and another parent's family company is involved in that industry. The kid's been lucky so far, but I worry that she's not in the driver's seat.