We are raising the same children. Super high achieving DD - heading off to college this fall. Bright but unmotivated 7th grade DS. Sadly, for him, with college decisions made, the spotlight has turned on him! He has made progress this year after seeing that when he puts in some EFFORT he can get results just as good as his sister. He has already made it very clear he will only apply to 2 or 3 colleges when his time comes.
The thing is…in the long run we worry about him less. His approach to life is much healther, no anxiety issues, no stress. He also just has a personality that people love, is an athlete, and is a genuinely nice guy, good friend, great human being. He is kind and a leader in his group.
@melvin123 - We thought a LOT before moving DS into DD’s school - for the same reason. It has worked out - he takes a lot of pride in his sister’s accomplishments and he enjoyed knowing all the older kids. In the end we moved him and so for the first times in their lives they were in the same school for 7th/12th. He will miss her terribly next year - I kind of wish we had moved him earlier.
Hi! My experiences with my 3 kids are echoing many of the above: Super organized and driven eldest DD, worked hard all throughout school and the college search, ended up exactly where she wanted to be. DS, now a Junior…history of “getting by” for most of school until this year. High school did seem to naturally turn on his motivation a bit (although it took him a while to realize that he had to put in more work now…before, he was getting As and some Bs with barely trying). I think a lot of it was peer “pressure”…he’s friends with a group who is more into academics than sports, (nerdy?) and some of their talk of college admissions and test scores and stuff sunk in. He really has stepped up this year, Junior year, in terms of putting in the schoolwork and test prep. The motivation had to come from him, not me. My DS in 6th grade…definitely does the minimum to get by although is bright enough that that is just fine for now. Will things kick in in high school for him as well? We will see. I like the advice to just try to encourage them at that age to love reading (a struggle, especially in the digital age) and stay on a high math track just to keep options open later in high school if he wants to take high level math courses.
Honestly one of the best things that happened was sometime in DD’s junior year, she busted hard to get straight As and then looked at the difference this made in her GPA (barely any, like .001). She opened her report card when we were all around, and was very vocal about it…then immediately told DS that he’d better start strong with his grades in high school cause it’s really hard to make much of a difference once you get to junior year. I think seeing this in action and the actual numbers was an eye opener.
@melvin123 It’s really easy to play the “what-if” game but in reality, there are some things you just can’t get around. That older sibling is just “older” and they do everything first and the younger will never feel “caught up” until maybe years after fully grown.
My two oldest kids never went to the same schools. They both had very different educations. Middle had language immersion school and project charters. He had different activities. They did almost nothing compable. They have parents who had siblings with complicated issues and very careful to be equal in our attentions. Still, while they are very close, the middle still has these moments of inferiority to eldest even though he has far surpassed her in his own areas of interest.
In many ways that second child is lucky though… more freedom to develop on their own schedule, less pressure, more room to take risks, benefit of experienced parents.
Thanks @turtletime for the pass on what we see as a parenting mistake. Too late for us to fix it, and not the worst mistake to make, but it makes me feel better if I can help someone else. All’s good now, but that was a pretty big shadow for kid2 to live under.
It is fascinating as a parent to sit back and observe how different your kids can be from each other. I wouldn’t worry. Your son is still young. My youngest was the “sleeper” of my three and he snuck up behind everyone and blew them out of the water. Effortlessly I might add. Just foster his strengths, and see where it takes him.
I lived through it. The 2nd kid actually got the admissions game better than his older brother did. He applied to a bigger range of schools than older brother and while he didn’t get into his reachiest schools, he did much better than we expected. He really blossomed once older brother left for college and it was his turn to shine.
Similar to many of you, my S21 has had bumps in his road so far, but he seems to be finding his own way now that S17 is off at college. Being in high school also opens some doors that were closed to middle schoolers.
S17 is quite bright and most subjects came naturally to him. He’s now at a college with a really high workload. So, he’s having to work on time management skills.
We are learning to see S21’s strengths. While he can’t just knock tests out of the park without studying, he’s better at remembering what tasks he needs to do (even if he doesn’t always do them), and he is much more independent and outgoing. He has a wider range of interests, so it is taking him longer to figure out long-term interests.
So, you can’t expect them to be the same, but you can help them figure out who they are as individuals.
D17 is a legend in her HS. DS20 doesn’t care, he has 3.4 to 3.5 GPA with 2APs this year. Last year, he has 3.8 with one AP. His PSAT at 10th grade is 1280. And his dream is to be an e sport athlete with millions of followers on Youtube!
DH and I had long adjusted our expectations. We hope that he can go to the state school of his choice and go from there. I already made a deal with him to study SAT in the summer… we will pay $5 for every one point he improves compared to his PSAT. With D17, we never had to do it, but we learn to be resilient as parents!
I have two that are totally different - 180 degrees. I remind myself that I am one of three - totally different and we all did just fine. But there are traits that determined careers.
Oldest brother - very smart, STEM based, very structured. Chem Engineer UG, HBS, McKinsey, Company CEO. Every thing with him is very cut and dry. If you ask his opinion, you will get a straight forward, direct answer. Warning - may not be what you want to hear. Logic and data driven.
Middle brother - truly brilliant (maybe the smartest person I’ve ever met) and accomplished at so many things. Pure love of learning and intellectual curiosity. Phd in Neuro Psychology and has become a human performance expert. More of a wanderer. Really dives in to things of interest. Always has. Very unusual combination of right and left side brain fused to bring creativity and knowledge together to advance things. Incredible breath of knowledge in so many areas (because he is curious and for fun researches to the point of expert). In and out of corporate life. More comfortable creating things.
