<p>Bay - My sentiments exactly. The most important lesson I've learned as a parent (so far) is that my son is an individual--with bits and pieces of his parents very evident, for sure, but still eager to follow his own personal passions.</p>
<p>Some people appear to be conflating involvement in a kid's life with structured activities all the time. They are not the same thing.</p>
<p>I had some structured activities as a kid (generally ones I had chosen for myself), but also plenty of unstructured time (I spent most of it reading, listening to music, and/or outside). Once I got beyond the age of about eight, I was allowed to deal with my own homework and studying and scheduling of assignments as long as my grades stayed up. It was a reasonable balance.</p>
<p>When I was growing up, I knew all of my friends' parents, my parents knew all my friends, and the parents pretty much all knew each other. My mother was a very popular teacher at my school with a cult-like following, but that wasn't the only reason. The community in which I lived was fairly tight and coherent. </p>
<p>There were some real benefits to that. As teenagers, we didn't feel invisible to the adult world at all, and it wasn't that mysterious to us. We felt that we had a place in it; we were participants.</p>
<p>Through middle school, we absolutely knew all of our kids' friends and their parents, and our kids knew their friends' parents. (My son was recently in town for 36 hours. He was downtown, and ran into the parents of one of his close, old friends. He wound up having lunch with them and talking for an hour.) In fact, a large percentage of our adult friends were people we met because our children were in school or activities together. And another set were long-term friends who were essentially on the same life-trajectory that we were, so we all had kids at about the same time, and those kids all grew up as friends. </p>
<p>Things changed to some extent when our kids switched to a large magnet high school, where the students came from many different, dispersed groups throughout the city. Still, we had real relationships with their closer friends -- the ones who sometimes showed up at our house. (My wife hired one of my daughter's friends for a short-term project, because she knew the friend was around and thought she would do a good job, which she did.) And we probably met about half of the friends' parents at least a couple of times, often more.</p>
<p>(No spreadsheets though. And no homework review.)</p>
<p>I'll sing the praises of unstructured time. For some people (myself included), that unstructured time is a chance to regroup and recharge. One of my kids uses it for reading and just plain thinking. Last summer his research project involved some very abstract and theoretical topics, and most of that "research" took place under a tree. Had he not learned to be comfortable with being alone and having time to let his mind wander, I'm not sure he would have been nearly as successful.</p>
<p>I will confess to nagging about homework. I always include a caveat of "This is your responsibility; noone's going to hold your hand and remind you about HW in college." However, if they don't get it turned in, it's their grades that are the consequence (and trust me, there have been consequences re: the GPA...). </p>
<p>DS1 has learned to put his assignments on his Google calendar (my visual child) . DS2 seems to keep everything in his head (my auditory child). Things have improved significantly as they turned 16. One approach does not fit all.</p>
<p>S1 has had a wonderful senior year and parents of his younger friends think he must be incredibly organized. When I tell them a couple of S's "absent-minded professor" tales, they heave a sigh of relief and say "So, it <em>will</em> get better?" or "Oh, thank G-d, I thought my kid was the only one who still does XXX!". </p>
<p>And, yes, they play video games and spend lots of time on the computer, too (but there is no TV, internet or computer in their bedrooms. Ours either.). Will be interesting to see how big a distraction those prove to be for DS1 in a dorm room. S isn't bringing a TV, but definitely will have plenty of computer gear.</p>
<p>S2 likes structured activities, but he's the one who chooses them. Neither did sports when they were young; both tried an instrument for a couple of years and didn't care for it. S2 really enjoys football, set crew, debate, and other activities that involve lots of people working towards a common goal. His unstructured time is for napping! ;)</p>
<p>I had a lot of the so-called "structured" activities in high school. Lifesavers, Reniassance, 3 sports, etc along with Boy Scouts. But I also had plenty of "unstructured" time too. My Saturdays and Sundays in high school were pretty well shot. I did next to nothing those days for the most part. I can remember coming home from football practice on Saturday mornings around 11:30 or sometimes around 1PM and crashing. I'd pretty well sleep all afternoon, evening, and all day Sunday :)</p>
