<p>I have to admit to a much more serious offense : I did everything right: the right schools, the right languages, the most challenging ECs . So my daughters' personal passions, ambitions and desires took years to take shape because of my insane desire to be the best parent. As a result, I have become a CCer because D2 decided to study in America in order to live her own life and pursue her own goals in a system I couldn"t control. She comes back twice a year, and I miss her every day of my life. But she is happy. So the good news is, whatever mistakes we make, they will eventually find their own path, and the only serious mistakes are the ones they will make by themseves.</p>
<p>You can question yourself all the time. But even hindsight isn't really 20/20. To the duel enrollment question though - there's no right answer there. At Carnegie Mellon, my son has gotten huge amounts of credits (easily enough to graduate a year early if he likes), he wouldn't have gotten any at all for dual enrollment. </p>
<p>I spent many years wondering if I should have home schooled my older son. On the whole though I think he was better off in school. I kicked myself for years that I didn't insist on more acceleration in math and probably science as well in middle school, but at least I got him one year ahead of the normal advanced track. He got into an excellent college where he's very happy in the end.</p>
<p>With my younger son I wish I'd pursued his mystery LDs more. However I don't regret letting him drop his IEP even though a couple of his Bs might have turned into As. I wonder if I should have held him back a year. But he seems less young now than he did back in elementary school, so who knows!</p>
<p>Missypie--I see you just posted another great acceptance in the acceptances thread! Congratulations! Enjoy the fruits of the hard work you and your son put into these achievements.</p>
<p>Personally, I regret not starting SAT/ACT/Subject Tests sooner. S will benefit from this knowledge I gained during D's search (although he will NOT see it as a benefit ;)). Even if you don't have another child, someone on this forum will benefit from your experiences. scansmom's post shows that the "what if" option might not have been any better.</p>
<p>Thanks for noticing! I feel kind of guilty for posting before Son even knows about it. I saw it on the website.</p>
<p>Community college may be a good way to get some credits in the summers. My concern on that issue is accepting at a school due to merit aid, then losing that aid after 4 years, but short of graduation.</p>
<p>I'm a great second-guesser, too, so glad to hear I'm in good company. A funny story: a couple of days ago I was having lunch with my 81 year old mom and she mentioned that when she couldn't sleep the night before, one thing she thought about was whether she had handled her divorce from my dad the right way for me and my sister--mind you, this was 40 years ago (and she did fine with it)!! I hope that I am not still wondering about such decisions 30 years from now!!!</p>
<p>Mom in Virginia, the story about your mom is sweet and sad at the same time. It's nice to know she cares so deeply, but even if she had handled it terribly, I sure you would forgive any bad decisions made at a point of emotional distress. Do dads carry around so much worry?</p>
<p>missypie - oh yes, all the time. I especially have regrets about how I handled D's math classes. She was in a magnet gifted middle school program that expected them to take Algebra in 7th grade, and D complained that it was too hard. I put it down to everything else being so easy for her and she'd always had to work harder in math, so she just needed to try more. Make a long story short, last year when she was barely squeaking through non-honors pre-cal, we had her tested and found out she has nonverbal learning disability. Now I regret that soph year was so traumatic for her (all A's and barely C's in math, even with a fantastic tutor) and not putting her in the regular math track all along. Now I worry about going along with her too much with letting her take 3 languages but no math jr and sr years.</p>
<p>However, when it comes to elective classes and ECs, she won't listen to me.</p>
<p>As for cc classes, I think they can help any kid. D's plan to get through her dreaded math requirement is to take whatever the minimum is in the summer at the local cc, where they have a good tutoring center. Her hs discourages dual enrollment too - they allow a max of two cc classes to count, and then only if it's something the hs does not offer. Yet a distict half an hour away pays for kids to take as many cc classes as they want, encourages them to get an associate degree or equivalent before graduating from hs, and the district even pays for the classes! It's not fair, is it?</p>
<p>We have it a bit easier because our kids attended a prep school where there isn't much you could do with academic choices, so we have been just going with the flow (they tell us exactly what they need to take each year). The only thing is we didn't think our older daughter got any credit for her one EC - ballet. With our younger daughter we thought we would change our strategy by having her do track instead of ballet. When we suggested it to her, she thought we were out of our mind. So we are going to continue with our mistake.</p>
