Anonymous wrote:The first thing I thought of when I saw this thread and its subject is the show the Leftovers. Did anyone else watch it? There is a character/storyline that is relevant. The premise of the show is that there is an event where some percentage (I forget what it is) of the world's population just disappears into thin air. No one knows why. The show is about how people try to process, move on, deal with this event.

One character is in his late teens when it happens. He goes to college. At college, he witnesses two students commit suicide jumping off the roof of a building. The implication is that suicide has become quite common because people cannot cope with the aftermath of the mass disappearance.

He quits college. At one point he joins a cult. At another point he falls in love. At another point he and his mother start a small cult, though with good intentions. He always struggles. Everyone on the show is always struggling.

I think life has gotten very hard, for everyone. I think we are all struggling. I think it is hard to plan, it is hard to distract or numb, it is hard to sit with things. I think college students are in an especially vulnerable time because they are on the cusp of both a form of freedom and a form of responsibility, and the uncertainty of the world makes both of those things terrifying.

I think part of the answer is that we need to be talking about all of this more, but I also think we as parents need to be talking to our kids, in particular, about how to cope with uncertainty, fear, disappointment, pressure. Not how to avoid it, as it is increasingly unavoidable. But how to cope with it.

I do think we need some spiritual narratives that might help people with this. I'm not sure the narratives of most of the major religions are helpful to a lot of young people. I'm not sure if they address the worries of our times. I'm not suggesting joining or starting a cult, but I do think some kind of spiritual development is probably essential for a lot of young people. I'm not sure how we do that.

I think it has to come from learning to experience life in the moment, mindful and fully present. When life is focused on meeting milestones, checking boxes, and trying to meet the expectations of others, there is no room to develop self-awareness and confidence and to explore activities that are genuinely fun and fulfilling.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our kids are pushed, pushed, pushed in K-12. Pushed hard, everything is so serious, one "C" on a high school report card and their chances are over. There is zero room for failure. College is everything, it is the goal.

We place all this pressure on our kids' shoulders and then they get to college and think...this is it? This is what I worked so dang hard for? Who am I? Am I more than an amalgamation of stats on a spreadsheet? Why isn't the college experience as fulfilling as everyone always told me it would be? Is this what I really want, or is it what my parents really want? If I don't want it, how do I tell them? Because I am not happy.

Ding, ding, ding.

We had a parent on here last week who said "my overachieving son was shut out of top 30 schools last year. He is now a VERY HAPPY freshman at his current school. Should I be pushing him to transfer?

The parent is lucky her kid is still alive. Her thinking is insane.

+1000

Anonymous wrote:I have been at lunches with crying moms because their kids weren't invited to a birthday party or were cut from a team. I have seen parents literally freak out and scream at LITTLE kids for not remembering to do a homework assignment. I have seen social engineering when moms want a kid friend group to look a certain way. I have seen kids of all ages on phones and ipads for hours while parents eat dinner and ignore them. I have seen parents let kids kids wear crazy outfits to school that lead to teasing and bullying. I don't see kids playing nearly as much in the neighborhood "just because". I dunno - my kids are older, but when I see today's parenting I feel sorry for this generation and don't think it's surprising at all that they are absolutely miserable.

A) I've never seen any of those things. (Really? You're watching another person's family for HOURS at a time?)
B) You're seeing a SNAPSHOT of these people's lives. Not near enough to judge them at all, much less as harshly as you are.
C) I suspect that you are attributing certain conclusions to things ("Social engineering") for things like moms who are friends getting their kids together.

In short, I don't believe any of this.

Anonymous wrote:Parents allow electronics, teachers, daycare workers, Nannie’s, and coaches to raise their children, then expect them to be able to handle the stress and changes that come with college. They give them cell phones at 8 or 10 and that device quickly shuts out the parenting capabilities even more. They send them to schools that don’t even use textbooks and expect them to handle college life with note taking, writing, studying and reading from actual books and professional publications is often a requirement. They coddle them and cater to their every whim, claiming little Suzy doesn’t have time for learning how to cook, clean, do chores, plan a menu, learn finances because she has sooooo many activities. They don’t prepare them for the real world, too much coddling and not enough actual parenting. Then they get out on their own and lack basic skills and now college seems so much more difficult because someone missed how to adult 101 during the first 18 years of life.

