<p>Have any of you read the posting “do your parents brag about you a lot to others (in academics, sports, etc)?”</p>
<p>It is funny… Kids are on there talking about how their parents brag about them and it is annoying… I found it funny but I must admit I am often the annoying parent. I am very proud of my S and do not mind sharing it with others. But now that I know that he might not like it (which I know he doesn’t) I will stop… ok maybe I won’t but I will try to.</p>
<p>Welcome to Kriii & crysyk! </p>
<p>D’13 mentioned to me this weekend that the GT counselor told them they’d be working on how to develop a list of colleges to apply to over this year. Which I kind of remembered from D’10 but I was really hoping to be a slacker mom this year & not even remotely think about the college process until the summer. I just moved one in…and this is way too early to worry about it for D’13.</p>
<p>And summer programs have already come up too…the school sent out info about Governor’s School. So we talked a little about that too (we had 7 hours in the car this weekend back & forth to Parent’s Weekend for D’10.) </p>
<p>She had a little self-confidence issue this week; they got their practice ACT results back. Her composite was a 28 (as a freshman. D’10 reminded her that most kids in her graduating class would have been thrilled with that as a senior.) But she has some uber braniac friends & one got a 35 composite. I had to remind her that a) she had had some irregular testing conditions (they forgot to tell them that they had x minutes left and just said oops! finish now! for a few sections; she had thought that was on another test) and b) she hasn’t had all the math yet as a few of her super advanced friends have. I really worry that she holds herself to standards that are sometimes unrealistic.</p>
<p>and I am one of those annoying parents who brag about their S '13. He finished 9th grade with a 3.8 GPA. Here’s his schedule for this year:</p>
<p>World Civ
Fit for Life/Health
Bible
German II
Biology
Art/Speech
Algebra II/Trig
Honors English</p>
<p>All his classes are comsidered “Honors” at his school. I think he will be doing the PLAN, or maybe the PSAT, this year. I need to call his school and find out 
</p>
<p>His Ecs include:
Varsity soccer, baseball, basketball
Academic Decathalon (2 regional awards last year)
Aviation club
Chapel Sound Technician
Community service</p>
<p>He wants to major in video game design and get a BI from UCCS…oh yeah, and be on the paintball team LOL</p>
<p>I guess I need to know if he’s on the right track. He will be taking 4 years of science, math, english, and history. Any ideas/suggestions?</p>
<p>Thanks from a proud mom!</p>
<p>Terinzak… that is fab-tastic. My son’s school has all 10th graders taking the PLAN test. </p>
<p>My question for all of you proud parents is: Are your children self motivated or do you have to strongly encourage them to perform?</p>
<p>I ask because my son is very capable but it is like pulling teeth (sometimes) to get him to do what he need to do. He is a 3.3 GPA student that really should be a 9th grader this year but was moved up a grade at an early age. The 3.3 GPA earned without any real studying or hard work on his part. If he put just a little more effort into school he could easily be a 4.0 student. Last year he earned a “C” in Art and a “C” in Spanish which decreased his GPA - not because Art is a challenge but because it required more work then he was willing to put into it. Spanish is the only challenge.</p>
<p>He will be attending college, Hopefully an HBCU (Howard, Tuskegee, Fisk, Morehouse, Xavier) and I’d like him to have merit scholarships to help pay.</p>
<p>Any suggestion on how to motivate him to do better.</p>
<p>I wish I could say that my son was a self-starter 
He’s really not. That being said, I have set him a specific time during the day that he must do his homework. He still hates doing it. He definitely could be a 4.0 student if he would do more than the minimum amount of work required. His saving grace is that he has great recall and is one heck of a great writer! His English teacher LOVES him!!!</p>
<p>My '13 DD is very self motivated. Her problem is that she keeps working following a path when if she just looked up a bit, she would see a shorter way. Hence, sometimes she will spend 2 hours on an assignment that should have only taken 1/2 of that. She works very, very hard, but I fear burn out b/c she does spend alot of time on her work.</p>
<p>My DS’12 is a different kind of student. Smart, but will only do the minumum. He sees no difference between a 90 and a 95; “they are both A’s mom”. He also had no problem getting an 88. This with very minumum effort. It’s also a problem in that our school doesn’t calculate GPA on a 4.0 scale, they do percentages. So, the whole concept that a 94 is WAY better than a 93 because colleges will calcuate GPA using a 4.0 scale is totally alien to my DS. </p>
<p>My DH and I discussed how to best movitate him. We decided that the carrot was better than the stick. Mainly because he reacts very negatively to the stick, he is already very independant (good) and I didn’t want to have to check up on him all the time. Asking about all of his work just creates strife with him and I didn’t want to spend his high school years in a constant battle. So we found his currency and essentially said we will give you X every time you make the 95% and above honor roll. It movitated him. Now he does just what he has to do to make 95% GPA. He has stepped up to the plate and he has made 95% and above since his 2nd semester of his freshman year. He’ll be top 10% with that. Top 5% will require him to work harder, but that is up to him now. We use money. My cousin uses the desired “expensive item” of the semester as her carrot. I could see using unlimited texting or whatever is important to your kid. </p>
