<p>SoozieVT:</p>
<p>I agree. We have fun with birthdays here (and can't seem to get past that no matter how old the kids get) but have never paid for good grades or bought gifts or such. </p>
<p>My H and I have always felt that the grades are the reward for one's own hard work.</p>
<p>Of course we are not anywhere near college acceptances (or rejections) yet ... I imagine that sweatshirts will be a nice touch.</p>
<p>And yes, calls and e-mails to the family ...</p>
<p>The call to Grandma and Grandpa is a part of my children's celebrations as well - G&G are of course their biggest fans and want to hear everything. For the ED acceptance, it was especially sweet, since Grandpa attended the same school and was beyond thrilled that his grandson picked the same school all on his own.</p>
<p>Our family is so big that even birthday celebrations have to be scaled down. My S's friends often had 2 b-day celebrations, family and friends, but if we did that , I would be hopping all over the place just for birthdays. With 2 weddings, a graduation, birthdays, and other family functions all within a few weeks, some within a day, we just to be more selective of how and what we celebrate. The emotion of "joy" to me is so special, that I certainly need no other celebration.</p>
<p>Yes, calling the grandparents to share is a great part of the celebration, but with the amount of effort that went into the whole college search, selection, test-taking, application, blood,sweat and tears that went into the process, I put it a bit higher than a birthday celebration. And while we should be sensitive to the feelings of our younger kids, my younger s. watched the whole process, and knows that his turn, for both the tough stuff and eventual relief and celebrations will come. My biggest fear, with the boys being 4 yrs apart, is that the older one's college graduation and the younger one's HS graduation could land on the same weekend (it has happened with our school). That would be dreadful....</p>
<p>I think it's entirely appropriate to celebrate in whatever ways feel right in your family. My ED accepted daughter and I are planning a spa day splurge. Goodness knows we've both earned it! But that can't include Dad, so we're finding other ways to celebrate with him.</p>
<p>It's not gloating if you are privately celebrating your child's accomplishment. It would be gloating if you invited his or her friends and rubbed it in their faces.</p>
<p>Nan, I agree that it is not gloating. It deserves recognition within your family! I just realize now that we were all excited, happy and congratulatory and shared it with relatives but did not do a celebration as I never really thought of one for that. As I said, once she decided where to go, she got to pick out some logo stuff and chose to buy a mug for her GC and a decal for our cars. </p>
<p>We have celebrated in significant ways on each of their birthdays though. And when they accomplish stuff, we celebrate in terms of words and calls, I guess. </p>
<p>Jrpar, my kids have also been lucky to have two sets of grandparents who get thrilled at every piece of achievement type news and they are called with each "success" including things like one got cast in a show this week and got her license and the other had a very successful college ski race beyond her expectations of accomplishment, stuff like that. With college, calls were made almost immediately to tell them all. Though, I must say, it was bittersweet in that regard and I am still sad at the moment writing this, but my father died during my D's college admissions process and asked about it all the time and in fact, one of the last things he said to me was to ask if her EA result had come out yet (this was two weeks before it did). That was to Yale and she was deferred. But when all the college acceptances rolled in in April, I was sad to not be able to have him know how well it all turned out and in fact, I know how proud and happy he would have been to hear she went to Brown and in fact, my brother went to Brown and my Dad was always proud of that. I also hated to see him miss her graduation and valedictory speech as he would have loved it. And in fact, on the long ride home today from NH with my college daughter to bring her home from her winter break with the team and her successful race weekend, I suggested she ring all her grandparents when she got home to tell them her good news and by accident even included his name out of habit as he would have been happy for her. So, I guess that is the type of "celebration" we do over achievements. But we do celebrate in much bigger ways for their birthdays.
