Scary thoughts about kids at college

[Anonymous]

Then there's kids like Madison in the article. Seems as though she was a good student and qualified to be at Penn. Sounds like she could have quit track or she could have transferred to Lehigh. Instead she decided her only option was to end her life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is all very complicated and I think parents look to what they think is "the" cause to reassure themselves it won't happen to their child. But the children of great, supportive, involved parents commit suicide. Its complicate. Some thoughts:

1. There have always been people in this age range with serious mental illness. I do think its worse now as the atmosphere to achieve, achieve, achieve has been cranked up. But ultimately there will always be some young adults who struggle with this.

2. IMO UPenn has a particularly strong competitive atmosphere and a coldness. My DC chose not to apply for that reason. The reputation is that it is full of "ore-professional" students, students gunning for law or medical school and most especially business. There's nothing wrong with any of those things, I went to law school, but the sheer concentration is unhealthy.

3. No one has commented on the transition to college athletics but I think that is a big part of it. I was a high school athlete who loved my sport. My teammates were like my sisters and I was never happier than when we were out there together, competing. I was heavily recruited by colleges, including UPenn (I went elsewhere). When I got to college I found the atmosphere around sports to be much different. More was expected of me. the team was cliquish and I had difficulty finding friends. The level of competition was higher but also less fun. I went from LOVING my sport to hating it and quit after one year. In retrospect, it was the best decision I could make, though it was difficult. Its really hard to change course when you've been recruited. For the woman in this article, she was so invested and I can imagine that the change was particularly hard felt.

4. Finally a lot of schools create disincentives for students seeking help. They kick them out of school if they are suicidal. I don't know about UPenn's approach, but the student may have felt she couldn't be completely honest with them.

The sport angle is interesting. also, it looks like she preferred soccer to track and would have played soccer at Lehigh.

Interesting. Was this at a DI, DII, or DIII school? Do you think that part matters? Did any of your HS friends who went on to play college sports experience the same things you did?

It was an ivy, which matters only because I didn't have a scholarship and could walk away. My friends who played at college did not experience the same things. They were also not recruited to the extent I was. It may have been the dynamic with the teammates. I just didn't click with mine, so it was an enormous amount of time (a big difference with college sports is the time commitment. The girl who committed suicide was suddenly subject to twice a day practice, for example) spent away from the real friends I was making. College games meant long bus rides, while in high school games were rarely far away. (This was before the days of travel teams). I felt like the whole thing was taking me away from college just when I got there.

[Anonymous]

From the college sports you describe, Madison must have felt lonely. Then she'd check out social media and see all her friends having good times. Throw in her own visions of quitting track or transferring as failure. And she'd probably never "failed" at anything before. Somehow she concluded that there was no way out. Just shocking how wrong she was. Sounds like she had all sorts of support systems in her life and places she could turn for help. So sad.

[Anonymous]

Anyone else struck by this thread about a seemingly well-adjusted Penn freshman taking her life and the 2 parallel threads about "disappointed by list of colleges where kids are going" and "silly helicopter parents going to orientation at kids' college". I don't have the answer but I did have the shock of my life by a phone call with my freshman DS when I started to fear he was "at risk." We took a few immediate steps and he just graduated with honors. So it all turned out fine, and who knows if it would have been fine without our intervention. The whole thing was so out of character for him and still haunts me a bit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else struck by this thread about a seemingly well-adjusted Penn freshman taking her life and the 2 parallel threads about "disappointed by list of colleges where kids are going" and "silly helicopter parents going to orientation at kids' college". I don't have the answer but I did have the shock of my life by a phone call with my freshman DS when I started to fear he was "at risk." We took a few immediate steps and he just graduated with honors. So it all turned out fine, and who knows if it would have been fine without our intervention. The whole thing was so out of character for him and still haunts me a bit.

The thing is, there's a large area between helicoptering and abandoning your kid at orientation. You've painted the extreme poles, but that's not helpful or conducive to discussion.

