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[quote=Anonymous]Reality sucks.  But here it is.  I have five kids.  Of the five one is amazingly intelligent.  She graduated with a 4.45 GPA and is a National Merit Scholar.  She was always in "highly gifted programs" in every state we lived in.  And we moved about every three years.  She was accepted to every school she applied to and is on a full academic scholarship.  We were encouraged to allow her to start college when she was 14.  We chose not to do so.  When she left for college, she entered as a junior.  She scored high on every test she took...SAT, ACT, PSAT......  We never prepped.  She never had a tutor.  She watched tons of television.  She had a computer in her room (I know...GASP!).  And the real shocker....we moved to D.C. from Ala-freakin-bama her junior year.  She still scored higher than 99.9% of kids in Fairfax County.

I'm not bragging...far from it.  My other kids are just the typically kids.  We are just thankful our oldest got into his college.  He was an o.k. student.  They'll do their homework to avoid consequences, but they would probobly do nothing at all if we allowed it.  I'm not a "tiger mom" by any stretch of the imagination.  I have no desire to raise super kids.  I've seen the way those kids turn out and I don't want that for my kids.

Think about what you doing...You spend hours and hours grilling your kids with workbooks, flashcards, and memorization.  It works.  They are A students in school, go to a great college, and get a great job.  So what?  Do you think somehow they will be happier?  I know an awful lot of people with highly prestigious, very high paying jobs who are miserable.  I know equally as many people who went to state colleges, have pretty good government jobs, and are very happy.

That's a lot of rambling to simply say - Why not just provide your kids the tools they need to be successful then back off and let them become the people they were meant to be?  If my son decides he wants to build houses instead of run companies, what's wrong with that?  My insanely gifted college kids may decide she doesn't want to go to medical school after all.  She has been talking about changing her major to education.  Is that a bad thing?  A waste?

You don't need to push your kids.  The smart kids who are driven to be successful will be successful no matter what you do.  The kid who is content with doing just o.k. will be fine as well.  Don't you wonder why so many kids in the D.C. area are on anti-anxiety and anti-depressant medications?  Do you really want your kids to walk around with the same creepy, empty vacant stare that you see in the eyes of the people on the metro?  Or do you want your kids to figure out what makes them truly happy and then for them to find a way to make a living doing it?  Life is short.  Way too short to do something only because your insane parents pushed you to do it.[/quote]

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