Susan</p>
<p>Zantedescia, yup. I'm a twin. I don't ever feel overshadowed, per se, by him, but I do feel like I'm constantly racing to catch up, or at least measure up. He's my calc teacher because no one was teaching calc bc, and he taught it to himself freshman year and now has almost finished undergrad pure math at Yale, so he was in a position to teach the material. A few of us showed interest in the bc course over the ab, thus calc bc at Hamden High was born.</p>
<p>I too feel that celebrating is not gloating. I was commenting above specifically on rewards for report card grades which our family does not believe in. However, in my opinion, every family should celebrate acceptances as they see fit. I suppose I was thinking more in terms of a graduation celebration than a specific admissions celebration ... but why not celebrate it all?</p>
<p>We celebrate everything worth celebrating with ice cream!</p>
<p>In my family, we don't celebrate report cards, either. It always boggled my mind when my friends would be given twenty dollars for each A on their report cards, or something to that effect. In fact, if we don't make great grades, we're kind of guilted.</p>
<p>You two are probably such good students that your parents just "expect" you to do well. That's a trap that many parents of exceptional students fall into.</p>
<p>I always have to remind my H not to make that corny joke, "What happened to the other two points?" I hated that when I was a kid, and my kids hate it too!</p>
<p>LOL, Twinmom! That's exactly what my H use to say to D1!!! It became "old" quickly...he has yet to say it to D2. During wtr break, it came up...H told D1 that it was reserved especially for her. ;)</p>
<p>Another vote for not celebrating report cards. Rather the reverse...if it wasn't straight A's, a brief discussion about why. At some schools where A's are really difficult, it would have been different. But considering that one percent of the class graduated with a 4.0 and that "Top 5 percent" was where she belonged based upon ability....</p>
<p>My thoughts on the younger kids question is to go ahead a celebrate the successes of kid #1 with all appropriate enthusiasm. Don't hold back. But just remember when the time comes to celebrate the achievements of kids #2 and 3 with equal enthusiasm. </p>
<p>I grew up a second kid, and I didn't resent my parents making a Big Deal out of my brother's achievements at all - it seemed only natural. I was very happy for him myself. But when my turn came a couple of years later, the celebrations were muted and had a "been there/done that" feel to them. And I most certainly DID notice that and remember it all these years later.</p>
<p>Coureur:
For us, the "been there, done that" happened only when taking baby pictures. Luckily, S#2 hates having his picture taken, so that's okay with him. The college application process has been so different for my very different kids that there's no sense of deja vu.</p>
<p>i think you should do whatever you feel you should do. all families are different.i doubt ill get any gifts or anything when i finish college - maybe some little family get together where we go to dinner or something after graduation.. we also don't do anything for report cards.. and it doesn't matter if i came home with all A's or all C's.. as long as I tried my best. I didn't get yelled at for a C, or even for a D.. as long as I did the best I could.. and that's for college and high school. I did get a "good job" for the A's and B's though..</p>
<p>We've tried informing one set of grandparents as acceptances come in, but they aren't much aware of the ins and outs of the process and immediately want to know, "Is that where she's going?" They don't see the point of applying to several schools and choosing one when all the results are in. This particular grandpa even became annoyed when my d told him which schools she was thinking about, all of which are out of state, and wanted to know, "Don't they have any good schools in New York?" D has decided not to call them with any additional college-related news until she makes her final decision. (She'll still phone them to chat, of course.)</p>
<p>Her step-grandpa is a retired professor with lots of administrative experience, so these grandparents have been excited to follow the process and hear her results so far, which has been fun.</p>
<p>digmedia's original question was about celebrating an acceptance at a big reach school, and d is still waiting to hear from those. However, I'm always up for ordering out, which we've done to celebrate the acceptances she's received and will do for any that may follow (and for any other remotely plausible reason).</p>
<p>I also agree on the not rewarding report cards--don't see it as a trap at all. The grades ARE the reward, and they should be for themselves, not us. We tend to keep our celebrating for milestones, like graduations, more than honors or awards. </p>
<p>JYM626, we had the hs and college graduations the same year last year, but "luckily", the HS doesn't get out till almost the end of June, so there was no conflict (except unfortunately, our D was off on her backpacking trip to Europe, so she missed her bro's graduation, which actually only lasted about 20 minutes because of a torrential downpour and thunderstorm, but that's another story...)</p>
<p>No celebration here. But we did go on a vacation this winter as a family. It was so nice....even the ice and snow is not getting me down now, I am still in the afterglow of the vacation.</p>
<p>D is vry laid back and doesn't like a lot of fanfare so she would have been very uncomfortable with any type of big celebration. We did something small (dinner and movie) she only told her 2 best friends, grand parents and one of my sisters and figured that it would have a life of it's own soon enough.</p>
<p>Another vote we don't pay for grades as there is an expectation that you will do your best work. </p>
<p>In addition, I have too many friends who are teachers who have alsways said you can take care of your business now or you can see me again next semester.</p>
<p>What amazes me in my son's school is how little they discuss colleges, either applications or acceptances. While he knows what's going on with his closest friends, when I ask about what other friends are doing - where they've applied or where they want to go - he doesn't have a clue. Approximately 80-85% of his school goes on to post-secondary education. The majority of those will be to state schools (CU-Boulder, Ft. Lewis, Mesa State, Colo State, Western State, UCCS, CU-Denver, or Univ. of Northern Colo), a few to private schools in the state (Univ. of Denver, Colorado College), one or two to the Air Force Academy (which is only 5 miles from the HS), a couple to "name" schools (Cal Tech, Stanford, etc), and a fairly decent minority to other out-of-state schools (St. Olaf's is a frequent choice; his best friend is going to UVa). Anyway, the point of all of this is that our students are not competing with each other for spots (except perhaps the USAFA) and their reluctance to discuss it mystifies me.</p>
<p>Will that change as the year goes on and the kids make their final decisions? If I ask one of the kids what their plans are, I get the facial-expression-equivalent of a groan. I would suspect that the reason is they think they might somehow be judged on their decision..</p>
<p>What are the other HS's like in this regard?</p>