<p>I hate down time so I used my down time to sleep. I still do that here at college. I'm not much for watching TV and sometimes the computer gets old. So I'll sleep.</p>
<p>I do nag about homework but I don't check to be sure its done. I nag about going to sleep at a reasonable time but I don't stay up to make sure they do. They'll have to deal with being tired in the morning. I do want to know who they are with and where they'll be but I don't need to know all of their friends parents. I do want to know what's going on in their lives but I don't need to know every detail. Not sure I want to know every detail!</p>
<p>OP: It is a misnomer that the children who are well protective well cared have psychological problems as there is no statistics to show that while there are ample statistics to show that broken families, uncarring parent, under privilege childrens are prone to emotional stress and violence.</p>
<p>So anyone who says such thing do that as they regret being not privileged. I think your sons are lucky to have such a privilege. </p>
<p>"The result: children have an impaired sense of self and suffer from a range of easily (and not-so-easily) identifiable emotional disorders."</p>
<p>The statistics show that females who had supporting fathers comes out to be the most formidable human being and most successful. They generally tends to have better relations and take a constructive approach to life.</p>
<p>So, Madeline Levine, is totally wrong on this one.</p>
<p>I don't think the author was advocating being totally uninvolved, not being protective, and not being supportive.</p>
<p>The point here is that though being involved is a good thing, parents should not think that being even more involved is a better thing. What Levine wants to show is that, in fact, sometimes more involvement is a bad thing for the reasons she discusses.</p>
<p>I posted this on another thread, but I think I will add it here as well. Wendy Mogel, in her book <em>The Blessing of a Skinned Knee</em>, has a very similar message. Here is a quote from an article on the book in the NYT (Nov 2006):</p>
<p>"Increasingly, not being involved in every aspect of a childÂs life and letting children take risks that used to be a matter of course feels like an act of negligence to many parents."</p>
<p>And also a much longer paragraph from the article</p>
<p>"Much of the time, the children didnÂt have a pathology that she could name and treat. ÂBut my child is suffering! parents would say. And Mogel tended to agree. Anxiety pervaded her office. ÂEveryone  parents and children  seemed off course, unmoored and chronically unhappy, she writes in ÂThe Blessing of a Skinned Knee. The kids werenÂt sick. But their family dynamic was. It wasnÂt just parents outsize ambition for their children that was the problem  after all, for generations, children have faced high expectations. It was what parents with means did to protect their investment. Worried about their childrenÂs future in an increasingly competitive world, parents would expect everything at school  and then compensate for these inflexible demands by expecting almost nothing at home. The words ÂI have a test automatically relieved children of any other obligation, Mogel says. Instead of being left to muddle through  and to learn from adversity and their failures  kids were whisked off to tutors and coaches and extra classes. Pressured in one sphere and pampered and overprotected the rest of the time, their lives were too difficult in one way and too easy in every other. As a result, they often didnÂt learn to solve problems on their own or gain the strength that comes with independence."</p>
<p>"Increasingly, not being involved in every aspect of a childâs life and letting children take risks that used to be a matter of course feels like an act of negligence to many parents."</p>
<p>I think it is correct and it is a matter of negligence. That is what you call "latch and key children" if parent are not involved.
It is very foolish to say don't get involve and let children learn from mistake. Why make mistake, if you can learn from others mistake and that is what the parent involvement provides. You don't want children to pick up drug usage and then find out after getting addicted that it is bad thing to do or do a rash driving and meet with an accident to learn that it is bad to not pay attention.
It is not a good thing if the parent don't know what the child is involve in and let the child know only after the damage is done that the activity was bad.
It is sheer stupid ness and is only pickup steam from the parent who actually are unable to provide constructive parenting and are not willing to make sacrifice to be a good parent. So they advocate this.</p>
<p>Being a responsible parent is not easy. Once you become parent you comit to 18 years of parenting which is not easy. Since it is not taught at schools and not many learn the proper way, most parent try to look for escape routes.
