The helicopter parents won - a look back

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:But my kids weren't a breath away from an anxiety disorder and are happy people. I think that's worth more than going to a higher-ranked college.

OP here. I don’t think that was the choice. My kids were probably going to be happy either way.

The realization that I have come to is that I traded opportunities to improve my kids chances for easier weekends and less hectic weeknights.

At the time I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing - but that’s what I did.

If we had pushed math more would they have had a better chance at UVA and Michigan- almost certainly.

If we had done travel sports I don’t know if they would have played in college but they would’ve almost certainly made the highschool baseball team.

In the plus side I did have a lot more in the 529s than I would have if I pursued additional opportunities.

What gets me is I thought we were already doing a lot. We sat with them while they did their homework., they were always on a team I even coached a couple of their teams early on.

For the posters, who were saying that life’s a marathon, and not a sprint. I think you’re missing the point. A parent’s strategy is open as many doors as possible. It’s up to them to choose the door. I think the net results of not pushing harder in sports and academically was there fewer doors for them to go through

The doors are not exclusively located on college campuses, is the thing.

But those doors are always available. At what point are those other doors not open?

You are mistaken. Those doors are not always available.

There are finite opportunities to enter service academies, skilled trades programs (alone or as an adjunct to high-test liberal arts education), and particular niche institutions of higher education that may be better fits for a given person than the most elite colleges.

There are finite opportunities to prevent stress-mediated mental health problems that can last a lifetime (or end in death).

There are finite opportunities to be fully present in the life one is leading today, vs simply striving for a specific future outcome. This moment will be gone when that future arrives; it can’t be gotten back.

These are all doors that can and often do close while the focus is single-mindedly on college admissions.

You can't open all the doors all the time but you can't argue that pushing your kids to do their best and fulfill their potential closes any doors. And doing that doesn't close the door to service academies or trade organizations. Explain how after a parent doing their best means a kid can't go to a trade school? This makes zero sense. Sitting on the couch at home vs participating in sports, clubs, music, theater doesn't close any doors. Being a couch potato will certainly limit opportunities.

Such black and white thinking. Why are the options being a couch potato or being in travel sports/being over scheduled? It’s a continuum.

The black and white thinking is coming from the other direction with people claiming that unless kids are totally self motivated and seek out every opportunity on their own, even in 2nd grade, their parents are forcing them and are mentally unwell. Then the people come on claiming they did absolutely nothing for their kids and then went to an Ivy (decades ago). Get real. Lots and lots of people are doing the utmost to help their kids along the way and OP can see it. People are delusional pretending this isn't actually happening.

Help your child to help them maximize their potential. The problem is "helping" your child for the sole purpose of reaching some elite threshold and anything less then that is failure. Life isn't D1 scholarship+ Ivies or bust.

But without helping your kid, you'll never know what their limits will be. Point is, you definitely won't get there if you don't even try.

Y’all seem to have so much difficulty understanding this. The kid may do better, in the net, without your “help” if the “help”
is what OP is describing. Yes, you will know what their limits will be. It will be what they achieve—and it may be more than they would have achieved if you had tried to stage-manage like this.

We had a kid who used to rip off pages of her Kumon worksheets and hide them all over the house to get out of doing them. (Like there were twenty pages and she would pull off like six to make her job a little easier.) she is now an adult and occasionally we find another little stash when we get a new entertainment center or something. She turned out fine but in retrospect she was never going to be a mathematician and clearly was very strong willed. There is a limit to how much you can control another person. And we were never able to instill a love of math.

This is what it all boils down to. And since this is in the General Parenting forum, I’m guessing there are plenty of parents chiming in who don’t have teenagers yet.

[Anonymous]

I struggle with this in the sense that we haven’t been tiger/helicopter parents, and our kids are in 6th and 9th, so maybe it’s too late. I did try to expose them to different activities, however few have stuck and they are not expensive club sports. My kids get a mix of As and Bs.

