My objective in helping and advising/guiding my kids – in elementary school, middle school, high school, college, jobs and grad school and beyond – has been to prepare them for successful, satisfying productive lives. They will have to define success and satisfaction.
In one case, ShawD wanted to get away from home (and especially ShawWife) and found the stress of holistic admissions at her high-end private New England HS a bit much, so I helped her apply to schools in Canada (which don’t have holistic admissions). I thought she didn’t choose the best school for her, but let her choose. When she decided a week into school that she wanted to go into nursing instead of biology, I had her shadow some nurses and helped complete her application to transfer (this was a major project, it turns out) at the end of the first semester. She applied a school 1 hour away from us. When she was admitted to a 5 year BSN/MSN program, I weighed in that I was supportive, but that she would probably think it was a good idea to take time off after the BSN and that my only request was that she not do that because she didn’t love school and would find it hard to go back. She followed my advice and tells me she is very glad she did. She has lived near us for two years post-graduation and loves her work. However, she is going to move to the West Coast with her BF.
Given our S’s health problems (he had surgery during his gap year), we limited his college apps to schools in a 5 hour driving range (in a fast car). At the end, I pushed for an LAC instead of an Ivy, but let him choose. When he applied to grad school, he wanted to attend an Ivy where he had several friends and I pushed him to attend a school on the West Coast that was an order of magnitude better for what he wanted to do than anyplace else. I got him to talk to some folks, who it turns out generally confirmed my instinct. A month after school had started, he told me, “Dad, I understand why you wanted me to go here. You were so right.” He now lives on the other coast and is having extraordinary success and I think satisfaction.