These parent fell to such traps. </p>
<p>One should believe in less but quality children, if all parent are involved in their children lives till 18 years, this world would be a wonderful place to live for all.</p>
<p>Interesting comments from both students and parents in this thread. I've actually been quite encouraged by my reading over this past year of student postings here on CC. There are a lot of very bright, thoughtful, self-motivated students who post, and it's been a pleasure to see this.</p>
<p>Here are some statistics: the most current data suggests that as many as 30 to 40 percent of 12- to 18-year-olds from affluent homes are experiencing troubling psychological symptoms (Luther & Sexton, "The high price of affluence" in R. Kail, ed., *Advances in Child Development <a href="San%20Diego,%20CA:%20%20Academic%20Press">/i</a> 2005.</p>
<p>Levine's point is that everyone assumes affluent kids, who on the surface seem well cared for and have all the advantages of wealth (trips abroad, the latest electronic gadgets, closets full of clothes), are in fact prone to engage in risky behavior (unprotected sex, drugs, alcohol, driving drunk or tired, out-of-control hazings, etc). These kids have become unmoored from a sense of self-efficacy, self-management, impulse control and the ability to delay gratification.</p>
<p>From the book:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Money is not the culprit. Money does not contribute to emotional problems in our children. It does not foster depression, anxiety disorders, or substance abuse. It is the culture of affluence - a culture that embraces materialism, that values performance over learning and external motivation over internal motivation, that overemphasizes competition and offers a dearth of opportunities to see adults behave with compassion and integrity - that is sickening our children. In order to correct these deficits we need to teach our children that objects can never replace relationships. We need to encourage the development of internal motivation and downplay the importance of external motivation. And, finally, we need to model altruism and reciprocity, both within our families and our communities.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It's interesting to think that parents can be overinvolved in the wrong things, such as pressuring kids to achieve, focusing excessively on every inch of progress or lack thereof in our children's school work, while at the same time underinvolved in the right things, running around shuttling kids from one activity to another without taking time to simply allow for quiet, unpressured moments. When does encouragement become unhealthy pressure? This is a fine line for parents to discover, and different for each child.</p>
<p>I'm not in a position to judge anyone else who's posted here. What I can do, and what I'm doing now, is taking a hard look at how I parent my 2 sons and the values I wish to instill in them. I'm concerned particularly about DS1's lack of self-motivation, and I'm question whether my stepping in to smooth things over and alleviate natural consequences has had the opposite effect of that which I originally desired. My intentions were, and are, the best in the world for my son. But what messages am I really sending him, and are my actions in synch with my desire for him to grow into a mature, responsible, and internally-motivated young adult?</p>
<p>"Here are some statistics: the most current data suggests that as many as 30 to 40 percent of 12- to 18-year-olds from affluent homes are experiencing troubling psychological symptoms (Luther & Sexton, "The high price of affluence" in R. Kail, ed., Advances in Child Development (San Diego, CA: Academic Press) 2005."</p>
<p>But this study doesnât take into account if those 40% from affluent homes are well taken care of. These 40% are the latch and key children that I referred too and there parent are less involved that cause the problem with these kids. Since these kids have access to things that doesnât necessarily mean that their parent are overly involved in their life. Generally if a child have access to more than they can chew that indicates the parent are not involved.</p>
<p>For example Britney Spear kids will have access to tons of money but is she a good parent. So the point is wealth is not a mapping to involve parent. An involve parent children seldom go wrong. An involved parent can be poor and still can do an excellent job.</p>
<p>Hence in summary parent involvement till the age of 18 is the key to the successful development of children. Money is a factor but not everything.