This is silly and not accurate. Some of these things in individual combinations MAY contribute to them (and I agree on the social media and phones too young) but this post links depression to some ridiculous things. Textbooks?

It also makes a lot of assumptions, not to mention you show your hand with statements like "coddling" your children. I was original Gen X with parents that did not coddle, were not loving, barely knew where I was half the time and did not prepare me for jack sh---. They just expected that I'd do my home work and the rest. Yes, I had chores and worked but so what? I was also sexually assaulted at one of those jobs but didn't have the relationship with my parents to tell them about it.

Some of y'all glorify the old days but you need to take off those rose-colored glasses. It was not all good things or even the model I would look to in order to guide my parenting.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Social Media and Parental Pressure to Excel at ridiculous levels

When I was a kid, if a kid was being bullied, it ended when you got off the school bus. It was not 24/7. Now it's 24/7 and EVERYONE at the MS/HS knows about it because of Social Media.

Just look at this group as well. "my kid got a 1550, should I put them thru another 20+ hours of SAT test prep to get them to 1600?" Smart kids are made to feel like they are not successful if they don't get into a T20 school---they spend all of HS striving for this, rather than enjoying learning and picking courses and ECs that interest them. Life is curated for them since MS/HS---they don't get to pick which courses to take as Advanced. Parents make them take 5-6 APs in one year---and unless they are a true genius, that means 5-6 hours of Homework daily for that, plus whatever ECs/Test prep/etc they are forced to do.
So even if they get into a good school, they may eventually break under this pressure as it is NOT healthy.

It doesn't have to be this way.

Exactly. It is SO unhealthy to raise your child based upon the status of the college they will attend. It is NOT a path to happiness (nor is wealth people).

I am sickened by people with kids in (or barely out of) middle school asking how to position themselves now for HYPS.

LET your child grow into the person they were meant to be (with authentic causes or sports or career preferences). THEN find a school that you can afford that will open that door for them. That will nurture their final push towards becoming an adult.

DO NOT try to program them so that some admissions counsellor drools and thinks they are a good fit.

Please please honor the child you were entrusted with. Believe in them and help them understand that they are enough.

I just wanted to say to the quoted PP that I love your phrasing above (bolded). I think it's so important (and something I'll carry with me).

I wonder if part of the problem is that parents, too, have been sucked into social media and competitive parenting -- like, in order to honor our children as they are, we (parents) also have to believe that WE are enough and we don't have to prove anything to the world. I have been much happier since I quit Facebook (and I was never on Instagram or Twitter) because I could see how FB was feeding my insecurities. I can't imagine how much worse it must be for teenagers -- and I think some parents get sucked in as well, and their children become a proxy for their own insecurities.

I have been at lunches with crying moms because their kids weren't invited to a birthday party or were cut from a team. I have seen parents literally freak out and scream at LITTLE kids for not remembering to do a homework assignment. I have seen social engineering when moms want a kid friend group to look a certain way. I have seen kids of all ages on phones and ipads for hours while parents eat dinner and ignore them. I have seen parents let kids kids wear crazy outfits to school that lead to teasing and bullying. I don't see kids playing nearly as much in the neighborhood "just because". I dunno - my kids are older, but when I see today's parenting I feel sorry for this generation and don't think it's surprising at all that they are absolutely miserable.

Anonymous wrote:Our kids are pushed, pushed, pushed in K-12. Pushed hard, everything is so serious, one "C" on a high school report card and their chances are over. There is zero room for failure. College is everything, it is the goal.