Both are mediocre at math. I struggled to agree to tutoring, but couldn’t stomach watching a tutor teach my kid long division for $100:’/hr. My kids don’t like when I try to help them, and I agree it’s frustrating because the new math requires different thinking than I was taught (and math isn’t my forte), but I’m not paying like $800/month for 2 kids. They can go for free to after school tutoring and office hrs or use khan academy— or they can get a goddammed B by redoing their low scores. Our friends who do math tutoring pay even more and their kids get As since they do the homework with the tutor. I’m ok with that. More effort by the kid vs hitting the easy button of a tutor even if they come up short feels more honest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Met a kid great career and he only talked about going to Wilson (JR but Wilson when he graduated 10 years ago).

He was in the CS and doing well but never once mentioned he where he went to college. As you can advance in that field without a degree.

I asked where he went to college and he reluctantly told me Harvard. He said his career was stunted post college as he was the Harvard grad - either it was too easy for the Harvard grad or too hard for a new hire. His friends from Wilson who went to UMD and UDE; etc were doing more interesting things and advancing. He took Harvard off his resume and his career got so much better.

Great story! I don't believe a word of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here - the level of delusion, defensiveness and projection on this thread is epic.

My opinion after reading the “maybe your kid would have ended up with mental health problems” and the “people who go to elite colleges are stupid” posts is that people are trying to justify there own parenting styles/children’s outcomes. To be honest, I’m sympathetic to that reaction because it was mine for years - I didn’t want to compromise my relatively peaceful weekends or laid back summers so I hid behind a wall of excuses and made up fears.

My point is rather banal: if you put more effort into your children you are likely to get better results. Of course there’s a point of diminishing returns or even harm. But I think now that those point were much further off than I realized. I don’t think my children would have suffered from psychological problems if we did travel sports. And I certainly don’t think my kids would have been rendered helpless if we pushed math more in elementary school.

Ultimately I think we missed opportunities- there’s no way to know if our outcomes would have been better- but I think it’s likely.

Maybe a less controversial way to say it is: as a parent the season to truly help your child is much much shorter than you think. You really have about 10 years (give or take) 5-14. Before they’re 5. It’s really more about the nitty-gritty of life diapers and wellness checks. By the time they’re 14 they’re in real competition with their peers (starting spots and SATs).

Don’t give up those 10 year lightly.

OP: were you a completely hands-off parent that didn't do anything with your kids? There's an extremely wide range of effort levels between helicopter parent and lazy)uninvolved parent. Neither of the extremes is healthy. The only metrics you seem disappointed by is your kids' colleges and lack of playing sports. Are they actually slackers? What aren't you explaining that's the real cause of your disappointment?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But my kids weren't a breath away from an anxiety disorder and are happy people. I think that's worth more than going to a higher-ranked college.

OP here. I don’t think that was the choice. My kids were probably going to be happy either way.

The realization that I have come to is that I traded opportunities to improve my kids chances for easier weekends and less hectic weeknights.

At the time I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing - but that’s what I did.

If we had pushed math more would they have had a better chance at UVA and Michigan- almost certainly.

If we had done travel sports I don’t know if they would have played in college but they would’ve almost certainly made the highschool baseball team.

In the plus side I did have a lot more in the 529s than I would have if I pursued additional opportunities.

What gets me is I thought we were already doing a lot. We sat with them while they did their homework., they were always on a team I even coached a couple of their teams early on.

For the posters, who were saying that life’s a marathon, and not a sprint. I think you’re missing the point. A parent’s strategy is open as many doors as possible. It’s up to them to choose the door. I think the net results of not pushing harder in sports and academically was there fewer doors for them to go through

The doors are not exclusively located on college campuses, is the thing.

But those doors are always available. At what point are those other doors not open?

You are mistaken. Those doors are not always available.