<p>After the first 2, one a recent grad and the other a senior in college, I really backed off with #3. She is less overtly academic, much more demanding behaviourally. Time will tell if the choices are good, but I am much, much less anxious about them. </p>
<p>My choices with the first 2 were finely tuned and precise and based on insider knowledge of the choices available to us in primary and secondary school. In other words, I had control, I exerted it, it worked out....For university they proved their true colors...#1 taking advantage of almost nothing the school had to offer, #2 taking advantage of almost everything. Whatever college they had selected it would have been much the same. I had no control. It worked out. </p>
<p>I am hoping #1 meets an ambitious young woman who enjoys his humor, verbal intellect,piano playing and cooking and doesn't mind if he is much less ambitious than she. He is also handsome. Any takers?</p>
<p>I am hoping #2 bears the fruit of his incredible energies and abilities.</p>
<p>I am hoping #3 and I survive her teen years together.</p>
<p>I have regrets about other things. Not about this.</p>
<p>I hate to interrupt all this breast- beating but wanted to chime in... my kids are post college so I have the perspective of someone who is watching them navigate adulthood now that the parental input part of their lives are over.</p>
<p>Cut yourselves some slack. Of course you made mistakes. Of course there were times when you pushed when you shouldn't have, and most definitely there were times when you let your kid quit the cello or golf or ballet when you now realize that Yo-Yo Ma and Tiger Woods and Barishnikov didn't get to be who they were with parents who were quitters. And for sure there are kids right now winning the Putnams and Rhodes and various fabulous fellowhips and the only thing that distinguishes those kids from yours is that their parents knew what to do and you were clueless or stupid or both.</p>
<p>Everyone feels that way. I'm sure that when Paul Krugman won a Pulitzer his mommy was thinking that if only they'd made him take more challenging math classes he could have won a Nobel prize. Well he just won a Nobel, and I'm sure that woman is beating herself up over something else.</p>
<p>In some ways, our parents had it easier. Parenting was not a competitive sport back then; you got points if your kid made it to school without being arrested or being high. My parents were immigrants and were DEFINITELY clueless. Their job was to yell upstairs that we were going to be late to school. If we complained that a teacher was picking on us, their job was to explain that we must have provoked it. If school was too hard or too easy or too boring their job was to tell us how much better we had it than back in the old country and that our cousins would trade places with us in a heart beat (that part was true.... they would have, even with our mean and incompetent teachers, your average public HS in anytown USA was better than where they came from.)</p>
<p>So cyberhugs to all of you and please let it go. I see my kids out there in the real world navigating adulthood and the things that seemed so very significant in HS just fade into the woodwork. The qualities that make for happy and successful adulthood just aren't tied too tightly into the elements that make for SuperTeen or HyperApplicant or RoboIvyContender.</p>
<p>Your kids will get jobs in the real world where their colleagues and managers will value them for all the intangibles- are they respectful of differences, can they argue their point of view in a thoughtful and fact-based manner without getting personal, do they work hard and chip in cheerfully when there's a deadline or something gets messed up; do they complain endlessly about how incompetent their support staff is or do they work with their team to raise the bar for everyone? Love and value your kid for all the great things that they are; yes, there is a one in a 20 million chance that your kid is in fact the Barishnikov who quit ballet but it is highly unlikely. </p>
<p>Sadly our world is not populated by all that many geniuses who were stifled as kids. However, we have an explosive population of stressed out, anorexic, depressed and unhappy young adults who never quite feel like they measure up. So give a collective deep breath and make a promise to love your quite imperfect kid who coulda shoulda woulda if only you'd met with one more expert or one more consultant who could have shown you a better path than the one you took.</p>
<p>It amazes me that my kids are so happy with their lives given how many awful decisions I made on their behalf. And don't even ASK about the puppy I never let them have!</p>
<p>Blosssom, such a good post as always, but when I saw your name pop up I hoped you were responding to my offer of son #1.</p>
<p>My mother in a law, wise and wonderful, was a great HS math teacher(and MIT grad!) . Her comments:
The C student will hire the A student.
