<p>D2, rising senior, has only seen a B in 5th grade writing, when I think the teacher was playing the “I’m in control card.” I don’t consider myself spoiled; I consider myself blessed. This kid amazes me nearly every day. D1 and D3 may not have the same academic make-up but they bring me joy each day with their unique gifting.</p>
<p>Ou newspaper ran a column for a year or two asking people to describe their lives in 100words or less. I still have one on our fridge that goes something like this (I don’t have the source with me so I can properly cite the author - all apologies!)</p>
<p>Father walks by his son who is doing homework and sees a test with a 95 on it. Father asks, why didn’t you get a 100? Son responds, “and why don’t you make a million dollars a year?” Father: point taken</p>
<p>I put WAYY more pressure on myself than my parents do. I got 2 5’s and 2 4’s on my AP exams. I was upset and they were jumping for joy loll. They mostly care about me getting credit which I probably will at most places. I don’t really want credit for Lang anyway since my writing really needs to improve according to my AP teacher, the SAT and ACT graders lol.</p>
<p>PS. “Hitler gets rejected from college” is a funny one as well :P</p>
<p>Our first two kids were both smart and academically successful, which made it hard for us to adjust to the third- this kid works hard and does well on the SAT1 (1590/2200, ok so not so great on the writing part) and AIME but gets mostly B and B+'s even in math and science classes. We don’t want to scold him, but we feel he is not working up to his potential-
the trick is in knowing just what that potential is. </p>
<p>As notrichenough suggests, we have offered tutoring (declined) and proposed other ways of studying that might be more effective (ignored). So we are getting used to the idea that the kid’s grades won’t be at the level of his SAT and effort; he does seem bright and we think that when he starts to work he will be able to do so effectively.</p>
<p>
Some people test really well, maybe his SAT is above his grades.</p>
<p>I’d be looking at what aspect of his courses is he having trouble with - assignments? Tests? Labs? Is he bored?</p>
<p>He does seem to do better on multiple choice tests but that’s not the whole story, as even there he is inconsistent. I don’t think it is boredom. Some of it has been diligence and care on assignments, but he is pretty random on tests too-he got a B in his calc final but a 5 on the BC exam, 5 in AP Bio buy 720 on the Bio Sat-2. I think part of it is not reading instructions carefully (on both assignments and tests), related to this is not seeing what he needs to study to be ready for a test. The one place I see boredom coming into it is his resistance to using flash cards for French or doing other sorts of memory drills- though he does have a good memory for game rules, stories, etc.</p>
<p>I’m taking a summer calculus class and I got a 92% on the class (one of the best grades I’ve gotten in college since I mostly got B’s and C’s first year). When I told my parents my grade, they replied “But that means there’s still stuff you don’t know.” I got an A in my Sociology class and my parents just said “Eh, it’s a summer class, it’s probably easier than the fall/spring.”</p>
<p>Really? How the heck am I going to feel good about myself if I work really hard for my A and then get told that it’s not “good enough”.</p>
<p>
They just don’t want you to get cocky.</p>
<p>I am a spoiled parent.
One day DS comes home and says “I got 67% on LA test”
Me: “What was the highest score”
DS "70%
Me: “Let’s go for an ice cream” 
It is all about perspective ;)</p>
<p>My parents were definitely the “everything less than an ‘A’ is practically failure” types from elementary school on, though it wasn’t intentional (mom is an educator). However, lucky for me, they were pretty clueless about the whole college admissions game so there was never any pressure there. And I actually had a period where I swore off college altogether (scandalizing my mom).</p>
<p>The attitude of your best not being good enough has stuck with me though, and I am an insufferable perfectionist. I am also overly-sensitive to criticism and have a hard time accepting responsibility for major mistakes (just ask my husband how that’s working out for us…). I think their attitude towards performance, esp academic performance, is partly to blame, though part of it is probably just my personality.</p>
<p>And just to scare you perfectionist-driven spoiled helicopter parents straight, I am going to horrify you with my true stories of high school underperformance:
-I got one “bubble” off on the multiple choice section in the SAT II-Writing and ended up with a 420 (that’s when they had SAT II-Writing).
-I also managed to choke on my AP English exam and only complete 1 1/2 of the 3 essays (got a 2. A TWO!!! And no chances to retake it).