We place all this pressure on our kids' shoulders and then they get to college and think...this is it? This is what I worked so dang hard for? Who am I? Am I more than an amalgamation of stats on a spreadsheet? Why isn't the college experience as fulfilling as everyone always told me it would be? Is this what I really want, or is it what my parents really want? If I don't want it, how do I tell them? Because I am not happy.

Ding, ding, ding.

We had a parent on here last week who said "my overachieving son was shut out of top 30 schools last year. He is now a VERY HAPPY freshman at his current school. Should I be pushing him to transfer?

The parent is lucky her kid is still alive. Her thinking is insane.

The first thing I thought of when I saw this thread and its subject is the show the Leftovers. Did anyone else watch it? There is a character/storyline that is relevant. The premise of the show is that there is an event where some percentage (I forget what it is) of the world's population just disappears into thin air. No one knows why. The show is about how people try to process, move on, deal with this event.

One character is in his late teens when it happens. He goes to college. At college, he witnesses two students commit suicide jumping off the roof of a building. The implication is that suicide has become quite common because people cannot cope with the aftermath of the mass disappearance.

He quits college. At one point he joins a cult. At another point he falls in love. At another point he and his mother start a small cult, though with good intentions. He always struggles. Everyone on the show is always struggling.

I think life has gotten very hard, for everyone. I think we are all struggling. I think it is hard to plan, it is hard to distract or numb, it is hard to sit with things. I think college students are in an especially vulnerable time because they are on the cusp of both a form of freedom and a form of responsibility, and the uncertainty of the world makes both of those things terrifying.

I think part of the answer is that we need to be talking about all of this more, but I also think we as parents need to be talking to our kids, in particular, about how to cope with uncertainty, fear, disappointment, pressure. Not how to avoid it, as it is increasingly unavoidable. But how to cope with it.

I do think we need some spiritual narratives that might help people with this. I'm not sure the narratives of most of the major religions are helpful to a lot of young people. I'm not sure if they address the worries of our times. I'm not suggesting joining or starting a cult, but I do think some kind of spiritual development is probably essential for a lot of young people. I'm not sure how we do that.

Anonymous wrote:Our kids are pushed, pushed, pushed in K-12. Pushed hard, everything is so serious, one "C" on a high school report card and their chances are over. There is zero room for failure. College is everything, it is the goal.

We place all this pressure on our kids' shoulders and then they get to college and think...this is it? This is what I worked so dang hard for? Who am I? Am I more than an amalgamation of stats on a spreadsheet? Why isn't the college experience as fulfilling as everyone always told me it would be? Is this what I really want, or is it what my parents really want? If I don't want it, how do I tell them? Because I am not happy.

No, there is PLENTY of room for failure for those who aren't expecting/pressuring their kids to go to a "top rated" school. There are lots of very good colleges that are happy to accept B students, and students who do well there will turn out just fine.

Anonymous wrote:You have the parents of middle schoolers posting on DCUM asking what they should have their kids doing to prepare for getting into top colleges. The kids are 12, 13!

Seriously, those kids should be in well regarded k-12 where administrators have already structured the program to prepare them

You have the parents of middle schoolers posting on DCUM asking what they should have their kids doing to prepare for getting into top colleges. The kids are 12, 13!

Anonymous wrote:Parents allow electronics, teachers, daycare workers, Nannie’s, and coaches to raise their children, then expect them to be able to handle the stress and changes that come with college. They give them cell phones at 8 or 10 and that device quickly shuts out the parenting capabilities even more. They send them to schools that don’t even use textbooks and expect them to handle college life with note taking, writing, studying and reading from actual books and professional publications is often a requirement. They coddle them and cater to their every whim, claiming little Suzy doesn’t have time for learning how to cook, clean, do chores, plan a menu, learn finances because she has sooooo many activities. They don’t prepare them for the real world, too much coddling and not enough actual parenting. Then they get out on their own and lack basic skills and now college seems so much more difficult because someone missed how to adult 101 during the first 18 years of life.