There are finite opportunities to enter service academies, skilled trades programs (alone or as an adjunct to high-test liberal arts education), and particular niche institutions of higher education that may be better fits for a given person than the most elite colleges.

There are finite opportunities to prevent stress-mediated mental health problems that can last a lifetime (or end in death).

There are finite opportunities to be fully present in the life one is leading today, vs simply striving for a specific future outcome. This moment will be gone when that future arrives; it can’t be gotten back.

These are all doors that can and often do close while the focus is single-mindedly on college admissions.

You can't open all the doors all the time but you can't argue that pushing your kids to do their best and fulfill their potential closes any doors. And doing that doesn't close the door to service academies or trade organizations. Explain how after a parent doing their best means a kid can't go to a trade school? This makes zero sense. Sitting on the couch at home vs participating in sports, clubs, music, theater doesn't close any doors. Being a couch potato will certainly limit opportunities.

Such black and white thinking. Why are the options being a couch potato or being in travel sports/being over scheduled? It’s a continuum.

The black and white thinking is coming from the other direction with people claiming that unless kids are totally self motivated and seek out every opportunity on their own, even in 2nd grade, their parents are forcing them and are mentally unwell. Then the people come on claiming they did absolutely nothing for their kids and then went to an Ivy (decades ago). Get real. Lots and lots of people are doing the utmost to help their kids along the way and OP can see it. People are delusional pretending this isn't actually happening.

Help your child to help them maximize their potential. The problem is "helping" your child for the sole purpose of reaching some elite threshold and anything less then that is failure. Life isn't D1 scholarship+ Ivies or bust.

But without helping your kid, you'll never know what their limits will be. Point is, you definitely won't get there if you don't even try.

Y’all seem to have so much difficulty understanding this. The kid may do better, in the net, without your “help” if the “help”
is what OP is describing. Yes, you will know what their limits will be. It will be what they achieve—and it may be more than they would have achieved if you had tried to stage-manage like this.

We had a kid who used to rip off pages of her Kumon worksheets and hide them all over the house to get out of doing them. (Like there were twenty pages and she would pull off like six to make her job a little easier.) she is now an adult and occasionally we find another little stash when we get a new entertainment center or something. She turned out fine but in retrospect she was never going to be a mathematician and clearly was very strong willed. There is a limit to how much you can control another person. And we were never able to instill a love of math.

You tried to instill a move of math with kumon?!?!? Lol! I'm a scientist and we instill a love of math by watching birds hunt and explaining the mechanics of their necks, or looking buildings being built and talking about the loads on the cranes. You know, things that are actually interesting to a kid. The math is just the language to describe it. I have 4 kids that love math, physics, and BOOKS. The teens want to be a writer and a doctor, one kid is undecided, and the little one wants to be a ballerina. They all love math and are good at it but don't necessarily want to be mathematicians.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I struggle with this in the sense that we haven’t been tiger/helicopter parents, and our kids are in 6th and 9th, so maybe it’s too late. I did try to expose them to different activities, however few have stuck and they are not expensive club sports. My kids get a mix of As and Bs.

Both are mediocre at math. I struggled to agree to tutoring, but couldn’t stomach watching a tutor teach my kid long division for $100:’/hr. My kids don’t like when I try to help them, and I agree it’s frustrating because the new math requires different thinking than I was taught (and math isn’t my forte), but I’m not paying like $800/month for 2 kids. They can go for free to after school tutoring and office hrs or use khan academy— or they can get a goddammed B by redoing their low scores. Our friends who do math tutoring pay even more and their kids get As since they do the homework with the tutor. I’m ok with that. More effort by the kid vs hitting the easy button of a tutor even if they come up short feels more honest.

Wow parenting fail

So you are dumb and want your kids to be as well?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I struggle with this in the sense that we haven’t been tiger/helicopter parents, and our kids are in 6th and 9th, so maybe it’s too late. I did try to expose them to different activities, however few have stuck and they are not expensive club sports. My kids get a mix of As and Bs.

