The helicopter parents won - a look back

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

You were good enough to play college sports and attended a top private school. Your parents absolutely helped you get there whether it was paying for private that allowed you to have these opportunities at the school.

No one here is talking about just playing sports in college.

[Anonymous]

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

The one piece of solid advice I can offer is that A kid who is not at least in pre-algebra in seventh grade is going to have a hard time with college admissions. Most competitive schools want to see calculus on the transcript. There are 4 classes between calculus and pre-algebra algebra, geometry, algebra-2and pre-calculus. Once you’re off that track it’s pretty hard.

This was true over 20 years ago, when I was applying to college. Anyone who had any academic ambition was at least taking calculus in senior year. I did, and I wasn’t even a math person or at the top of my class.

Yeah, I don't think this is news. The majority if my prep school did both the calculus AB and BC APs. I imagine the track is the same now as it was then. I guess some schools don't do this? Or I guess the schools do it but the kids can't handle that? There were kids who didn't do the BC AP because math wasn't their thing, but they at least did AB. I would say that 100% of our graduating class did, actually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My cousin had tutors for her DD all throughtout MS/HS -- the girl is smart but fully admits the tutors are how she got by. The parents also made sure she had the "right" extracurriculars (summer internships at friends jobs, a "charity" she started when she was too young to have thought of the idea.) She just got into a great university. So yes, there's definitely truth to the fact that parents involvement help. (And, they'll get her tutors throughout college too so it's not like it's going to catch up with her).

As someone who tutored in high school, I can't imagine anything worse for my kids than to have to get through high school and college with tutors. Maybe your kid just isn't that smart. So why use tutors to try to inflate their learning for a period of time, only to then take away their assistance? It's like saying "my kid was swimming by 8 months" when in reality your kid had floaters on and then couldn't handle being without them when they were 4, by which time other kids, who took the time at a more appropriate age to learn how to swim, were actually swimming better. Not a perfect analogy, and maybe I've just been lucky to have kids who have always been above grade-level in all subjects, but to me, tutors are for kids who are struggling. If your kid isn't smart enough to take linear algebra in high school, then math probably isn't the career path for them. Why would you force it on them? It sounds miserable to me.

[Anonymous]

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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

OP, if every parent is doing what you suggest, then your kid still probably wouldn't get into those schools because, well, there's not enough room in their classes for every kid. It's a crapshoot.

I'm sorry you're disappointed your kid didn't get into what you consider a better school. Just don't let them know of your disappointment because that is something they'll never forget.

I work at a fairly prestigious organization and a lot of my colleagues making the highest salaries (if that is your main criterion for success in life) did not go to T50 schools.

Exactly. I really wonder how much life experience many of the posters here have. I went to a top 10 university and a top 5 law school. My best friend went to a state school DCUM would never consider and a public law school that again, no one would look twice at. We're both lawyers and she makes seven figures a year and I make a third of that. We're at different firms and we've obviously made different life choices but where we went to school (even law school) has not equated to our current salaries. There are so many choices on the road of life, and it's so bizarre to me that some of you people think that taking calculus in ninth grade is going to determine whether someone makes above $200k or not. Life is about so much more than what math classes you take in high school, and it seems to me that people who don't equip their kids with the skills to handle the things life really throws at you are missing the point. But keep on keeping on with your math tutors.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My cousin had tutors for her DD all throughtout MS/HS -- the girl is smart but fully admits the tutors are how she got by. The parents also made sure she had the "right" extracurriculars (summer internships at friends jobs, a "charity" she started when she was too young to have thought of the idea.) She just got into a great university. So yes, there's definitely truth to the fact that parents involvement help. (And, they'll get her tutors throughout college too so it's not like it's going to catch up with her).

As someone who tutored in high school, I can't imagine anything worse for my kids than to have to get through high school and college with tutors. Maybe your kid just isn't that smart. So why use tutors to try to inflate their learning for a period of time, only to then take away their assistance? It's like saying "my kid was swimming by 8 months" when in reality your kid had floaters on and then couldn't handle being without them when they were 4, by which time other kids, who took the time at a more appropriate age to learn how to swim, were actually swimming better. Not a perfect analogy, and maybe I've just been lucky to have kids who have always been above grade-level in all subjects, but to me, tutors are for kids who are struggling. If your kid isn't smart enough to take linear algebra in high school, then math probably isn't the career path for them. Why would you force it on them? It sounds miserable to me.