-I attempted to take the ACT 3 times before I actually got through it-- first time I was sick, second time I was 3 minutes late and they wouldn’t let me in, and the third time I showed up at the wrong school and had to rush over to the right one- was 30 minutes late and testing had started already, not to mention my stress levels were through the roof… Needless to say, I didn’t have much luck with standardized testing.
-Oh, and I also got rejected at the only 4 colleges I applied to as a senior (all reaches). And you know what? I wasn’t really ready for college and none of them would have been a good fit anyway. I did some really interesting things with my life instead and came back around to college later. I’m going to a good school now and am doing well. </p>
<p>A few bad scores are not the end of the world-- academic performance in high school does not determine your worth or your future success. If you want to joke about it in private, fine, but please do not even hint at that kind of stuff with your kids around.</p>
<p>As an aside, I know I was much more motivated when my teachers, not my parents, determined what was my potential and if I was/wasn’t living up to it.</p>
<p>We don’t talk about grades, and my kids don’t know their gpa’s. One of them is at an Ivy and hasn’t looked at her grades there either, for two years.</p>
<p>As a parent, I could tell whether they were learning material, through conversation, or sometimes they would share their papers (after handing them in, before grades). I can’t imagine them coming home to tell me what they got on a test, or an AP either.</p>
<p>Once in college, I can tell they are benefiting because when they come home, they are reading, or talking about, or listening to new things and enjoying them. Clearly, they are learning, and working.</p>
<p>Maybe this seems like overcompensating, but it has worked for us.</p>
<p>Over 60% of students at our daughter’s school are getting mental health care, most of them on medications. This is the price of achievement. I don’t think it’s a matter of what grade is okay. I think we should all try to ignore grades unless our kids are clearly failing to do the work. If we all did this, culture would change, and mental health would improve for everyone.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Oh, give me a break! This cannot possibly be true (and you couldn’t possibly know it was true if it were).</p>
<p>At a 5,000-undergraduate Ivy-type university, that would mean 3,000 students. If they averaged one visit with a counselor per month (not very intensive), that would mean 150 students per day, day-in and day-out, something that would require at least 20 FTE counselors, probably more. And of course more to handle the graduate students with REAL issues.</p>
<p>Do you have any kind of source for “over 60% of students” at any school (not counting Austin Riggs and its ilk, of course) getting “mental health care” (of the professional variety), or a third of all students (“most” of “over 60%”) on medications related to mental health?</p>
<p>I’m not pooh-poohing the existence of a problem, but the scope you claim seems wildly exaggerated.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You never asked what they got on their AP tests? They never shared their excitement/worries about it with you? Sounds unnatural and sad to me.</p>
<p>I think I recently read (maybe in the Chronicle of Higher Ed?) that about 60% of all students (grad + undergrad) at an Ivy (maybe Yale?) have visited/used Mental Health services. This is not the same as being on medication, or being under continuing therapeutic care. The figure still sounds high to me, though. Sorry - am too lazy to look up ref. </p>
<p>About spoiled parents - there’s a lot more to life than college admissions and school performance. We all know that, right? So if you have a child/children who cause you no worries in that department, enjoy it for all it’s worth.</p>
<p>Better that students under stress for whatever reason use mental health services than they don’t. Using mental health services doesn’t mean “dysfunctional” or “sick.” Nice job perpetuating negative stereotypes, there.</p>
<p>“Nice job perpetuating negative stereotypes, there.”</p>
<p>Who, me? Sorry, I didn’t spell it out in detail, but my view is that 60% of all students availing themselves at some point of mental health services of any kind is not terribly shocking, but 60% of all students requiring mental-health related medication would be surprising, and a problem. Is that a negative stereotype?</p>
<p>While 60% may be a high number, I have it on good authority from a psychological services coordinator at a local college that over one third of their students are on some form of medication either for depression, anxiety or ADHD. And this is not some high powered academic pressure cooker of a school.</p>
<p>^^wants me rethink college :(</p>
<p>One third of students at ANY college are most likely on medication for depression, anxiety, or ADHD. I doubt it has anything to do with academic pressure and more likely has to do with being Generation RX.</p>
<p>“…correlation is not causation… correlation is not causation… correlation is not causation…”</p>
<p>A frightfully high percentage of kids in our local elementary schools are on meds. How much pressure can there be in elementary school???</p>
<p>Parents have gone nuts trying to medicate away every little quirk of their kids’ behavior. Especially boys, when they fidget and don’t sit still and are loud and run around and generally act like little boys.</p>