<p>Like the OP, my D’s are also four years apart - I think it is good for D2 to learn from D1’s experience what needs to be done in general to come across as a good applicant - good gpa and test scores, EC’s you are passionate about, a good athletic/academic and/or music/academic balance. That being said, the roads may end up being totally different - my D1 wants a highly ranked LAC, D2 is already set on going to a service academy, so I am sure some aspects will be different the second time around. Just gotta trust your instincts - I am sure the parenting challenges will come, whether or not they are the same.</p>
<p>Same sort of thing with twins. You cannot really judge one against the other. Each needs to find their own path. Being compared isn’t against a sibling isn’t good foe either one. Blossom’s post and Curmudgeon’s excerpt of it say it all. Just love your children unconditionally and let them know you will support them in whatever they want to do.</p>
<p>S1, superstar..S2, average student(that might even be putting it generously)
H and I came to grips early on with the fact that S2 did not have S1’s academic gifts or drive. We tried unsuccessfully to motivate him to higher aspirations. After a while we just gave up and allowed him to chart his own course. When he refused to retake the SAT’s after not scoring as high as we had hoped the first time, we said “fine, it’s up to you”. He is graduting from h.s in two weeks and headed off to one of our “directional” state u’s. In Aug. S1, full scholarship…S2, full freight..night and day…gotta love’m.</p>
<p>Voice of experience here: STOP COMPARING YOUR KIDS TO EACH OTHER. (see post # 40). They are two different people. </p>
<p>“Or should I leave my lovely well-adjusted smart A- daughter alone?” YES.</p>
<p>HYP is a crap-shoot, single-digit admissions. If that’s D2’s dream, great - encourage her to go for it. If not, who cares? She will go to a great college that’s right for her. She will enjoy the only shot she gets at high school and all that goes with it (social, EC’s, etc), continue to get her good grades, and have a happy, well-adjusted life. Please leave well-enough alone! </p>
<p>I am all for encouraging kids to achieve their full potential, but I’m not sure how much more you’re going to get a kid to accomplish if she’s already getting A-minuses, and the damage to your relationship and her psyche from being pushed-pushed-pushed is not worth the difference between a 4.0 and a 3.7. Really, it’s not.</p>
<p>Voice of experience again: Our S1 was an academic star (not a superstar, but a top 5% graduate). D2 is a solid student, B’s in honors classes, A’s in college-prep classes. She has way more EC’s than her brother ever thought about having, and an active social life that is important to her. Honestly, in the long run, she is probably better off with those EC’s and social life - she’s got more “people” skills than her brother, and those kind of skills pay off big-time in the real world. But for a long time we still made her feel that since her middle-school grades were as good or better than her brother’s, we expected the same in high school. It wasn’t intentional on our part, but she what she heard from us was “you’re not good enough.” It backfired big-time, but we didn’t know what was going on until D2 had a meltdown and we ended up paying a therapist, who told us, “You have a great daughter, one most parents would love to have. You should be proud of her. Let her be who she is.”</p>
<p>So yes, leave your lovely well-adjusted A- daughter alone, as long as she remains a lovely well-adjusted A- girl.</p>
<p>I especially would leave her alone for freshman year. Do NOT let this insanity start yet! Freshman grades don’t matter to many colleges anyway. Let her sort things out, get used to high school and see what sort of path she wants to take. She may discover a passion for one of her classes, find a teacher who is an awesome mentor, or find a new EC to which she wants to devote a lot of time. SO much changes from pre-freshman year through early senior year.<br>
My older D and 2 years younger WildChild are very different, although both were/are extremely strong academically. WildChild was expelled from private pre-school on his 5th birthday.(long story-nothing sensational) The day he walked into his “new” school (a very nurturing “mother’s day out” program) he announced, “This is MY school- not [Sister]'s!” I think that told us something. She was a precocious reader (as was I and my mother). He felt he would NEVER learn to read (he was still ahead of age level) In late middle school/early high school, older sister thought her brother was the one always in the limelight due to his athletic success. It went back and forth and was never easy for us- and still isn’t, I might add.
