I completely disagree with the notion that you have to have a learning disability to be satisfied with a C. I happen to know that my English teacher wife gives several C’s each semester and as many kids receive B’s from her as A’s. I also personally know students who have received C’s from her and have succeeded in college and in their early life post college.
I can’t remember ever being shocked by either high or low expectations for kids. Personally I think I’d have to be under the impression that I was the master at all things parenting before I’d be willing to judge others on their parenting choices in terms of expectations they place on their kids.
My approach when I see something that strikes me as unusual is to use that to reflect on how I could or am applying those ideas to my own parenting. Recently I had the chance to reflect on a couple of D’s friends who I know have very high expectations placed on them by their parents. Both seem to be thriving under these expectations, but happened to hear one express how stressed out she is when driving them to a band concert. Considering they’re only 8th graders it seems a little early to me to be living in a state of stress. As I’m not the parent of that young lady I can’t know whether that passing comment is cause for concern, but I did reflect on it and am looking for signs in my own D whether she feels undue stress.
@lostaccount: I completely agree that too much focus is placed on achieving a certain score, and yet sometimes I find myself falling into that trap. We try to stress that during middle school and high school we want her to look for and pursue new opportunities and knowledge that may interest her. My attempted philosophy is to encourage my D to simply do her best in each of her pursuits including school, sports, and music. Where it becomes difficult is in seeing that she is capable of achieving top scores while remaining engaged in these various pursuits, but then how to handle when a less than top score appears. Sometimes it’s easy to see that yes, she missed an assignment and probably could have done better, but sometimes that less than perfect score is still a result of her putting in the effort and needs to be recognized by me as an achievement and not a failure.
As far as church going, and relevant to this thread, I have a relative who is not encouraging her daughter to go away to college because the professors there do not espouse conservative values.
OP: I may have responded to your sentiment too emotionally. It’s just as I’ve aged, I’ve been humbled too many times when I’ve had to confront my own judgmentalism. I already mentioned to you how embarrassed I felt at my own shock of learning about someone else’s lack of marriages in her family. What really was a watershed moment for me was a heartfelt chat I had with my sister-in-law. My nephew is autistic. When he was younger he could have a melt down at any moment. Or at any rate, unrelated to what my sister in law or brother in law were doing up to that moment. They’d do their best to calm him down or extract him from whatever scenario they were in. My SIL told me that practically without fail, eyes of observers would be rolling and whispered condemnations were commonplace. Occasionally someone would come up to her and scold her about how lax her parenting was. Of course, none of the son’s actions were reflective of the love or care or ability of the parents. But it didn’t stop people from judging. I realized that I held this attitude on many things as well. I’d think to myself: “If that were I, I certainly wouldn’t respond in THAT manner! Hrummph!” After my SIL’s story, I had to see how rotten and snobbish my tendency could be.
It’s been humbling and I believe I’m slower to cast aspersions or judge others since that time. Hopefully this can be of help.
And to add on to what @T26E4 said, if you have kids who have always lived up to your hopes, dreams, and expectations, consider yourself blessed That they never had an emotional breakdown, depression that you didn’t notice immediately, anxiety attacks, being bullied in school that they didn’t tell you about, then consider yourself blessed. Not every parent is so blessed. Sometimes it’s even that your kid is not as invested in As and college as you would like. It’s not always a matter of parenting. None of us write the script of our own lives, much as we would like to think we do.
I can think of hundreds of things more important to me as a parent than if my kids get As or C’s. The people talking with the OP may have been trying to convey that to the OP.
You would be surprised at the variety of things that people here think. We are not all carbon copies of each other (and wow, am I dating myself by using the term carbon copy!).
That wasn’t the point. The point was that if you chose to disclose it, it implies that you see a connection between church attendance and academics. Many of us do not see this connection and would like to know why you do. Perhaps there is something about your community or your part of the country that differs from the places where some of us live.
Don’t we all wish an unconditional love form our parents? I admire the people who love their kids no matter what grades they make. Every child has something special in him/her. Give them love, care and time to find their own talent without judging them. Its unfair to judge such amazing parents.
There are several people who don’t even go to colleges and still live a very meaningful life.
I do notice that some parents are so focused on sports or other ECs (for example) that their academic expectations of their kids is lower. This shows in how most of the time they prioritize sports and events over school. I judge them in my head for this. They think their special snowflake is going to get a big sports scholarship in college so they should mostly focus on their sport, and school is always second place. And the kids rise to those expectations and are happy with Bs and Cs. There is nothing wrong with Bs and Cs if that is the capability of the kids, but I tend to agree that in MOST schools, you don’t need to work too hard to get Cs.
Wow, I don’t think I read enough into the original post. OP was shocked that her friends didn’t seem to care a great deal about academic performance. In certain circles, that may be shocking. Not sure being shocked rises to the level of judgmental.
As for church-going, well I’m church going. Guess I was shocked that the descriptor got such a strongly negative reaction. Churches are businesses that rely on donations for the annual operating budgets. They don’t sell anything or have many means of raising capital. That means many of your regulars have the means to contribute something or the organization can’t stay afloat. As a descriptor, church-going tells us that the family is regularly involved in some kind of religious life, but may also give clues to its economics.
Nobody was making a connection to church and academics. I was making a connection to church and their family/economic/community/value status.
@lostaccount I can think of nothing more important than my children’s future. Parents talk about their kids – academics, sports, college, dating – regularly. This isn’t abnormal.
I am somewhat bemused by our neighbors and their seemingly lackadaisical attitude towards their kids education: They are somewhat affluent and well-educated: a physician and a phd/professor. They have not encouraged their kids to take the hardest classes nor many AP classes, but whatever is of interest. They have not encouraged any sports nor many ECs. The oldest didnt have to worry about getting super high test scores or GPAs or ECs; he’s going to OOS public school as a full-pay kid; no sweat. Their situation came down to finances; no need to worry about merit; and not much care much about prestige about top schools.
the parents have obviously worked very hard; it surprised me how they havent encouraged or pushed a harder work ethic in their kids. So, i do sort of understand OPs shock.