<p>I'm sorry Alumother, but I don't buy what you are selling in this thread.</p>
<p>For your sake and your son's, I hope he blossoms in the next 2 years. Otherwise he is going to get stuck in a school with students unlike himself, poor professors, unmotivated kids, and kids that don't comtemplate life. The academics will be poor and his intelligence will suffer. The bumper sticker isn't going to be as good. When he gets in a social situation and somebody asks which school he graduated from, people are going to make a face when they hear the answer and consider him unworthy of further conversation. </p>
<p>He will have a hard time finding the trophy wife. His kids will end up at the wrong schools. He won't have the right career. His friends will not be movers and shakers. They will be lightweights.</p>
<p>It will really be a shame if he doesn't get his act together right now. Otherwise, there goes the next 70+ years of his life. Right down a toilet.</p>
<p>Anyway, as I reflect on raising my oldest, now age 23 male (of course) late bloomer...</p>
<p>Late blooming (ie not getting the grades he should, or could) can be the apparent end product of a lot of weird things, true in our case, such as:</p>
<p>1-Needs a lot of sleep. Functioning at 7:30 AM isn't going to happen for some when they're still in REM sleep, or could be. Bad timing for the teenage body.</p>
<p>2-Allergies. Makes them tired (meds can add to this tiredness)</p>
<p>3-ADD. Can be a mild case, but often overlooked as "the problem" with very smart kids, esp boys.</p>
<p>4-Slow pace of high school. Some are bored to death, don't get the grades they should and are called late bloomers. This in spite of being avid reader, well versed in many areas, only lacking in the stellar gpa. Terribly disorganized.</p>
<p>5-thank god for SATs and standardized testing in general</p>
<p>6-Frustrating raising a late bloomer when parent was an early bloomer. Requires a lot of patience. </p>
<p>Yes being a late bloomer disqualifies the kid from a top selective school...thankfully there are tons of great schools where they can (finally, we hope) bloom.</p>
<p>I seem to have lost my sense of humor. I didn't think dstark's post was funny. Actually it made me mad. Was she kidding? All suggestions welcome.</p>
<p>You're ABSOLUTELY right! I agree completely! Alumother's son is on track to becoming a serial killer. Jeffrey Dahmer could have been the next Ghandi if only he had earned better grades in school. Timothy McVeigh would have found the cure for cancer and AIDS if only he had studied harder for the SAT. Alumother's son is destined to start a global nuclear holocaust!</p>
<p>Alu, Dstark was continuing our oft revisited cantankerous debate on the "lifetime advantages of attending Top Schools". It was tongue in cheek. It was pithy but not mean spirited. I saw it clearly as humor.;) Dstark is never going to say that a child's future is ruined by not going to an elite college. Even at gunpoint.</p>
<p>Now, a kid being ruined by not going to ginormous state research u? That is something Dstark might say.;)</p>
<p>My mother-in-law, the mother and teacher of many and very clever to boot notes:</p>
<p>'The C student will hire the A student."</p>
<p>Blooming in the early sense often means willingness to 'work hard' and 'set and achieve distant goals' and 'revise work' and 'work within a set of rules' and 'be neat.' In the absence of specific evidence otherwise it does not necessarily imply flexibility of thinking, creativity and originality, risk taking, singlemindedness of pursuit, generosity of spirit, humanity, empathy or many of the other characteristics that are ultimately contributory to success.</p>
<p>Boys are constitutionally predisposed to develop (in nearly every way that this means) later than girls. In that sense they also bloom later. But, they also bud and bloom differently.</p>
<p>Every child deserves a life where whenever they bloom, there is someone there to celebrate with them, and there is a purpose to the wonder they display...</p>
<p>I never quite figured out how my son could finger the oboe at 7 and not be able to tie his shoes. Velcro was the easy way out for me as a parent and I have long wondered if I should have spent more time helping him learn to tie at an early age. Over time, he learned. </p>
<p>I think we all zig-zag through life in one way or another.</p>
<p>As an educator, I have watched so many kids pass through the school's doors and off to college and off into life. The constant to this all is what my old mom said years ago, "It's what you do with what you've got that matters." Success can't be branded.</p>