Parent involvement will always trip money in producing good kids.</p>
<p>I think that is why there is a saying all educated are not literate. Somethingâs you just canât learn in the books or in otherâs reading. You need to assess the life from the day to day incidents in your locality, state, country and around the world.</p>
<p>That is why you can find very well raised children in a 3rd world country and can find not so well raised children in US because it is not about money but about parenting.</p>
<p>I agree with the above post.(Edit: no longer above post.) Each psychologist has his/her own vested point of view. You can get the opposite advice from two different psychologists.</p>
<p>I probably did everything wrong according to the point of view expressed here. We didn't even eat dinner together as a family -- schedules wouldn't allow it. However, we have a close-knit family.</p>
<p>Kids were fairly scheduled, but only to their own comfort level. And I think there are plenty of opportunities to fail: D wasn't the strongest point dancer an didn't get the parts she coveted. S got his first chair violin position taken by a more gifted player. In fact, their EC's gave them a wider arena to fail in. High aspiration brings with it risks of failure.</p>
<p>Our world is increasingly competitive. Yes, of course, people need time to dream, but childhood is about preparing for adult life in all cultures. In our market culture kids need a lot of practice to succeed. Sad? You bet, but just the way it is.</p>
<p>And I don't think there's a cookie cutter way to raise kids. Kids on these threads have been raised in laid back rural environments, aspiring suburban environments and enriched urban environments. Some were raised in underprivileged environments. All are okay with loving input from adults.</p>
<p>My S did more extracurriculars than anyone in his school and more varied ones. His choice. He also had (and still has even though he is in college) light saber duels with his friends.</p>
<p>D captained a few EC's and devoted the bulk of her time to dance, but hung out with friends at Starbucks and walked all over our village.</p>
<p>Both are fine and would have been fine with the opposite.</p>
<p>Both are still very participatory -- S in the arts, D in community service. I think their early participation supported them in this.</p>
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<p>Cultivating an Attitude of Graditude instead of an Attitude of Entitlement is important to me. There's lots of ways to do that. I do see fewer teens with work experience these days -- so many just have "experiences" (tennis camp, Europe tour, etc). I am bone deep grateful for the summer camp that has employed my sons. It has been hugely maturing for them to serve as staff instead of as consumers.</p>
<p>Here's an article by Madeline Levine that puts forth the ideas in her book:</p>
<p>NAIS</a> - Publications - Independent School Magazine - Challenging the Culture of Affluence</p>
<p>
[quote]
Here's the problem: the statistics for emotional problems among privileged kids are startling. There has been a large upswing in everything from depression, anxiety disorders, and substance abuse to psychosomatic disorders. Suicide among teenagers, level for many years, is on the rise. Researchers on the cutting edge of adolescent mental health are finding that affluent teens and preteens, in both public and private schools, can have the highest rates of some of the most substantial emotional problems of any group of kids in this country. Among affluent high school girls, rates of depression can be 22 percent. That means that one out of every four or five girls is not simply crabby or unhappy, but meets full criteria for clinical depression. One in three affluent boys and girls show signs of an anxiety disorder. Substance abuse and antisocial attitudes are particularly high among affluent adolescent high school boys.5 Children of privilege constitute a large group in this country, and, contrary to popular expectations, the future for many may be bleak. This matters to these youngsters, many of whom are suffering mightily, but it should also matter to all of us. One day, these children are likely to be our doctors, judges, policy makers, and CEOs. Good mental health is in their best interest, but it is also in ours.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Recently a friend at work told me that she reads all of her two teenagers (who have never been in any trouble)text messages and emails!<br>
She even texts her kids during the day (while they are at sch. and she is at work). If they leave their homework at home, she is late getting to work because she has to run to the high sch. to drop the homework off. If the weather is cold, she frets at work that her teenagers didn't wear a coat to school. If she and her H go to the movies, she wants the teens to go to. It's like they can't breath without her there to tell them to exhale. Consequently, her D is so "shy" she is scared to open her mouth and even talk to her teachers at school (yes, the Mom calls and runs interference whenever there is a problem of any kind)and the S is just fairly obnoxious to be around. Do I want to keep mine that close? No thanks.</p>
<p>Count me as an advocate for giving kids down time and a chance to screw up. </p>
<p>I had a whole long post drafted to describe why I believe in this, but deleted it on second thought. </p>
<p>Suffice to say that my kids might score at an Ivy level on standardized tests, but they probably won't end up in that league. This is specifically because I limit their ECs and have let them face the consequences of {{GASP}} a "C" on their report card due to missing hw. </p>
<p>Fortunately, that lesson sank in and accomplished more than I could have as a micromanager.</p>