<p>Many parents don’t like “buying” the grades. However, I found that once my DS saw that he could achieve these higher grades with just a little effort, he just does it. It just helped him “see” that it wasn’t such a hard thing to do. As a sophmore and especially now as a junior, he is very self motivated and sees the colleges that he is capable of getting into now versus what he would have had to choose from if his GPA remained low.</p>
<p>Thanks for the welcome! D actually had medical issues last year which caused her to miss over 6 weeks of school. Grades were significantly better during the healthy quarters so her final GPA doesn’t really reflect her overall ability or motivation. We are actually quite proud that she managed to do as well as she did despite the illnesses. She is very motivated to pull the grades up this year and is encouraged that things are starting off well. D will have to deal with medical issues on an ongoing basis but she is doing her part to adhere to doctor recommendations to help her stay healthy.</p>
<p>S’13 is definitely in the unmotivated category, at least when it comes to academics. He works incredibly hard at his ECs because that is where his passion lies. Fortunately, he has been blessed with a great memory and charming personality. I hate to say it, but he has gotten away with quite a bit due to a wink and a smile. Oh well, people skills are a key to success in life. That being said, he has to maintain a certain GPA to participate in ECs, so that keeps him somewhat motivated. He’s brilliant at achieving minimum expectations.</p>
<p>For my D’13 it is pulling teeth - and I have no idea what exactly would motivate her if I found her “carrot” (I like the concept though!) - I have a feeling though she will work harder this year but if I don’t see evidence of that 1st quarter we’ll get more rigid faster. I just want this to be a self-found drive that lasts with her through college - however she is a lot like I was as a student and I didn’t find my motivation until after transferring in college and having a whole lot to prove.</p>
<p>D’13 is incredibly self-motivated; to the point where I think she needs to relax. She has standards for herself that no one else expects her to live up to. Major perfectionist tendencies. And Geogirl: I totally understand what you mean about there sometimes being a shortcut that they don’t see. Case in point: today. I asked her what she was going to do today and she said homework. Since she’s taking the same classes that my older D did, I don’t know how she’s spending so much time on homework. But. My older D did a lot of her homework during lunch, study hall and the bus ride home. D’13 sees those as her social times & needs to spend time with her buddies then. Which I understand (and I had wished D’10 had done that at the time) but that makes her homework at night much more onerous. </p>
<p>D’13’s group of friends are amazing: talented musicians, very smart & incredibly supportive of one another in all their quirkiness. But when your group of friends includes girls who’ve composed symphonies in 8th grade, filmmakers, people who score 35 on the ACT in 9th grade etc. it is easy to compare yourself in a negative way (even though the other girls aren’t bragadocious.) She totally blows off their complements about her writing (because it comes easy for her.) </p>
<p>I do think it’s a little harder for boys to be self motivated. I remember saying to my older D last year that it’s a good thing God gave me boys, because I don’t know if I would have made it through college app season with a male child; the stories I heard from her made me crazy and they weren’t my kid :)</p>
<p>My D is an excellent student and very self movtivated. She goes above and beyond in most things she does and shoots for the A+ over the A every time. However, she has learned that some courses don’t require as much effort as others for that A+. For example, she will no longer make her self crazy over a PE project. She reserves that for her more challenging classes. God didn’t want it to be too easy for me though…that’s why he gave me her brother!:)</p>
<p>^^^Blueshoe: my D has not learned that yet. Or rather, she knows that but still chooses to put maximum effort into all things. Case in point: a project for her regular level finance class last week. She spent hours putting it together & had one of the best (if not the very top) project turned in. Which is fine, except she could have spent a few hours less, crossed off all the requirements on the checklist & still gotten a 100. And this is why I don’t want her to do IB…</p>
<p>RobD: yep, my DD too. The only thing that tells her that she has studied enough or the project is done is that she has no more time. I’m hoping she learns some of those skills this year when she really won’t have all the time she needs to do everything. I guess it will be a learning curve for both of us!</p>
<p>RobD - that is my '10er off to college and I will say by Senior Year with the heaviest schedule in her school she didn’t burn out but it became very obvious that continuing on that path for another 4 years was not the best idea. She certainly still chose a competitive, driven school but she’s right now just following the track they want her to and not entertaining plans to double major/minor/whatever else That may change but for now I think she’s in a much better place. I don’t think I could have done anything to change that about her though, she had to get there on her own, just as I think your D2 does but it sure does worry the mom! I am really enjoying D2 being more relaxed and for me have to be careful not to enjoy it too much but push her some as well. I think though for D2 watching D1’s drive, schedule, homework load helped her demotivate herself.</p>