Instead, many on that thread, including me, posted to say that we don't hover. But we do phone or Skype once a week, and we text multiple times a week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A friend's daughter was recruited by an Ivy to play soccer, quit the team after two years. She did not care for the coach and stopped enjoying the game. She transferred to a non-Ivy. Another friend's child was recruited by a SLAC to play baseball and doesn't like the coach and he's not happy, not sure what he's going to do. It's very coach-driven.

sister recruited for soccer at AWS and quit half way through the first season -

it is very coach driven. she turned out fine, amazing job, realized she wasn't going to go pro or play for the national team so picked up other fitness activities to stay fit and overall it was a good decision.

From her cohort (she just graduated) i see more and more kids using sports to get into ivies/top SLAC's and then quitting a year or two in. I wonder if more and more kids do it, if it'll affect how much of a bonus recruited athletes get during admissions at these schools.

My sister would've never had gotten into her school without being a recruit and yet the school didn't get that sport 'value' out of her as she quit pretty early in her college career.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else struck by this thread about a seemingly well-adjusted Penn freshman taking her life and the 2 parallel threads about "disappointed by list of colleges where kids are going" and "silly helicopter parents going to orientation at kids' college". I don't have the answer but I did have the shock of my life by a phone call with my freshman DS when I started to fear he was "at risk." We took a few immediate steps and he just graduated with honors. So it all turned out fine, and who knows if it would have been fine without our intervention. The whole thing was so out of character for him and still haunts me a bit.

The thing is, there's a large area between helicoptering and abandoning your kid at orientation. You've painted the extreme poles, but that's not helpful or conducive to discussion.

Instead, many on that thread, including me, posted to say that we don't hover. But we do phone or Skype once a week, and we text multiple times a week.

Glad to hear that my personal experience is of no help to you. I found it to be exactly relevant to the discussion. But since you skype and text (which we do too), I'm sure nothing scary will ever happen to you or your kids. Must feel good to have it all figured out.

[Anonymous]

Look, the "I did it this way. Therefore nothing bad will every happen to me or my kids" poster is back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else struck by this thread about a seemingly well-adjusted Penn freshman taking her life and the 2 parallel threads about "disappointed by list of colleges where kids are going" and "silly helicopter parents going to orientation at kids' college". I don't have the answer but I did have the shock of my life by a phone call with my freshman DS when I started to fear he was "at risk." We took a few immediate steps and he just graduated with honors. So it all turned out fine, and who knows if it would have been fine without our intervention. The whole thing was so out of character for him and still haunts me a bit.

The thing is, there's a large area between helicoptering and abandoning your kid at orientation. You've painted the extreme poles, but that's not helpful or conducive to discussion.

Instead, many on that thread, including me, posted to say that we don't hover. But we do phone or Skype once a week, and we text multiple times a week.

Glad to hear that my personal experience is of no help to you. I found it to be exactly relevant to the discussion. But since you skype and text (which we do too), I'm sure nothing scary will ever happen to you or your kids. Must feel good to have it all figured out.

Guessing that if you hadn't characterized other points of view as "silly," you would have got a better reception. You probably deliberately insulted several posters. If you want respect, you should give respect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else struck by this thread about a seemingly well-adjusted Penn freshman taking her life and the 2 parallel threads about "disappointed by list of colleges where kids are going" and "silly helicopter parents going to orientation at kids' college". I don't have the answer but I did have the shock of my life by a phone call with my freshman DS when I started to fear he was "at risk." We took a few immediate steps and he just graduated with honors. So it all turned out fine, and who knows if it would have been fine without our intervention. The whole thing was so out of character for him and still haunts me a bit.

The thing is, there's a large area between helicoptering and abandoning your kid at orientation. You've painted the extreme poles, but that's not helpful or conducive to discussion.

Instead, many on that thread, including me, posted to say that we don't hover. But we do phone or Skype once a week, and we text multiple times a week.

Glad to hear that my personal experience is of no help to you. I found it to be exactly relevant to the discussion. But since you skype and text (which we do too), I'm sure nothing scary will ever happen to you or your kids. Must feel good to have it all figured out.

Guessing that if you hadn't characterized other points of view as "silly," you would have got a better reception. You probably deliberately insulted several posters. If you want respect, you should give respect.

I was attempting to characterize a 7 page thread in under 10 words. You felt so deliberately insulted that you felt free to trivialize another poster's concern over a potentially-suicidal DS? Bully for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look, the "I did it this way. Therefore nothing bad will every happen to me or my kids" poster is back.