<p>I have one D who is very ambitious, works hard and wants to learn. The older D has been the opposite, but did a sort of late bloom. It can be hard to avoid measuring both kids by the same standards. Sometimes we also feel guilty about spending more than 5 times the money on the second D's education. As parents, I think we are inclined to take responsibility for our kids successes and failures. I suspect the truth is that we have much less influence than we think. </p>
<p>Whenever I wish my kids were smarter and more accomplished, I can't help but think about one of my former bosses. He was extremely smart with unbelieveable analytical skills and memory. He was a very accomplished person with a very successful career, national recognition, and along the way he earned his MD, Ph.D and law degree. Those of us who knew him well also saw another, hidden side. He could not do some simpler things like drive a car. He had problems with family life, social relationships and was very self conscious. On the surface he compensated well but inside he was a wreck. </p>
<p>Alummom - thanks for starting this post. I certainly see it in my kids!! My son is every bit as smart as his older sister - but I feel like she knew who she was and what she wanted and was looking out at the world early on. He is just now becoming more outwardly focused and is beginning to see a world beyond his current one. I think he will find his interest and focus in college. And colleges will like his good scores /grades - but will not be blown away by his ECs (almost none), passion and drive, initiative and leadership (leader what???). I'm glad there are so many good colleges out there, beause I know that he will be doing a lot of blooming in the years to come.
(And, on another note; I do think that late bloomers don't have to deal with issues that sometimes cause anxiety in early bloomers. IMHO Early bloomers often feel the weight of other's expectations, and that can be a burden....)</p>
<p>Egelloca, it had nothing to do with his ethnicity. A lot more to do with the friends he was beginning to orient towards, references he made to drug runners and who was and wasn't regular users at school, etc. It was a reference that he easily understood because he saw Drug Lords as smart, capable people who happened to be involved in illegal and dubious activities. Wherever he got his information, he felt the people who were at the head of some of the activities in our area got to that position not just through ruthlessness but through smart, calculated business sense who were too smart to be users because that would bring them down. We had had a couple of discussions about this. And yes, he felt they had dubious ethics but had he continued to stay with the group he was finding acceptance in he quite possibly would have headed down this path and he knew that is what I was referring to. Many of them dropped out of school and last I heard, at least some are serving time. I was basically saying that I saw great things in him and he could choose which way to use it. Fortunately, he eventually choose to get involved in other activities and found acceptance in other groups where being smart still wasn't great but at least they weren't heavy into illegal activities. Had I had these discussions with any kid of his capabilities and saw them with this group of friends, no matter what their ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation I would have used the same reference because it would have made sense to them. It never occurred to me that illegal activities or poor judgement were limited to one group of people.</p>
<p>In a secure, loving home, children of all types of inherent natures can thrive, at whatever age they are ready to bloom. </p>
<p>In an insecure, abusive, tumultuous household, even the most intelligent, gifted, and achievement-oriented child can stumble, especially if there is no outside support.</p>
<p>Sometimes those second chances are needed, not to support differing innate natures, but to make up for the lack of parenting received as a child. </p>
<p>I would suggest that transfer admissions, nontraditional student programs, etc. are often used by those who would have taken advantage of their "first chance" if they had been aware of it, been allowed to take it, or not been too busy recovering from physical or emotional abuse.</p>
Are you speaking from personal experience? If so please weigh in on the thread about Psychotic parents. I'd appreciate your perspective and I'm sure the OP of that thread would also.</p>
<p>Yes, sadly, I am speaking from personal experience. I wish it were otherwise. </p>
<p>I searched for "psychotic parents" and found a thread with just two postings describing an abusive scene with a parent, asking if it were "typically Asian" or abuse. Is that the one you meant?</p>