I would love for our family to be in the position to ponder this question, LOL.

I think that you're doing things right by (a) having them do chores; and (b) telling them "no" instead of always giving them everything that they ask for.

Anecdote: Twenty years ago, when I went to law school, it was the first private school I had ever attended. For one of my classmates (who later became my boyfriend), law school was the first time he had ever met anyone who attended public school (of any kind)[b]. That was shocking to me, and is still shocking to me. (He had gone to St. Alban's for 3-12, and then to an elite college.)

RAMom wrote:We are in a similar position. A big thing you can do is not to let them know you are very wealthy. Live below your means. Get an expensive house but not one that is over the top. They can know you are well off but not top 1%. Do not do things that very wealthy people do. It is okay to go to exotic locations and to Europe, for example, but do it is a relatively modest way. There is nothing inherently evil about being wealthy. I teach my kids to work hard. I am not worried that they will grow up to be entitled because I trust they will be normal. I think kids become entitled by watching what their parents do and say. So be careful and be a positive role model. No one is perfect so just do your best.

This is a terrible idea. I'm not a fan, especially as kids get older, of shielding them from actual facts and complex conversations. When you keep your kids ignorant, they end up being clueless DCUM posters who sincerely believe that their $300K annual HHI and $1.5M house are "middle class." The have no intellectual ability or political will to grasp actual facts and have an accurate perspective on their circumstances. Also, "hard work" has never been justly equated with having a comfortable income. The janitorial staff in my office work really hard, firefighters work hard, teachers work hard, but they can barely eek out a middle class income in DC, much less save enough for their kids' college and retirement at the same time.

No

You may have more luck asking this question on a public school forum. We go to private for a reason 😉

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I worked in DCPS but I sent both of my children to private schools. The math they do in 8th grade is on par with the most rigorous DCPS algebra class taught in 12th grade. Truancy is a real problem that destroys DCPS.

LOL. My non-advanced DCPS kid took algebra in 8th grade. Many of his peers did in in 7th.

My kid’s DCPS high school gets lots of grief from parents for “only” offering up to AP BC calculus.

PP is a not very good troll.

You realize linear algebra is typically taught in sequence after multivariable calculus, which comes after BC calculus?

Anonymous wrote:I worked in DCPS but I sent both of my children to private schools. The math they do in 8th grade is on par with the most rigorous DCPS algebra class taught in 12th grade. Truancy is a real problem that destroys DCPS.

LOL. My non-advanced DCPS kid took algebra in 8th grade. Many of his peers did in in 7th.

My kid’s DCPS high school gets lots of grief from parents for “only” offering up to AP BC calculus.

PP is a not very good troll.

Anonymous wrote:In my high school the valedictorian was a nasty, back-biting, terrible person. Went on to HYP school. Founded a large famous charity that was started as a college proposal. A very large charity.

You just never know where people will go!

Wendy Kopp of Teach for America?

No, not really. We are much poorer than OP but we are still privileged compared to families where kids live in concrete jungles and are deprived of so many opportunities. Yet they are privileged compared to someone who lives in a destitute village in a poor country. People figure it out eventually.

We are in a similar position. A big thing you can do is not to let them know you are very wealthy. Live below your means. Get an expensive house but not one that is over the top. They can know you are well off but not top 1%. Do not do things that very wealthy people do. It is okay to go to exotic locations and to Europe, for example, but do it is a relatively modest way. There is nothing inherently evil about being wealthy. I teach my kids to work hard. I am not worried that they will grow up to be entitled because I trust they will be normal. I think kids become entitled by watching what their parents do and say. So be careful and be a positive role model. No one is perfect so just do your best.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're a middle class family with kids on heavy financial aid at a private school. I worry about this a lot. My kids are very aware that people have more than them. It's in their face every day! And while they have opportunities to see that people have less, I still worry that their perspective is skewed.

If you have several kids in private, you are not real middle class, just pretending to be.

My income has 5 figures, and my kids get an enormous amount of aid. I am pretty sure we are middle class.

5 figures is not middle class

Are you arguing that middle class ends at $9,999 it at $100,000?

On DCUM under $300k HHI = poor

I am the 5 figure poster, and this is what I worry about. That my kids will be surrounded by people who think they are poor, and not recognize that all of their needs are met, and that they have a responsibility to help others reach the same point.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're a middle class family with kids on heavy financial aid at a private school. I worry about this a lot. My kids are very aware that people have more than them. It's in their face every day! And while they have opportunities to see that people have less, I still worry that their perspective is skewed.

If you have several kids in private, you are not real middle class, just pretending to be.

My income has 5 figures, and my kids get an enormous amount of aid. I am pretty sure we are middle class.

5 figures is not middle class

Are you arguing that middle class ends at $9,999 it at $100,000?

On DCUM under $300k HHI = poor

This is our HHI and I don’t worry about it. We don’t belong to a CC and our friend group is pretty diverse. Yeah we sometimes take nice vacations but we also do normal stuff for vacation like stay with the grandparents or tour a national park. We say “no” to our kids when they ask to buy stuff and we ourselves don’t buy designer clothes or wear flashy jewelry. So in short, I don’t think it’s just private school but the rest of the environment you provide that shapes your kids’ worldview. We have family members in other areas that send their kids to public schools where the families are likely wealthier than the DC private families, FWIW.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're a middle class family with kids on heavy financial aid at a private school. I worry about this a lot. My kids are very aware that people have more than them. It's in their face every day! And while they have opportunities to see that people have less, I still worry that their perspective is skewed.

If you have several kids in private, you are not real middle class, just pretending to be.

My income has 5 figures, and my kids get an enormous amount of aid. I am pretty sure we are middle class.

5 figures is not middle class

Are you arguing that middle class ends at $9,999 it at $100,000?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t say yes every time they ask for something.

Consider making them get a 30-40 hour/week summer job the summers going into 11th, 12th & freshman year of college. And I mean a physical or customer service job, not an “internship.” And yes, they might encounter “bad influences” there. By that age, they need to learn how to handle that sort of thing.

I think many of us in the DMV with children in privates and hopefully headed to decent universities know that between sports and challenging academics, the FT summer job isn’t possible…why? Because internships Are important … I would rather our children focus on school, sports, internships and work various self created jobs (tutoring, dog walking, lawn work, etc) …

That said, I agree that working in a service industry preps people to deal with the demands of people and life.

The DMV environment is
Competitive. Unfortunately that means teens need to work harder academically than many of their parents did to prep for college

For college juniors applying to full-time jobs, yes they are very important! For your 15 year old, no.