I can’t remember if I posted on this thread or a different thread but I think the math teaching is lacking these days with technology. There are a lot of small group teaching where elementary teachers group kids of different ability together and the kids are moved around from group to group. With much of the work being done online, parents don’t even know if their kid is understanding the math these days.

Many parents I know do some sort of math enrichment. This may be because their kid loves math and wants more math. The kid may not be struggling but parents want to make sure the child has a strong foundation in math so that the child won’t struggle as math advances. Or the kid is actually struggling in math and needs help.

I was a strong math student and never had math enrichment. Neither did DH. My kids are also strong in math. Covid left a gap for my two older kids so we did some mathnasium for them. My kids have As in their math classes.

[Anonymous]

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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?

DP
I disagree. This is not a parenting fail. Getting a B is not the end of the world. Not being as efficient as a computer isn't the end of the world. If the kid can find a solution, i.e., redoing exams, and doesn't mind the cost - more time spent retaking and studying - why is that a fail? It's all the process. At my workplace it's really bottom line delivery that counts, not necessarily how they delivered. It's a different type of problem solving, but I dont expect you'd be able to see outside your box where everything in linear to understand sometimes learning is lateral.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Indians have it down to a science

Lol no....we struggle as much as rest of the parents, I have regrets that mine are not very athletic, I wish they were. Now true to the stereotype, yes, my kids have had math tutors since 4th grade and they excel in math but there are other challenges that they experience. However, I do believe that a good amount of parental involvement can take a kid from average to above average, we don't believe that a child will only achieve what he/she can based on their abilities, we believe that by providing lots of external support we can easily take them up a level or two and that's why we continue to push.

For example, my daughter was an average student in math until 3rd grade, she started feeling that that's all she can achieve in math. Since grade 4, she has had a private tutor and tons of practice + hard work, in middle school now she is in algebra. Was she one of those kids who are math wizards? Not at all. By guiding, tutoring and putting in the time she is where she is currently. Will this make a difference in her life or college admissions? I don't know, we can only work hard and put in the effort everyday and let the chips fall where they may.

Although, the best thing I have learnt from american parenting culture is to aim for a balance, so I push them so that they develop good work habits, so that they can learn to work hard but not only in the pursuit of grades.

I have fourth-grade twins. Can you tell me what the math tutors were doing with your kids at that age? I am truly at a loss to understand what they were doing. And then they had math tutors every year from 4th through 12th grades?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a college athlete, you can’t push a child to that level. I have multiple kids. Only one had the drive to play college. I could not have forced it if I’d tried. That has to come from within.

100% this! The kids who succeed at a high level in sports are self driven. 100%. You push, they will quit eventually. And the kids who are pushed academically, well, that sometimes ends very, very badly.

I think what you’re saying is true but overstated. Yes to reach the highest levels (at anything) you have to be internally driven. But that only goes so far

if you provide opportunity and guidance to a kid (particularly before highschool) you can make it easier for him to pursue achievement. Success often produces the enthusiasm to strive harder which in turn produces more success and a virtuous cycle is born.

The desire to become a great baseball player is not endowed at birth - it’s the result of your experiences combined with your personality. It may be that kid on a rec team knows that he’s Playing second tier ball (or at least feels that way) and become discouraged or it may be a kid on a rec team is so successful he doesn’t feel the need to try harder.

Self motivation mainly stems from a combination of success, challenge and a internal need to compete. So while self motivation is internal, how you get to that point is not.

Ummm, how about your innate skills? No matter how hard most people try, they'll never swim like Michael Phelps. Never. Doesn't mean their parents didn't provide them with every single opportunity. Doesn't mean the kid didn't want it. I mean, if you're talking about some D3 sport, then sure, maybe innate talent isn't needed as much as experience and personality, but it's not a non-factor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This has to be a troll

Being a DCUMer means personally knowing and working with people who weren’t very especially bright who went to Brown and Duke but are from extremely wealthy backgrounds who did “fine” in their careers.

My smartest coworkers went to U. South Carolina and another went to a regional fine art school. We don’t work in art, by the way. They are smart and self-directed in a way that can’t be trained, practiced, or bought.

Smart people live the lives of smart people, rich people live the lives of rich people, and sometimes being smart and rich intersects.

Oh, and lol to the poster who said only a select percentage of D1 football and basketball players have career paths in front of them. On the contrary. People like to hire the star of the nowhere-ville D3 tennis team, just like how people like to hire Marines — the background conveys discipline and fair or not, their is a bias in favor of the physically fit.