Leave her alone for now.</p>
<p>OP- enough with the test scores! You are completely misinterpreting the scores if you think that examining the disparity is going to yield anything useful in terms of parenting.</p>
<p>If one kid is scoring in the 95 percentile and the other in the 65 percentile the disparity will tell you something helpful. If their scores are points apart and you are trying to divine something from that… you really need a hobby (and a reality check!) I’m beginning to feel that there is more to this story, and that you are posting for affirmation that given D2’s academic potential you ought to be pushing her for greater effort and achievement.</p>
<p>Do it your way- of course- but as a younger child I want to alert you to the real possibility that in pushing an A- student to work harder to be more like her sister, you will actually be giving her a very different message. The message she will hear is: You will never measure up. We have objective information (standardized tests) that tell us you could be as good as your sister. However, no matter what you do… it won’t be enough. An A- will never be cause for celebration since we know you are technically capable of an A if only you weren’t so lazy, chatty with your friends, interested in things other than academics (fill in the blanks).</p>
<p>Do you not realize how sad it is to be examining their test scores like you’re choosing a pair of shoes at Payless? (well these are more comfortable but the higher heel is a little more flattering).</p>
<p>There are seven kinds of intelligences, right? And school doesn’t capitalize upon all 7 of them. </p>
<p>Offhand: literary, mathematical, kinesthetic, mechanical, musical, artistic/intuitive, social/interpersonal, intrapersonal.</p>
<p>Ooops, that’s 8. I think intrapersonal is new.</p>
<p>Multiple intelligences is now old theory; read Howard Gardner.</p>
<p>Kinesthetic: some British Isle folk dancers had to do a scene with Baryshnikov and they showed him a move that took them a year to do well; he watched it once, then did it immediately, flawlessly. He had an intelligent body. </p>
<p>Mechanical: In my classroom, there was always the kid who could fix everything. When the venetian blinds were tangled, he could untangle them. He fixed the pencil sharpener.</p>
<p>Social intelligence/interpersonal: the person who remembers who is related to whom, who can figure out the leadership pecking order among a group of strangers…</p>
<p>Intrapersonal: the person who recognizes his/her own landscape of emotions and doesn’t get blocked by inner confusiion when others do, so moves forward while others stare at their navel or insult someone else and have to mop up their mess…</p>
<p>Perhaps your second child has another set of intelligences and strengths to play out in the world. The A’s and HYP’s might come more readily to those with literary or mathematical skill, since schooling rewards these. But, thinking about the adults whom you know, I’m sure they exhibit a range of skills and intelligences.</p>
<p>If you can figure out and support the actual strengths of your actual second child, I’m sure you’ll help her confidence. Affirm whoever she is and let the dance begin!</p>
<p>One of my all time favorite CC quotes was by blossom back in 2005 (I was lurking for quite some time before registering!) on a thread titled “Parents Who Want Their Smart Lazy Kids to Work Harder”. That thread was similar somewhat to this thread in its discussion of parental expectations for a child, especially when that the child is not meeting expectations. Blossom said then:</p>
<p>“…love the kid you have, not the kid you wished you had.”</p>
<p>Those wise words have become a parenting mantra for me.</p>
<p>As I look back over my kids’ lives (ages 18 and 21), one of the things that strikes me most is how different they are, considering that they had the same caring parenting. My D is completely motivated by externals, and my S is intrinsically motivated. I am certain that my H and I did nothing to “cause” either way. Both ways have positive and negative aspects, and most people are somewhere in between – my kids are closer to the opposite ends of the spectrum. When I tried to nudge either of them out of the negatives that can arise from their respective personality types, it was like trying to move a mountain.</p>
<p>I think that as long as we are good parents, a bit of pushing too hard or not hard enough will make little difference in the long run. We are all trying to do what is right for our kids, and we do the best we can with what we’ve got.</p>
<p>As I read the posts, I am thinking how unique everyones experiences are.
Mine are 6 years apart. My daughter (older one) is going to be in college this Fall. She is everything that you would want from a daughter-loving, caring etc. etc.
My son is still in 6th grade, and he is very different from his sister both in academics and personality. I always wonder about what is in store for him.
He is not fond of any sports (we still sign him up for group sports). He started a few musical instruments but gave up sooner than he started.
He loves building with LEGOs. He reads all science fictions (dragons and other creatures). Sometimes I feel he is in another world.
