The helicopter parents won - a look back

[Anonymous]

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

Np. Yes absolutely 💯

[Anonymous]

I went to a top SLAC and met my husband, who went to state school, at Ivy grad. We are both very average, maybe even below average in our lifestyle and income for our ages. (Yes, one of us IS a fed middle manager, tyvm!) Now we're surrounded by people who went to lower ranked and state schools and send their kids to small colleges in PA I'd never heard of. They will start careers earlier than we did and do better than us if they just avoid graduating into recessions and hiding out in grad school during their 20s. We know plenty of people in the trades who do well too and own their own businesses.

It's frankly a bit of a relief to not have the fear of our kids not making it into the UMC. It's fine here in the middle-middle. They like free time and relaxing at home and my oldest really resists more than one organized activity at a time, but he does very well in school and loves to read, so I'm just not worried.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Np. Yes absolutely 💯

Can you explain this to me though? They still have to sit through elementary school math. Do you think they'll skip ahead in middle or high if you start getting them grades ahead of what they are doing in school starting at 6? This is a serious question, I don't really understand the point of tutoring years before there are true options for differentiation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you're seeing a small subset of kids who had super involved parents and "success," but you aren't seeing the many others who pushed just as hard but didn't quite achieve that "success."

Agree. Confirmation bias is real. OP is only seeing the products of intensive parenting who made it through to the end of HS, but not the kids who burned out. Teen suicide rates will show you that intensive parenting is a lot like driving without a seatbelt -- *most* of the time you'll be fine.

[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 was a college athlete at Amherst and I agree with this assessment about the team owning you. It can be very challenging and it is 1000x better than at a D1 school, especially if you play a winter sport (which spans three seasons). I also do not agree that parental involvement in everything creates better athletes or students. In my experience at elite schools and in elite sports truly superior talent is superior and parental involvement can enhance that but it can't create that. Athletically there is simply no way to fake talent. Academically a slew of tutors can help with homework and write papers but I found that peers who went through institutions like Horace Mann and Penn before we ended up at grad school together were either very smart - real intellectual animals - or were almost incapable of doing anything for themself. They really had no confidence in their own abilities and their confidence is paper thin. These kids are the kids who on paper look great but end stalling out post-grad school or post-college because they don't know how to navigate in a workplace. They are so used to having parents advocate for them and tutors think for them that they can't function without that level of scaffolding.

Supporting your children in their interests and where they need help academically is different from micromanaging their existence. The latter creates narcissistic people with paper thin egos who when they can no longer fail forward have breakdowns because they are entitled and have no idea who they are and what they want.

[Anonymous]

Obviously, parental involvement and even pushing is a factor but no one can perform at top tier out of fear of parents. That's not how IQ works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Indian way or the highway

+1
Indian way is a hybrid of Tiger-Helicopter-Snowplow-Hero parenting.

Being an Indian is sort of hard in this country. Kids have to do well and they also have to be socialized well. Parents have to do well because most people in their social group are doing well, their kids have to be well mannered and do well, their household have to run smoothly and they have to maintain their social network and connections (show up for people's events, call people to your events, hospitality and reciprocity, etc etc etc) too.

The biggest things going for Indians are the moms are also well educated and most can tackle Math. The "come home and do your homework first" mentality is what was taught to us in India and that has been carried forth here. If no homework is given from the school, Indian parents will give worksheets to their kids every day. And finally, most Indians are familiar with the curriculum and rigor of Indian education system and so they are panicked that their American kids will not be able to compete with Indians educated in India. So, the enrichment continues, skewing the statistics in a way that the school district takes credit for the hard work of the children and parents.

[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.

Bull. You are posting to brag about what a wonderful job you did without being an obnoxious helicopter mom
You failed miserably as you're just a obnoxious braggart.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are defining college admission as the "end game." Check back when your kid and their peers are 30 - or 40. It really is a marathon and the end is nowhere near age 18.

Completely. And maybe they attained their college goal but are stressed out and don’t have a bit of resiliency to cross the finish line emotionally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

[Anonymous]

What about self-development? The idea that the purpose of education is to lean how to learn and pursue your interests. That is so often lost in the college race

[Anonymous]

Children mirror what they are shown….
Values
Work ethic

[Anonymous]

Parents who played D1 sports in college gave kids who play D1 sports in college…
Generally

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a marathon op. I know Harvard grads who became associate professors. I know Yale students who dropped out 20 years ago and never went back. I know state schools students who founded tech companies. I know Ivy League grads who never married or had kids.

Sure, but going to Harvard or Yale is a huge leg up. Let's not kid ourselves.

Let’s also not forget that many people don’t need that leg up.