I'm pretty sure that PP meant professional sports careers in front of them...

[Anonymous]

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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.

Yes to the bold. If any of this matters to parents, and the children have the capacity and capability (the latter are super important, critical), there needs to be a plan. If the children do not have the capacity and capability, they no amount of pushing would advance them. They key I think is knowing your kid and understanding their potential, and then lining up the opportunities accordingly.

I haven't gotten far in this thread but it seems sick.
So the two measurements of good parenting are these successful outcomes: 1) college acceptances 2) playing sports at a college (related to 1)

No. Good parenting means making the most of your kid's potential. Your kid may not have what it takes to get into college or play sports at any level, so obviously those can't be measures. The measurement of success is whether you as a parent figured out what your kid's potential was, and whether you helped your kid achieve that. For some kids, their max potential is just to be nice people, and if you've taught them how to be nice, then you've achieved success.

So is this an argument for or against having tutors?

[Anonymous]

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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.

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.

"That mom" here. For the record, neither my husband nor I are math people. We speak a bunch of foreign languages but math is not our thing. I would literally have no idea how to talk about loads on cranes with my kid. So yeah, we tried Kumon. Kid wants a phd in philosophy. no money in that. I would have loved to have had the secret sauce that makes a kid that loves math.

[Anonymous]

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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.

lol I think people who believe in play and creativity aren’t going to cry about “results” if their kid doesn’t end up going to MIT.

Tho OP sure seems disappointed in her results. I wonder if her kids know they disappointed her.

[Anonymous]

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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.

lol I think people who believe in play and creativity aren’t going to cry about “results” if their kid doesn’t end up going to MIT.

Tho OP sure seems disappointed in her results. I wonder if her kids know they disappointed her.

I think most parents would feel slightly bad if their kid went to Elon and watched someone of equal ability go to Penn. the disappointment may not last long but it is natural to feel. And maybe the ivy kid won’t do better professionally and then that other parent may feel disappointed in a few years.

I want my kids to be happy and healthy. That is the main priority and goal and they are all happy well adjusted kids. I want them to try their best and when they try, they get good grades. If my kid didn’t try and gets a B, I am not happy with that outcome and neither is my kid. If my kid tried and got a B, I would accept that but that is never the case. If they try, they get the A.

[Anonymous]

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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?

OP here: At the time I thought we were doing a lot- we had the kids in rec sports, we sat with them while they did their homework, met with their teachers, volunteered at swim meets and even coached a few teams early on. But what we didn’t do (what I now regret) is that we never push into that next level.

The kids were happy and doing well so we didn’t want to push them into advanced math. They were successful on their rec teams so no travel for us. I think our motto was good was good enough.

But looking back on it the decision not to take it to the next level was a decision not to go to thier first choice schools or play the sport they loved for their highschool.

I’m not unhappy with how they turned out or their experience in highschool. I’m sure they have a great future ahead of them. But it bugs me that I was making decisions years ago and I didn’t connect up the conquenses at the time.

For them they’ve always been happy bright kids and they’re still that way but they weren’t excited to get rejected from thier first and second choice schools or from not making the hs baseball team. They really loved youth baseball and the ideas niether played an inning of hs ball kills me. The majority of the pictures of the boys when they were little are baseball pictures. I just didn’t understand the level of competition.

[Anonymous]

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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?

OP here: At the time I thought we were doing a lot- we had the kids in rec sports, we sat with them while they did their homework, met with their teachers, volunteered at swim meets and even coached a few teams early on. But what we didn’t do (what I now regret) is that we never push into that next level.

The kids were happy and doing well so we didn’t want to push them into advanced math. They were successful on their rec teams so no travel for us. I think our motto was good was good enough.

But looking back on it the decision not to take it to the next level was a decision not to go to thier first choice schools or play the sport they loved for their highschool.

I’m not unhappy with how they turned out or their experience in highschool. I’m sure they have a great future ahead of them. But it bugs me that I was making decisions years ago and I didn’t connect up the conquenses at the time.

For them they’ve always been happy bright kids and they’re still that way but they weren’t excited to get rejected from thier first and second choice schools or from not making the hs baseball team. They really loved youth baseball and the ideas niether played an inning of hs ball kills me. The majority of the pictures of the boys when they were little are baseball pictures. I just didn’t understand the level of competition.

Wow