and
" After a given level of intelligence it is everything else which matters- humor,playfulness, honesty, empathy, humility, looks (a truth). "</p>
<p>The things I did which did not matter: sweating over IB versus AP, worry about son taking French IB and only getting B-, caring for 5 minutes that the same son did not get into NHS ((he is graduating from an top 5 school this year)), visiting 24 schools with son #1....the list is filled with things like this. </p>
<p>The things I did which did matter: having a curfew for a reason until the middle of senior year, having dinner together every night, making mistakes and being honest about them, helping them to feel fortunate for their life circumstances, teaching them to have a conversation with adults they did not know...stuff like that.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Yesterday I was thinking how Son (with Asperger's) would do better at college if he took less than a full load.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>missypie, my kid will do better with a less-than-full load. She loves 'fun' classes, and since these are very easy for her, she can achieve a full-time load by taking a blend of hard and 'fun' classes. She's going to start out at the CC, so if she takes an extra year it won't hurt too much financially.</p>
<p>Her doctor suggested that kids start out with an easy load, get used to college, then ramp up.</p>
<p>Of course, maybe I'll regret making this suggestion...</p>
<p>Yes ... Missipie ... every minute of every day! S1 has mild LDs, but S2 did does not. Yet I kept them both in the same unchallenging private school for years (even though S2 could have definitely excelled in a more academic and challenging environment) because I didn't want S1 to feel like he went to the "dumb" school while little brother went to the "smart" school. Now I am kicking myself as S2 is totally not prepared for the very challenging high school I finally put him in. He could be in honors, but he is not because his middle school prep was not rigorous enough. I HATE MYSELF FOR THIS!!!!</p>
<p>But, on the other side, my boys are best friends and more importantly NICE PEOPLE. So ... maybe I did something right.</p>
<p>HANG IN THERE! Parenting is not for wimps!</p>
<p>anitaw, how does S#1 feel about older women? They say 50 is the new 35, right? So that would only make me about 12 years older! I know I would love a home cooked meal to enjoy while a handsome young man played me a nice sonata! :)</p>
<p>( okay, that was creepy, even for my warped mind! :( )</p>
<p>For kids with Asperger: College LIving Experience.</p>
<p>One reason I accept only limited blame for how things turned out is that I now know that things are turning out pretty darn well. But I have the advantage of hindsight, since my kids left college a few years ago.</p>
<p>Another reason I accept only limited blame is that the kids themselves are not inert organisms. As parents we may have limited chance to affect how they will develop. Sure, we try to keep them healthy, safe, productive, creative -- happy. However, not only do we have limited resources (knowledge, money, time), but children have a will of their own, wants, desires, and so forth; and if we make a commitment to let them learn by experience, we can't also stand by pointing the way for them minute by minute.</p>
<p>A third reason I accept limited responsibility is that chance plays a huge role. How they develop isn't just a matter of nature and nurture; it's also a matter of luck. Who lives next door, which teacher they happened to get, whether they discovered a particular talent or opportunity serendipitously. Of course we try to "make our luck," but there's luck all the same, including whether there is competition out there in the marketplace (e.g., other talented kids, for example).</p>
<p>I'm not arguing for a completely passive approach. Far from it. The fact that I'm here testifies to the fact that we didn't want to leave too much to chance. But we also didn't want to overplan. Let them discover, adapt.</p>
<p>thanks for a great post, blossom--just what I needed to hear!</p>
<p>Blossom, your post should be added to the "CC Wall of Fame." Bravo, and thank you.</p>
<p>I have been second-guessing myself. My older child (S) had a good experience in our public hs, but due to a rapidly deteriorating budget situation, my younger child's (D) h.s. experience is not living up to her older brother's. They would have had somewhat different experiences anyway, as it is a large h.s. and they are very different kids who do different EC's, but rapidly increasing class sizes and fewer electives to choose from are definitely going to impact D. (I keep telling S he got out just in time). If I had it to do over again, I would probably still send S to the same high school, but I would encourage D to consider a co-ed Catholic HS a couple of towns away. On the other hand, I don't know if we could afford to pay for private HS unless D quit one of her very expensive EC's that she LOVES, so maybe that's just a pipe dream.</p>
<p>Also, S started with 3 honors classes, because we didn't want him to be overwhelmed, and cruised thru his freshman year - could have definitely handled more. Each year he increased his course load, and his grades rose at the same time. D started with all honors, struggled mightily, and has had to reduce her honors classes for soph & junior years. I feel like Goldilocks - the first one didn't take enough honors, the second one took too few honors.... if I had a third one, maybe we've have gotten it "just right"?</p>
<p>But for all that, S got into a great college that he loves and he is thriving there. I'm sure when all is said and done D will be fine as well. </p>
<p>Consider that my kids are growing up in a rich country, with a roof over their heads, they are healthy, have plenty of food to eat, and a stable intact household... yeah, their lives could definitely be worse!</p>
<p>Ever since my kids were born I have bemoaned the fact that they did not come with an owner's manual, or a "how to" book. There have been many times when I have felt like I am stumbling along in the dark.
But D (my perfectionist) is now a junior at a top 20 U and doing well, (although the thought of graduation around the corner freaks her out.) :)
S is a jr. in HS, and nearly the only thing he has in common with her is that he likes to make good grades. He just doesn't want to work for them like she did. :rolleyes:
He and I recently visited a top LAC (our 10th school so far) that we both fell in love with, (which will be a definite high reach for him), but now he has a goal to work for. We know it will be a real stretch, but he is willing to take an SAT prep class to help (a surprise to me!) and I think it will help his motivation in HS.
All we can do is what we feel is the right thing to do at the time. If we do this out of love and wanting to do our best for our kids, we can feel we have done well, even without the crystal ball or how-to manual. :)</p>
<p>Ah, Blossom, you are wise as ever. But not all adults do well. Some kids just never do get over their issues. That is what I fear.</p>