<p>BerneseManMom re: post #39…excellent point you made that was on my mind as well but I didn’t write about it. Think of all the mentors along the way! I could write reams on this. Just today, I was sharing with some friends about an original musical my D created that was performed in NYC last night (she is 21) and looking back, we can thank her elementary school principal who allowed D to do independent studies to write musicals at age nine instead of attending spelling classes, or thank her piano teacher (she also plays that professionally and was asked a few days ago to musically direct a show by a Tony nominated composer/director. Yes, we supported her interests, but many people mentored her over the years. And then there were very supportive grandparents who came to see them in their activities from out of state and who helped them financially to pursue certain endeavors. Then there’s the teachers who supervised independent studies or the guidance counselor who advocated for accommodations the kids needed in their schooling. If this were some “award show”, I could give a list of “thanks” that would be cut off by a commercial break, LOL.</p>
<p>I have not read the whole thread, but am responding to the title of the thread. What did we do right?</p>
<ul>
<li><p>We inculcated a balanced sense in our children that education and learning were very important, but that being in the top group was not important at all. That it was, in fact, obnoxious. We value humility, as well as intelligence. We value honesty, as well as hard work and effort.</p></li>
<li><p>We paid for music lessons for both children, not so they could excel or look good, but so that they would learn to appreciate music from the point of view of a musician. To add to their delight in living.</p></li>
<li><p>We had books coming out of the seams in our house.</p></li>
<li><p>We played games together before a roaring fire and hugged alot and taught empathy and love and forgiveness. </p></li>
<li><p>Come college season we had them apply to Tier I schools but not the USNWR top schools. We listened carefully to their desired parameters - city vs. country, large vs. small, political vibe, distance from home, Frat driven or not, north vs. south…and tried to help them hone a list that would provide match, reach and safety schools that met their parameter. </p></li>
<li><p>We ditched ED recognizing that kids grow at least 1/17th over their senior year and may change their minds considerably about parameters as they seriously buckle down to the task of college app’s and it becomes very real in the senior year.</p></li>
<li><p>We revelled in acceptances and shrugged off rejections. We emphasized that there are wonderful and awful prof’s wherever you go, and new people to meet new places to go new things to see and great learning to be had wherever you land.</p></li>
<li><p>We taught them to bloom wherever they are planted - to be resilient and succeed under many conditions.</p></li>
<li><p>We recognized that it’s not so much where you go as what you do once you get there, and that life is a journey and college is just one stop on the road.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Our graduate is gainfully emplyed with a year’s work under the belt and 5K in savings and grad acceptances in hand and deferred due to JOB; our UG is thriving. Our family is the focus, not what college they got into. They are both wonderful, humble, interesting, resilient human beings contributing to this big world and experiencing life.</p>
<p>The number one thing? Instill a love of reading from an early age.</p>
<p>The number two thing? Let them follow their bliss. For older son that was everything about trains till he was four or five, then a year or so of everything about anatomy, then electronics and then electrical stuff. For the younger son it was endless books of military history, teaching him origami and finding a great volunteer job that fit his interests.</p>
<p>Number three? Probably a combination of good genes and valuing education. </p>
<p>In terms of this year, finding a good set of colleges that match their interests and making sure that they got their EA applications in on time. I feel sorry for the U of Chicago kids who thought it would be better to spend more time on the essays. We made sure that the time got spent in October.</p>
<p>I certainly don’t care if they end up at a top 10 university, but I am glad that both kids have/had the choice to pick a top 10 if it’s the best fit. (And really I think the top 10 has at least 30 institutions of higher learning!)</p>
<p>I’m reading with interest–I think this is a cool thread. Much of what I’ve learned from CC is about what various people did right for their kids. Never mind top ten or whatever-- people on here have been concerned parents and they have wisdom to pass along. And I don’t think anyone is claiming total responsibility–of course it takes a village. You could certainly also add anything that someone else “did right”.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’d like to add…our family successes, our kids’ successes and what we did or didn’t do “right” aren’t DEFINED by the college choices of our kids either.</p>