That and "if you do it any other way than my way, you are wrong, your point of view is irrelevant, and your experiences meaningless. It's great to be me."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look, the "I did it this way. Therefore nothing bad will every happen to me or my kids" poster is back.

That and "if you do it any other way than my way, you are wrong, your point of view is irrelevant, and your experiences meaningless. It's great to be me."

Wow, you suck. Way to trivialize everybody else's points of view.

This forum used to be good....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else struck by this thread about a seemingly well-adjusted Penn freshman taking her life and the 2 parallel threads about "disappointed by list of colleges where kids are going" and "silly helicopter parents going to orientation at kids' college". I don't have the answer but I did have the shock of my life by a phone call with my freshman DS when I started to fear he was "at risk." We took a few immediate steps and he just graduated with honors. So it all turned out fine, and who knows if it would have been fine without our intervention. The whole thing was so out of character for him and still haunts me a bit.

The thing is, there's a large area between helicoptering and abandoning your kid at orientation. You've painted the extreme poles, but that's not helpful or conducive to discussion.

Instead, many on that thread, including me, posted to say that we don't hover. But we do phone or Skype once a week, and we text multiple times a week.

Glad to hear that my personal experience is of no help to you. I found it to be exactly relevant to the discussion. But since you skype and text (which we do too), I'm sure nothing scary will ever happen to you or your kids. Must feel good to have it all figured out.

Guessing that if you hadn't characterized other points of view as "silly," you would have got a better reception. You probably deliberately insulted several posters. If you want respect, you should give respect.

I was attempting to characterize a 7 page thread in under 10 words. You felt so deliberately insulted that you felt free to trivialize another poster's concern over a potentially-suicidal DS? Bully for you.

I'm a little surprised that you took such offense at that pp who basically said the same thing you did - that you talk to your kid over the phone. Why such umbrage?! Also, you said "at risk" in your 1st post, but "at risk" =/= "suicidal" which you put in your second post -- and yet you slam him/her for not intuiting that there was a risk of suicide.

It seems like you're trying to pick a fight out of thin air.

Looks like you've followed up with a few more barrages since this one. You need to simmer down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look, the "I did it this way. Therefore nothing bad will every happen to me or my kids" poster is back.

That and "if you do it any other way than my way, you are wrong, your point of view is irrelevant, and your experiences meaningless. It's great to be me."

Wow, you suck. Way to trivialize everybody else's points of view.

This forum used to be good....

Wait, you're name calling and complaining about others not open to all points of view and rolling your eyes at another post that's complaining about others not open to all points of view?
Wow, this forum used to be so good. . . .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else struck by this thread about a seemingly well-adjusted Penn freshman taking her life and the 2 parallel threads about "disappointed by list of colleges where kids are going" and "silly helicopter parents going to orientation at kids' college". I don't have the answer but I did have the shock of my life by a phone call with my freshman DS when I started to fear he was "at risk." We took a few immediate steps and he just graduated with honors. So it all turned out fine, and who knows if it would have been fine without our intervention. The whole thing was so out of character for him and still haunts me a bit.

The thing is, there's a large area between helicoptering and abandoning your kid at orientation. You've painted the extreme poles, but that's not helpful or conducive to discussion.

Instead, many on that thread, including me, posted to say that we don't hover. But we do phone or Skype once a week, and we text multiple times a week.

Glad to hear that my personal experience is of no help to you. I found it to be exactly relevant to the discussion. But since you skype and text (which we do too), I'm sure nothing scary will ever happen to you or your kids. Must feel good to have it all figured out.

Guessing that if you hadn't characterized other points of view as "silly," you would have got a better reception. You probably deliberately insulted several posters. If you want respect, you should give respect.

I was attempting to characterize a 7 page thread in under 10 words. You felt so deliberately insulted that you felt free to trivialize another poster's concern over a potentially-suicidal DS? Bully for you.

I'm a little surprised that you took such offense at that pp who basically said the same thing you did - that you talk to your kid over the phone. Why such umbrage?! Also, you said "at risk" in your 1st post, but "at risk" =/= "suicidal" which you put in your second post -- and yet you slam him/her for not intuiting that there was a risk of suicide.

It seems like you're trying to pick a fight out of thin air.

Looks like you've followed up with a few more barrages since this one. You need to simmer down