<p>Does she want to do IB? None of my kids are IB types but I D1 was in a school that offered it - she took an equally rigorous schedule but the IB kids had their slogan be “I’d kill myself but I don’t have the time” which seemed somewhat fitting!</p>
<p>She kind of wants to do IB. She is on the pre-IB track now & will have to decide in January. D’10 did not do IB, she picked and chose her AP classes, but she was friends/classmates with a lot of the IB kids (a lot of the classes overlap.) I really don’t see the appeal of the program; I don’t think the “juice is worth the squeeze.” The 2010 IB kids didn’t have any spectacular college acceptances and 75% of the NMFs were non-IB. </p>
<p>Having said that, the IB students are more focused; a majority of D’13s friends plan on doing IB. She likes being challenged & she’s an excellent student; I think IB might suck the life out of her though.</p>
<p>P.S. love that slogan!</p>
<p>Rob and Geo, my D was in a rigorous gifted magnet program for six years from 3rd through 8th grade. I feel like the amount of work and the pressure to peform from year to year at the same high levels contributed to some of her perfectionistic tendacies. She raised the bar so high for herself that it became hard to be her. When it came time for high schools, we made a family decision to get off of that train. She didn’t apply to any of the very rigorous academic magnet high schools in our area (to the shock and horror of many of her classmates), but instead decided to apply to her home high school’s magnet honors program for music. She auditioned and was accepted into the program and couldn’t be happier to begin her sophomore year tomorrow. Don’t get me wrong, she is still challenging herself with an all honors schedule along with one AP class and is one to three years accelerated in her math, science, and foreign language classes. We are blessed in our state to have top public universities and she aiming for one of these. She is a very well rounded (not lopsided at all!) kid and like I said before is more able to weigh the significance of homework assignments.</p>
<p>Rob and Geo, my D was in a rigorous gifted magnet program for six years from 3rd through 8th grade. I feel like the amount of work and the pressure to peform from year to year at the same high levels contributed to some of her perfectionistic tendacies. She raised the bar so high for herself that it became hard to be her. When it came time for high schools, we made a family decision to get off of that train. She didn’t apply to any of the very rigorous academic magnet high schools in our area (to the shock and horror of many of her classmates), but instead decided to apply to her home high school’s magnet honors program for music. She auditioned and was accepted into the program and couldn’t be happier to begin her sophomore year tomorrow. Don’t get me wrong, she is still challenging herself with an all honors schedule along with one AP class and is one to three years accelerated in her math, science, and foreign language classes. We are blessed in our state to have top public universities and she aiming for one of these. She is a very well rounded (not lopsided at all!) kid and like I said before is more able to weigh the significance of homework assignments.</p>
<p>Blueshoe - I completely “get that”. My kids went to school is a very demanding district in Pa until 7 and 8th grades. They worked hard and at the same time were exposed to many interesting projects and information on the “gifted track”. We loved the school district and would have been very happy for our kids to finish school there. However, we moved to NY 2 years ago and picked a good, strong district, but not anywhere near the same level as our old district. We definitely see the difference, but for the most part we are happy. I don’t know how it will affect their college choices, but I feel that they are working hard now (they have AP classes which are pretty much universal) but not nearly at the gut wrenching level they were in our old district. They actually have time to participate in after school events and have a bit of a social life. It’s good.</p>
<p>Today is the first day of school and it is very quiet here in the house.</p>
<p>My 10th grader has officially headed to school! They let 9th graders come for the 1st 2 hours to get adjusted before all the upperclassman come back so she enjoyed sleeping in for the last time I’m hoping to hear good reports when they get home (she and my 8th grade son). DH and I always take this day off to enjoy the quiet :)</p>
<p>shillyshally…aren’t you on the launch forum too? There are a number of us seeing our kids start sophomore year and still in recovery mode from launching child 1 in college. The dynamics are still odd without DS at home and has resulted in more tough times with DD…too much focus on her. DS comes home for 12 hours to go to Lady Gaga with DD and I am so happy they will have this special event together. She needs it. I need it. I realize I miss DS as much for what he does for his sister as for himself. Going from 4 to 3 has been a real struggle so far. Today was the first day of school…this weekend was a long crisis with “symmetric acne” (supposedly spots wouldn’t be so bad if they were not symmetrically placed on her face?!) and “nothing to wear” and “I didn’t realize there was an AP spanish assignment”…so happy to be at work today…</p>