+1

They don't land the helicopters, and think that their kid is special and needs hand holding each step of the way. What the kid needs is to experience some failures, and that is part of life.

Anonymous wrote:Social Media and Parental Pressure to Excel at ridiculous levels

When I was a kid, if a kid was being bullied, it ended when you got off the school bus. It was not 24/7. Now it's 24/7 and EVERYONE at the MS/HS knows about it because of Social Media.

Just look at this group as well. "my kid got a 1550, should I put them thru another 20+ hours of SAT test prep to get them to 1600?" Smart kids are made to feel like they are not successful if they don't get into a T20 school---they spend all of HS striving for this, rather than enjoying learning and picking courses and ECs that interest them. Life is curated for them since MS/HS---they don't get to pick which courses to take as Advanced. Parents make them take 5-6 APs in one year---and unless they are a true genius, that means 5-6 hours of Homework daily for that, plus whatever ECs/Test prep/etc they are forced to do.
So even if they get into a good school, they may eventually break under this pressure as it is NOT healthy.

It doesn't have to be this way.

Exactly. It is SO unhealthy to raise your child based upon the status of the college they will attend. It is NOT a path to happiness (nor is wealth people).

I am sickened by people with kids in (or barely out of) middle school asking how to position themselves now for HYPS.

LET your child grow into the person they were meant to be (with authentic causes or sports or career preferences). THEN find a school that you can afford that will open that door for them. That will nurture their final push towards becoming an adult.

DO NOT try to program them so that some admissions counsellor drools and thinks they are a good fit.

Please please honor the child you were entrusted with. Believe in them and help them understand that they are enough.

Our kids are pushed, pushed, pushed in K-12. Pushed hard, everything is so serious, one "C" on a high school report card and their chances are over. There is zero room for failure. College is everything, it is the goal.

We place all this pressure on our kids' shoulders and then they get to college and think...this is it? This is what I worked so dang hard for? Who am I? Am I more than an amalgamation of stats on a spreadsheet? Why isn't the college experience as fulfilling as everyone always told me it would be? Is this what I really want, or is it what my parents really want? If I don't want it, how do I tell them? Because I am not happy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2023/02/13/8-students-have-died-nc-state-academic-year#.Y-uGmf9zTU0.link

What is happening? Our kids are hurting and this pressure is just too much!

So what's changed in the past 20, 30, 40 years that makes suicide more common?

Smartphones/social media.

Combined with overly controlled/supervised childhoods in the years before we give them phones/social media. So they have a weak self-concept foundation before we throw them into that world. I think the "free range kids" message has it right. I definitely felt like the odd man out when we didn't push DD into doing activities when she was little. DS did a bunch because he wanted to try everything. DD just wanted to play, look for bugs, dig in the dirt, make up stories, etc. So we let her. And did occasional classes targeted to what she was interested in. We let her walk alone to the park one block over. We let DS bike around the neighborhood and soon his friends parents allowed it too. We prioritized playdates on the weekends instead of multiple sports. So, they actually had strong relationships with friends and a sense of themselves before they hit the teen years. We also listened to what they wanted in high school. DS really didn't do much in HS activities but had a couple hobbies he pursed at a level he wanted. He hasn't been a joiner in college either but is doing well and has a good group of friends.

They still got stressed about school but we were clear that there were lots of colleges they could go to, we cared only about what finding what fit them vs. making them fit some preconceived goal. They both have ADHD so I put my foot down and insisted on no more than 3 AP classes in junior year. That forced them to prioritize the areas of study they actually cared about. It's crazy to me that this is considered a light schedule.

A huge help is that DD on her own decided she didn't want to do social media and she has had a small, tight group of friends since ES. DS did do social media but now in college he recently told me he's decided he spends too much time on it and is trying to read more fiction instead.

DD does recognize that she's a bit outside some circles not doing Insta/Snap/TikTok but her BFFs are on them and let her know if there's something she should know. They have no issue with her quirky decision to be social-media-free.