<p>My T10 kid (as defined by DadII) was the recipient of more parenting errors than I could possibly list. I guess a couple things I feel we did right were our choice of particular private schools (adjusted as needed) for our kids, our allowing them to explore activities even if we weren’t thrilled with them (I could have killed the music teacher who sent the sax home with WildChild), our stepping back when “better” mentors presented themselves, and our using our own judgment to create a safety net when necessary. I think both my husband and I were good role models with our commitment to our running which showed our son what it takes to succeed in that sport (which he did). We also were willing to take risks (partly because he wore us down)- one of which was allowing him to live by himself in a mountain cabin for a month before senior year of high school to train (running) and read so he would be at altitude and in a good climate. It led to a good essay, and we all lived through it.<br>
With our daughter (T20) the thing we did right was to support her artistic (music) goals while insisting on a safety net (even against her protests of “you don’t think I’m good enough to make it…”). The safety net consisted of steering her to a university setting as opposed to a pure music school like Julliard. We took risks with her, too. I think one of the hardest things my husband has ever done was to allow his precious 16 year old daughter to go to boarding school (junior-senior year) far away from home so that she could pursue her art and find her “tribe”, which she was not finding in our home city and which was leading to great emotional distress for her (and us).</p>
<p>I decided to post before reading all the responses so I would not be influenced by others.</p>
<p>I do think that genes and environment play a part. We couldn’t do anything about the genes, and we knew that we were making some environmental trade-offs (we valued the social, economic, and ethnic diversity of this town; the schools are dealing with that diversity and the general environment is not one geared to highly selective colleges). [–edit: this is a description, linked to the original question, not a criticism. ]</p>
<p>So we created our own mini-environment within which rigor and challenge were valued and the value was explicitly explained. Also valued was day-dreaming and down time.</p>
<p>We also stressed follow-through. You want to try XYZ? Excellent! We will support you and get you to the lesson/practice/whatever. There was also the stated expectation that the young person would stay in the activity for the season or the competition or whatever. After that, the decision was his.</p>
<p>The only activity outside of school that had parental push behind it was music. That could be another thread.</p>
<p>Oft repeated: The only bad mistake is the one you don’t learn from. (Poor grammar, but clear to a young child.)</p>
<p><a href=“and%20fuller,%20bouncier%20hair!”>quote</a>
[/quote]
Emeraldkitty, both my kids got that, in spades, unlike their sparse, scraggly-haired mom! :)</p>
<p>Oh, yeah. Books. In every room. Including the bathrooms. </p>
<p>Dinner together almost every night, where we’d talk about news, Jon Stewart, the law, how to deal with teachers, classmates, stooooopid rules, etc.</p>
<p>I would also like to thank the mentors who spoke kindly to my kids, who nudged them to to work a little harder, who held them accountable for their actions, who recognized their efforts, who reminded them that we learn from failures, who encouraged them to test their intellectual limits and to realize there is always someone smarter/faster/etc. out there.</p>
<p>Where my kids head off to college is less important than what they do once they’re there.</p>
<p>I’m a high school senior and consider myself a pretty high achieving one…</p>
<p>What did my parents do? absolutely nothing. They were really young and poor when they had me, so they kinda just guessed at the parenting thing. They left me alone and let me chart my own course and for that I am eternally grateful. </p>
<p>THey didn’t force me to try anything I didn’t want to, and let me quit whenever I was sick of the current activity. </p>
<p>School was never a focus(they couldn’t care less what my grades are). It was up to me to care. It made ME want to learn for myself, not for anyone else.</p>
<p>What I think helped me the most was the amount of trust they had in me. I don’t have a curfew, never had a bed time, could hang out with whoever I wanted, could go to any parties I wanted, could sleep over my bf’s house-they didn’t care. They let me be the adult. That has helped me more than anything else in the world. </p>
<p>I know my success is entirely up to me, and it has made me want it soo badly</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>and after.</p>
<p>TA.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I did the complete opposite with my kids, and they turned out successful, too! (Both at top Ivies). I was relatively strict compared to other parents in our community: No TV or non-homework computer or going out with friends on school nights, no parties I was not 100% confident about, very few sleepovers, strict curfews and bed times, no dating before age 16. It wasn’t a matter of lack of trust, it was how I saw my parental role to guide my kids to make good decisions. We were very close; they understood the reason for all of these rules and agreed that they made sense. I guess it shows you that more than one type of parenting style works.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s just a cop out. It is irresponsible of parents to let kids be adults before they are ready. How could a parent “trust” a teen to act like an adult before he/she is taught how to be an adult? I know too many friends who do not set limit on their teens, using “trust” as an excuse of not knowing what their kids are doing.</p>
<p>Hugcheck,
I agree with your entire post #42. But there is one thing you said:</p>
<p>
