Reply to “I’d rather have a happy kid at UMD than a miserable one at Harvard”

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

This is absolutely false. When a parent withholds love from a child early on and only grants it when the child is achieving, the child will do anything for the love. Period. To assume they would rebel is naive.

By the time they are an adult, they will feel resentment.[/quote]

+1. I know lots of my peers have lots of issues with their overbearing parents but don't have the energy or boldness to confront them.[/quote]

-1

OP here. I’ve never met these poor tortured tiger cubs you’re mentioning. I was pushed, and so were most of my high school friends, by immigrant tiger parents. We are grateful. None of us are resentful. You’re making up a figure in your mind. [/quote]
NP here. OP - you are coming at this from your experience. Maybe your social circle really are all happy. Or maybe some of you friends are really good at hiding their thoughts from you, or themselves even. But I’m a high school teacher in a magnet program and see a whole lot more kids than you, and I can assure you that not everyone belongs or is thriving in the magnet environment and they are very conflicted about college and the major that has been chosen for them by their parents. Every year out of ~100 11th graders I have 2-3 of them literally crying in my office over not earning a perfect 4.0 due to my class. It doesn’t take long for the rest of the stress story to come out. Other teachers relate similar experiences. I’d estimate 10-15% of the magnet kids are truly unhappy due to being pushed too hard (not including the general 50% of them who are pretty stressed with high workload.) On the adult side, in our department of 15 there are 2 teachers who were career changers who switched to teaching after a few years because they didn’t like the field chosen by their tiger parents and didn’t enjoy their elite college experience.

Your experience is not the same as everyone’s OP. I agree with the nuanced premise from the other post (big fish, small pond is equally successful and less stressed/happier).
[/quote]

OP here. Forgot to respond to this earlier but thought it was worthwhile. I went to a magnet high school with mostly working-class Asian immigrant children, and we were all fine mentally except for maybe 15% who were truly unhappy (same as your estimation). Yes, I agree with you a small minority are really unhappy at the magnet program. But 85% of us were fine, even if we were pretty stressed with a high workload. The vast majority of my friends and I were grateful for our rigorous high school that made college a totally breeze. We felt very prepared for college in rigorous STEM subjects, and we appreciated our parents pushing and the competitive, high-pressure environment.

I see two main changes nowadays vs. when I went to high school:

1. The kids seem to fear failure for no reason. My HS was actually profiled in the documentary “Try Harder,” and it seems like the kids going there now are mostly much less resilient and able to pick themselves up after a failure or a disappointment than my generation.

2. There is a lot more coddling and “protecting kids’ self esteem,” which I predict is what leads to the first point. [/quote]

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