Both are mediocre at math. I struggled to agree to tutoring, but couldn’t stomach watching a tutor teach my kid long division for $100:’/hr. My kids don’t like when I try to help them, and I agree it’s frustrating because the new math requires different thinking than I was taught (and math isn’t my forte), but I’m not paying like $800/month for 2 kids. They can go for free to after school tutoring and office hrs or use khan academy— or they can get a goddammed B by redoing their low scores. Our friends who do math tutoring pay even more and their kids get As since they do the homework with the tutor. I’m ok with that. More effort by the kid vs hitting the easy button of a tutor even if they come up short feels more honest.

Wow parenting fail

So you are dumb and want your kids to be as well?

Really? I think you are the dumb one with that response. We both went to top 15 schools and do just fine in non STEM, non legal fields. We just think the rat race is a race to nowhere. Good luck with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - the level of delusion, defensiveness and projection on this thread is epic.

My opinion after reading the “maybe your kid would have ended up with mental health problems” and the “people who go to elite colleges are stupid” posts is that people are trying to justify there own parenting styles/children’s outcomes. To be honest, I’m sympathetic to that reaction because it was mine for years - I didn’t want to compromise my relatively peaceful weekends or laid back summers so I hid behind a wall of excuses and made up fears.

My point is rather banal: if you put more effort into your children you are likely to get better results. Of course there’s a point of diminishing returns or even harm. But I think now that those point were much further off than I realized. I don’t think my children would have suffered from psychological problems if we did travel sports. And I certainly don’t think my kids would have been rendered helpless if we pushed math more in elementary school.

Ultimately I think we missed opportunities- there’s no way to know if our outcomes would have been better- but I think it’s likely.

Maybe a less controversial way to say it is: as a parent the season to truly help your child is much much shorter than you think. You really have about 10 years (give or take) 5-14. Before they’re 5. It’s really more about the nitty-gritty of life diapers and wellness checks. By the time they’re 14 they’re in real competition with their peers (starting spots and SATs).

Don’t give up those 10 year lightly.

OP: were you a completely hands-off parent that didn't do anything with your kids? There's an extremely wide range of effort levels between helicopter parent and lazy)uninvolved parent. Neither of the extremes is healthy. The only metrics you seem disappointed by is your kids' colleges and lack of playing sports. Are they actually slackers? What aren't you explaining that's the real cause of your disappointment?

I have posted previously that I am a very involved parent but I don’t think I am a helicopter parent. I don’t necessarily push my kids. They push themselves to be better and I support them best as I can. We do and did encourage my kids to try various activities and sports, opportunities I never had. They can try and decide if they want to continue. If they show promise, enjoy it and are good at it, we have signed them up for more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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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?

Kids are busier than ever before with activities and add on hw on top of that. Never mind the fact that alot of parents don't seem to value kids having free time anymore. Yes, it is important for kids to have free time and manage free time without always having something on a schedule .

Why? What is so very important about this?

DP because this

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/unstructured-play-is-critical-to-child-development/

[Anonymous]

OP did you ask your kids how they felt about not getting into better schools than the ones they attended and whether they wished you’d have been more driven to get them a better outcome, as you put it? What’s their take on it? Are they satisfied with where they ended up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Kids are busier than ever before with activities and add on hw on top of that. Never mind the fact that alot of parents don't seem to value kids having free time anymore. Yes, it is important for kids to have free time and manage free time without always having something on a schedule .

Why? What is so very important about this?

What's not important about kids needing free time and learning how to manage it and boredom?

I can't really think of much. No kids is booked solid 7 days a week. There is always down time. I had a lot of down time as a kid and was frequently bored. Mostly because my mom was too lazy to drive me anywhere or sign me up for things that were "inconvenient" for her. I don't think I'm better off for it.