<p>[Here's the problem: the statistics for emotional problems among privileged kids are startling. There has been a large upswing in everything from depression, anxiety disorders, and substance abuse to psychosomatic disorders. Suicide among teenagers, level for many years, is on the rise. Researchers on the cutting edge of adolescent mental health are finding that affluent teens and preteens, in both public and private schools, can have the highest rates of some of the most substantial emotional problems of any group of kids in this country. Among affluent high school girls, rates of depression can be 22 percent. That means that one out of every four or five girls is not simply crabby or unhappy, but meets full criteria for clinical depression. One in three affluent boys and girls show signs of an anxiety disorder. Substance abuse and antisocial attitudes are particularly high among affluent adolescent high school boys.]</p>
<p>Perhaps there are aspects of mental disorders that predispose towards financial success in the right circumstances. The creative and high energy states of those with bipolar or that live with mania (always on a natural high) or those with ADHD can think differently than most of the rest of the population. Some people with these problems (or gifts) can have very good outcomes or very bad outcomes.</p>
<p>There is research indicating that maternal influenza is a major risk factor for schizophrenia as is living in the city and strict parenting. Is there more maternal influenza out there?</p>
<p>For the ultimate in unstructured, there's the unschooling approach. Where you let the kid do whatever they want. If they don't want to go to school they don't have to. That's probably a pretty foreign concept to most here. It's basically child-led education and I've had many discussions on it with many practitioners. There's probably some parental guidance and steering but it's quite different than traditional schooling approaches.</p>
<p>I've done the spreadsheet thing with our son's assignments too. They eventually figure it out and do their own spreadsheet or todo list. But kids that are somewhat disorganized may need to see a system in action before taking responsibility for using it on their own. If they are self-motivated to do well in an activity, then they will master the tools to help accomplish their own internal goals.</p>
<p>I think our society is becoming increasingly ambivalent about who is ultimately responsible for a child or teen's behavior. It seems to me that nowadays we are much quicker than our parents' generation to blame the mother and father when a child gets into trouble--at times to the exclusion of blaming the child himself. "Where were the parents?" is the first question people ask when a kid does something wrong. When we were growing up, I think the primary burden of guilt fell on the kid himself. It was presumed that a child over age 8 or so had been taught right from wrong and should know better, although extenuating factors such as a poor parental model might have mitigated the severity of the societal judgment of the wrong act. </p>
<p>I'll never forget the first time a teacher called about a minor misdeed my S had committed at school. I asked for details of what had happened, what the teacher had done about it, and my son's response. In my mind, if he had misbehaved but then responded well to discipline and did not repeat the misdeed, which was the case, then the problem was solved and I didn't need to be involved. The teacher made it clear, though, that she wanted me to do something. Frankly, it is hard for a parent to deal with a situation s/he did not witness first hand, in a place where other authority figures are in charge, and hours after the fact. I told her that of course I would speak to S, but she was still unsatisfied. I got the impression that she wanted me to suffer for it somehow.</p>
<p>With regard to academic performance, the school gives us mixed messages as well. On one hand, we are told in middle school that HW is the sole responsibilty of the child, yada yada. But OTOH, to whom are progress reports and report cards addressed? To the parents. In addition, I believe that a legal precedent was set which assigns responsibility for a child's educational progress to the parent--not the school. So clearly we are expected to make our kids do their work. </p>
<p>Furthermore, as was pointed out above, parents can be held legally responsible for something our children do, even in our absence. This bothers me. If I stand by and watch my minor child pull the fire alarm when there's no fire, then perhaps I am responsible for his action. But if my minor child does the same thing while under the supervision of principals, teachers and hall monitors, is it really fair to hold me responsible? Either the child is responsible (my opinion) or adults are, but if adults are then the burden should fall on the adult(s) in whose care the child is at the time of the incident. Furthermore, there are plenty of parents who decry the fact that they can no longer use corporal punishment to control seriously disobedient children without fearing a visit from DYFS. We are in a Catch-22.</p>
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<p>just read archiemom's post #13 and thought she said archieson was on the varsity TAX team! Doubletake revealed it was Lax, and I need better glasses. But it made me laugh & I thought I'd share.</p>
<p>D went to prom this past weekend. One of the young ladies riding in her limo did not do such a good job selecting a dress to suit her figure. When I sent the group pictures to a friend, she commented on the girl's appearance and asked "Who went shopping with that girl? Why didn't her mother tell her..." While I see her point, who among us has never had our words of advice fall on deaf teenage ears? Puhleeeeeease!</p>