Me - never cared for school that much. Loved the social aspects of it but not sitting in class. Liked college better than HS, did quite well, but still not an academic. Didn’t like being boxed in. Didn’t care for the rules of corporate life. Started my own business 30 yrs ago and have done quite well.
We are very different from one another. I can easily see why each does what they do. Would never consider doing any of it , nor would they consider doing what I do.
A member of my family had to go to an alternative school due to behavioral problems, dropped out of college, bartended, then volunteered in the media field in mid-twenties and caught fire, went back to school, ended up an executive at a major network.
The family member who was “golden” and worked hard, got good grades, led student council, edited the high school newspaper etc. etc. didn’t have the same kind of drive and never really did much professionally, but continued to read books extensively
You really cannot tell what is going to happen in life, from high school performance.
Lots of those hard working achievers are very other directed. They thrive on getting good feedback in the form of grades and a “high” place in whatever hierarchy they are in. It’s really easy to lose sight of who you really are, what you really want, etc. when your self worth is wrapped up in achieving based on external measures (and over time, you have assembled a group of like-minded friends who support this view.) Don’t get me wrong – these kids will succeed in a traditional sense. - and in the way that others may envy --, but more than a few may not be on a path to happiness.
You want your younger kid to apply himself enough to have a good educational foundation for life (which includes college next). Embrace who he is, encourage his interests, and be careful about comparing him to his older sib (and be careful of how you talk about the older sib to others in front of him.) It’s so easy as a parent to make a kid feel bad about himself by what we say or don’t because even though they won’t come out and say it, they still really want your approval and for you to be proud of them.
You probably already know all this intuitively. They are 2 different people. Neither is better. But if you are asking the question about how to get #2 to be more like #1, you may actually be telegraphing that #1 is better. And yeah, as a parent, it’s hard not to feel like there is judgment, good and bad, of us for what our kids do.
Lots of those hard working achievers are very other directed. They thrive on getting good feedback in the form of grades and a “high” place in whatever hierarchy they are in. It’s really easy to lose sight of who you really are, what you really want, etc. when your self worth is wrapped up in achieving based on external measures (and over time, you have assembled a group of like-minded friends who support this view.) Don’t get me wrong – these kids will succeed in a traditional sense. - and in the way that others may envy --, but more than a few may not be on a path to happiness.
You want your younger kid to apply himself enough to have a good educational foundation for life (which includes college next). Embrace who he is, encourage his interests, and be careful about comparing him to his older sib (and be careful of how you talk about the older sib to others in front of him.) It’s so easy as a parent to make a kid feel bad about himself by what we say or don’t because even though they won’t come out and say it, they still really want your approval and for you to be proud of them.
You probably already know all this intuitively. They are 2 different people. Neither is better. But if you are asking the question about how to get #2 to be more like #1, you may actually be telegraphing that #1 is better. And yeah, as a parent, it’s hard not to feel like there is judgment, good and bad, of us for what our kids do.
OP, your kids sounds just like my two. Son #1 was an overachiever - Eagle Scout, outstanding distance runner, recruited by colleges like Amherst and Wash U. Son #2 barely got out of high school, even though he was very bright.
Life is weird, though. Older son is now living in supported housing because of his serious mental illness and will probably never hold a real job. Younger son is going to school in Beirut, Lebanon full-time but also volunteering in the Syrian refugee camp at least three days a week. We pay his tuition, but he has to cover everything else. He is flying high! He has commented that it’s a weird feeling, now that the brothers’ roles have seemingly reversed.
I tried to protect my kids from those external motivators They did not do reading competitions in elementary school, and I didn’t rush to look at report cards in the car (and sometimes didn’t look at all). This may have been a clumsy way to encourage inner motivation versus external, but at least it made me feel like it helped.
The issue of hard work is a tougher one than grades and other performance. because we think it involves character. But if academics aren’t a kid’s thing, then as parents we can try to help them find something that is- and they can work hard at that.
Thanks, @VaMom3, for your measured advice. Observing it really is so interesting. Ha, ha…love your “sleeper” term. And I also love the perspective of many that the less driven and hard working kid will fare just fine and in some cases have far less stress than the type A über motivated, “maximize it all” older sib.
But people still do implicitly judge people by their high school performance. For example, people are often more impressed that someone attended Harvard versus Framingham State.
In our household, with two kids who were three years apart, we made a point of NEVER directly comparing the talents or achievements of the kids. We wanted them to have their own identities. Frankly, one was very left-brained, the other very right-brained. But they had two things in common: their parents. For a variety of reasons they never had the same teacher, which also meant they weren’t being directly compared with one another in school. The only significant problem was that the activities in which the older one was more left-brained, the younger one more right brained. But they both won awards in high school for their achievements (debate and writing; art).
So comparing their talent on a single scale wouldn’t be fair, and wouldn’t be constructive. Nonetheless, the older left-brained one left a certain legacy at his school; and subsequent achievements post college reinforced this. The competitions that the younger one excelled in didn’t lend themselves to quantification. And so despite our concerns, there were some issues in the amount of attention that schools, teachers, colleges give to more easily quantified achievements (test scores) as opposed to art awards.