Kids who are naturally curious and motivated will take that down time and run with it to activate their imagination and explore things for themselves. What I hear you and others saying on this thread is that for kids who aren’t so stellar and creative and self-motivating—the ones who aren’t Einsteins or Bill Gates—need the push from parents to get somewhere. I think that is what OP is recognizing, that her kids are essentially about average and she should have done more to try to get them a non-average outcome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Kids are busier than ever before with activities and add on hw on top of that. Never mind the fact that alot of parents don't seem to value kids having free time anymore. Yes, it is important for kids to have free time and manage free time without always having something on a schedule .

Why? What is so very important about this?

What's not important about kids needing free time and learning how to manage it and boredom?

I can't really think of much. No kids is booked solid 7 days a week. There is always down time. I had a lot of down time as a kid and was frequently bored. Mostly because my mom was too lazy to drive me anywhere or sign me up for things that were "inconvenient" for her. I don't think I'm better off for it.

Kids who are naturally curious and motivated will take that down time and run with it to activate their imagination and explore things for themselves. What I hear you and others saying on this thread is that for kids who aren’t so stellar and creative and self-motivating—the ones who aren’t Einsteins or Bill Gates—need the push from parents to get somewhere. I think that is what OP is recognizing, that her kids are essentially about average and she should have done more to try to get them a non-average outcome.

I don't think that's what OP is saying at all. She says her kids did well and scored well. And that the people with similar kids pushed more and earlier, and it paid off. it's a pretty obvious conclusion based on what she sees. Are people going to pretend that they aren't the driving force behind some of the success of their kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Kids are busier than ever before with activities and add on hw on top of that. Never mind the fact that alot of parents don't seem to value kids having free time anymore. Yes, it is important for kids to have free time and manage free time without always having something on a schedule .

Why? What is so very important about this?

DP because this

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/unstructured-play-is-critical-to-child-development/

You're welcome to send your kids to the play based preschool all you like and limit their extra curriculars and free range to your heart's content. Even the authors above say nobody knows what will happen to kids who don't have a lot of unstructured play. But, that's just not the world we live in anymore. Things have changed and you can opt out, but don't come crying later about the results.

[Anonymous]

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. [b]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.

I mean, it's a little odd that you regard that as an envious accomplishment. I wouldn't wish that for my children in a million years. Being a college athlete would suck. The team owns you. It wouldn't be an authentic college experience. And, with the exception of a slice of football and basketball players, there's no meaningful career to go into in the sport afterwards.

Same for pushing math and STEM artificially. I mean, if your kid has natural aptitude, by all means, challenge them. But trying to engineer it or force a love for it in a kid who is inclined in the humanities is silly. And the joke's on them -- STEM careers aren't future proof and we're in the process of seeing a massive shakeout of disruption. On the flip side, kids with liberal arts degrees are going to be super high demand by employers, including tech employers, in the coming decades.

So, I'm with #teamadequateparenting. You got them launched. You did your job. Don't compare -- they may have gotten what they wanted, but it was likely a Faustian bargain.

I agree 100%

I was offered scholarships to play my sport in college and I turned them down. I knew I wasn't going to go beyond college in it (no Olympics - my friend who took that path had to homeschool due to the demands during high school) and I wanted to be able to enjoy my four years and not look back on it simply as a time I did X. I've never regretted that decision and I LOVED college.

I also think that letting kids silo themselves into STEM topics is a huge missed opportunity for so many reasons. I went to a top private school in California (one that even DCUM wouldn't sneer at) and we had to takes arts classes and play sports in addition to taking a broad range of subjects in high school and then I went on to a SLAC and I am very thankful for the well-rounded education I received. I also think it's good for kids to have to take subjects that they're not good at and that they don't do well in. That's great practice for life.

[Anonymous]

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.

Define better. Your kids would have gone to "better" schools? Better in what sense? According to US News? DCUM? Or actually better for your children (which, hint, is the only metric that matters).