@khmamma @readingclaygirl I think tucking in and waking up are entirely different than chore expectations! Being loving and snuggly with your kids is never “too much” unless one of the parties doesn’t like it.
They don’t have to know everything as incoming freshmen either. The first year my daughter got an alum scholarship, and her school requires the student to write a thank you letter to the alum. We didn’t know about this and it sat in her portal until June or July when I discovered it and made her send the letter. This year she got another and she jumped right on it (she’s taking a semester off, but has stayed on top of things). They are learning about taxes and banking and finances as we work through them. When D2 was applying to colleges, she was 16. She didn’t understand the costs and the grants and scholarships and asked me to handle it. I thought that was appropriate. I still think it is appropriate as so much of college financing depends on decisions I make, my finances.
Families have different goals for their kids. My mother wanted us all to learn to swim and graduate from high school. That was it. She ‘helicoptered’ enough for us to reach that goal and then was pretty much done. She can’t tell you what any of us majored in in college, what classes we took, when we graduated. Never filled out an app or helped us move in.
Ok, both my kids can and do all of the things listed, but I don’t feel like this is rocket science or exceptional. Who wants a kid who doesn’t know how to be capable? I should add, they do all these things, but they don’t do them WELL. And that’s ok.
They didn’t just start doing the stuff magically, though, we had to show them how to do a lot-like dishes, laundry, money management, and watch them continually screw all that up. And we had to lead by example like with interpersonal issues-they see how we resolve conflicts with each other and family members-that’s more of a contact learning than teachable moments, although they do know about the four horsemen of the marriage apocalypse and how to argue correctly with others. That one-they don’t always choose to argue nicely with their mom, though they technically know how.
Really, probably the biggest struggle wrt that article is the older one “knowing” where she is on the planet without her GPS helping her. I used to badger her to memorize where she was and how the basic layout of the city works and she used to ignore me.
One day she was saying she was going to be late for a festival that her friends had invited her to because it was an hour away according to her GPS, and her dad was putting fuel in her car (he likes to take it once a week and put diesel in it and make sure it’s working right, because it’s older).
I’d seen the invitation and I knew where it was and I said “that’s less than 30 minutes from the house, your GPS is wrong.” She argued that the GPS is “never wrong” (hah!!!), and pulled up the latitude and longitude coordinates in the invitation-and yeah, Mom was right-the coordinates did not match the street address, and would have sent her to a bad part of town in the opposite direction.
So now I think she’s thinking more about where she is and not just listening mindlessly to the GPS. >:/
Hi All, I thought I’d post an update. On the suggestion @jym626, I read “How to Raise an Adult,” which led me to the book, “The Gift of Failure.” Both books gave some pretty convincing data to show how the “concierge” method of parenting ultimately backfires (the author of How to Raise an Adult even uses the term “concierge” in her book). Over the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to back off on checking/managing my daughter’s schoolwork and social/extracurricular schedule. Instead, I’ve been trying to give her more responsibility around the house and teach her some basic “grown up” life skills. I was amazed that after living in our town for 14 years, my daughter didn’t even know the names of any of our main streets!! It seems already that my daughter is less stressed about school, and that’s a good thing:-). I still don’t know exactly how I’m going to “parent” her in the next few years leading up to college, but I’ve definitely decided against the “concierge” method I had been leaning towards. Thanks to all for your feedback!
I’m comfortable with concierge parenting because it was how I was raised and how my mother was raised. Worked for her, worked for me. Appears to have worked for my kids.
I think the trick may be to guide your kids so that the failures they learn from occur in areas won’t be deeply consequential to their future (e.g., I wouldn’t want my kid to fail by getting arrested for selling drugs but ShawWife actually encouraged ShawSon to fail Latin in middle school, although he refused to do it.)
Thanks for the shoutout, @khmamma, but I think the credit for recommending that book goes to @guppie (post # 13)
Ways to increase the likelihood of getting into an elite school never crossed my mind until D was a junior in high school and that was probably far too late. Would I have lightened up had I known? Probably not. As a single parent, having help around the house was not a luxury, it was a necessity. If I could have afforded a maid, I probably would still have had them do chores. Its a family thing. Its our family home. I also shut off allowance on their 14th birthday and voila ! both had jobs nearly immediately. I believe that life skills and a good work ethic are as important as academic achievements. Its all about balance and moderation IMHO. S is doing fantastic in the USAF working in a cybersecurity role and D is a freshman at a good, albeit not elite, college. They are both successful in their own way and I expect they’ll continue to set and reach commendable goals for themselves. And bonus…they both can do laundry, cook meals (although D is not very good at it lol), drive themselves in their own cars, mow lawns, grocery shop, and iron, all while holding down a job.
Let’s see, I handled this issue by sending my kiddo to boarding school. No way to helicopter or concierge from 2,500 hundred miles away. Voila! Problem solved. Now he’s in the army and the government gets to helicopter him. Literally. 