I agree with all of this too BUT…I do NOT agree that being at the top is OBNOXIOUS. It is only obnoxious if one thinks being at the top is the end all and be all and brags about it and defines themselves in those terms. But being someone who excels doesn’t mean the opposite of humility, honesty, hard work and effort. I have had kids who excel and in some endeavors, they’ve achieved things “at the top” and never in an obnoxious way and never where “being at the top” is the goal. You can be humble and excel at the top too. Just sayin’.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s not getting to the TOP or being the top that are obnoxious or arrogant. It’s the thinking that the parents did something right for their children to get into top 10. Does that mean that parents whose children did not get into the top 10(or however/whatever one defines it) is considered failure? Of course, it’s nonsense. But the thread seems to start out that way.</p>
<p>You know…I’ve been thinking some more about this thread. Bottom line…<em>we</em> didn’t really do anything (other than value education and have a stable home with some guidance and rules for our kids)…THEY were the ones that did whatever it was that was “right”. </p>
<p>Re: rules…we had them. We were always sure our kids thought we were the “meanest” parents in town because they DID have a curfew and they WERE expected to do homework before they did “other things”…and they WERE expected to do music (it was the one thing we INSISTED they each do but they also liked it), and they both did one sport a YEAR (not a season…a YEAR…and yes skiing at the local ski area counted). And we did punish them when they broke the rules.</p>
<p>When DS got his masters degree, he THANKED both of us (the parents) for providing the structure for him to learn how to do so himself. He also thanked us for being there for him while he was doing his pursuits. And he thanked us for being the structured parents we were.</p>
<p><<<<that’s just=“” a=“” cop=“” out.=“” it=“” is=“” irresponsible=“” of=“” parents=“” to=“” let=“” kids=“” be=“” adults=“” before=“” they=“” are=“” ready.=“” how=“” could=“” parent=“” “trust”=“” teen=“” act=“” like=“” an=“” adult=“” he=“” she=“” taught=“” adult?=“” i=“” know=“” too=“” many=“” friends=“” who=“” do=“” not=“” set=“” limit=“” on=“” their=“” teens,=“” using=“” as=“” excuse=“” knowing=“” what=“” doing=“”>>>>></that’s></p>
<p>Look. I am not attacking alot of structure and rules. I think it works great for some kids(like Bay’s kids). For me, rules would not have worked. I would have rebelled and behaved poorly. I don’t respond well to asinine rules and would have fought them. My parents don’t need to know what i’m doing every minute of the day. THey realized that they weren’t always going to be there for me, so why baby me? It worked out well. I’m third in my class, as involved as they come, and I volunteer. I will thank my parents for trusting me</p>
<p>rocket6-- it sounds like you’re the kind of person who needed trust most of all, and thrived on it. I’ve got one like that–she’s proud of my trust in her and she lives up to it at every opportunity. And yes, I do know where she is, with whom, doing what-- she tells me, because it’s interesting. Some kids need more structure, more rules, more prodding-- but a lot (more than many parents realize) will thrive on the knowledge that their parents believe in them. It’s nice of you to recognize your parents for that.</p>
<p>Reading this thread has made me wonder…How does the upbringing of the parent impact their offspring. OP sounds like he has worked hard to make a life for he and his family in the US and he wishes to instill this pride in his children. Not to sound corny, but it is the American dream that hard work can pay off. We in this country have that freedom, if we so desire.</p>
<p>As I described in another thread, I had very little support from my parents, but I chose to educate myself so that I could be a resource for my children. I wonder how this will impact their involvement with their children.</p>
<p>Asked another way, would the children now whose parents offered little to no assistance take the same stance with their own children?</p>
<p>As to the original query-what we did right was to recognise our daughter would not be best served by a T10 school</p>
<p>most parents I know are like those of rockets. very few want to be like Bay, because it’s a lot of work to discipline your kids. Let me just hope, I completely trust my kids, let them do whatever they want. if they don’t want school, dont’ worry about it. If they want to start piano lessons, find them teachers. If after one month, they want to quit, let them quit, because it takes too much from me to let them do what they don’t want to. Just let them be themselves, they’ll turn out to be wonderful achievers and happy camper. 10 years from now, they’ll be very happy and won’t come back to me and say “mom, I wish you …” </p>
<p>What a wonderful life, for me and for my kids.</p>
<p>DadII, I think you take wayyyyy too much credit for your children’s success/failure. as narrowly defined by a few college acceptances. It explains why you were actually pretty abusive to at least one of your children during the process because they were ‘failing’ you, as a person (as I recall…ripping out the computer, throwing it across the room in a tantrum because your child didn’t obey you about something). From what you ahve shared, your offspring’s childhoods have been brutally stressful. </p>
<p>Maybe a better question for some to ask might be: now that you got your kids into YOUR dream school, what kind of damage resulted from it?</p>