My H and I are planning to get rid of his LEGOs when he turns 13 next year.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Why? You can make awesome things with LEGOs these days. Perhaps he’ll become an architect. :)</p>
<p>OP, in post #6 you refer to Vanderbilt as being equal to state schools in a tier below the top schools and imply that admission to Vandy should be easy to obtain. Vanderbilt is only comparable to state schools if you are using Berkeley, UVa, UNC, and other top publics as comparable institutions. You might want to investigate admissions stats for Vanderbilt before making assumptions that Vanderbilt is a choice for the student more than the school. This year’s admission rate overall was 23% and, when you pull out the ED admits, that means the RD rate was in the high teens. I know those odds are better than HYP, etc., but I wouldn’t make too many assumptions about such schools being easy pickings for students. Of course the admissions landscape is likely to change dramtically for your freshman daughter as this year’s admitted class represents a peak for college admissions.
Good luck to her.</p>
<p>Booklady, He sure makes awesome things.
I am talking about LEGOs every where in the house, not just few LEGOs.
I worry about taking them away from him. Doesn’t he have to grow out of it at some point?</p>
<p>^^ No, they don’t. Some awesome structures have been built of LEGOs.</p>
<p>Your S sounds like a budding engineer. At some point, he may become interested in Robotics First and other school competitions that attract the kids with the souls of engineers. He may have MIT in his future.</p>
<p>He’s a kid. Let him be a kid. He’s 12 years old. His passion for building with llegos shows creativity, patience, a mathematic aptitude, hand/eye coordination, problem solving skills, etc. Would you rather he sit passively in front of the TV all day? If you dislike having the llegos cluttering up your house, have him organize them into plastic bins and slide them under his bed. </p>
<pre><code> Please stop using test scores to predict the future success/failures of your children’s lives and just let them be. Give them a little space and let them pave their own way. I honestly believe the big push for parents to get their kids into Ivy’s/Top tier schools is to satisfy their own personal egos. Brilliant kids can be found in ALL TIERS of colleges. It’s sad to think that some parents base the quality of their parenting skills and the quality of their kids on the price tag of the college that their kids attend. Yes–Education is key to success. However, character, self-motivation, desire, leadership, creativity, problem solving skills, common sense, people skills, and some good luck are equally important.
</code></pre>
<p>Ijmom, can you buy him the robotics modules and let him learn programing with legos? That’s what the GT kids in many middle schools are doing. I work with kids this age - you would rather have the Lego problem than the nothing-on-his-mind-but-girls problem!</p>
<p>Mammall -</p>
<p>Like so many posters, we too have 2 daughters who have similar intellectual ability, but very different temperaments. Fortunately, DD1 was the easy-going, social, laid back child, who did very well in school but did not have the single minded intensity of DD2. DD1 is nine years older, so she has been more amused than threatened by her younger sister’s accomplishments. </p>
<p>Here’s what I have tried to remember. My girls are a gift and I try to genuinely appreciate them for who they are. There is a fine line between wanting the best for them and trying to change them for our pleasure. It is not always easy to know when you have crossed the line. Someone once told me to be wary of being “proud” of your child, rather try to be “pleased” for them. I know it is a matter of semantics, but it has helped to keep my ego in check. </p>
<p>So in our house DD#2 has garnered many academic accolades, but DD#1 makes life easy for everyone. She will be the one who tolerates me in old age. I am so glad I conveyed to her that I cherished her for who she is, rather than what she has accomplished. On the other hand, I have to be happy for my other daughter’s academic successes, because that is her gift.</p>
<p>Ijmom,
My son lived and breathed Legos and Sci Fi books. Many, including teachers wanted him to change who he was. My husband and I let him choose his own time to approach things. We did not make him give up his Legos at 13. In fact, he used them for school projects more than once in high school. He did begin to find other interests as he matured. We have frequently joked that we feel that he has only his pinky toe in this world. However, on Fri he graduated from high school, he is going to Bennington in the fall with a substantial merit scholarship, and he continues to be willing to be an individual.</p>
<p>Ijmom,</p>
<p>Has your son been involved in the First Lego League? My son’s team won the state championship last year and got to go to the World Festival event in Atlanta. He had a lot of fun. One warning–it takes tons of time, so you might not want to get involved. Still, it did seem that the kids learned a lot of useful skills.</p>
<p>We have two sons who are almost five years apart to the day – told the older S once that his baby brother was a birthday gift, and he cannot understand why we didn’t return it!</p>
<p>Anyway, the two are similar in many ways – they love math and science, maps and geography, playing soccer and volleyball outside. But we try to avoid the comparing things. We tell the younger one, who is 11, that he needs to be the best Eddie he can be. We already have the best Johnny that Johnny can be.</p>
<p>Well, the younger one gets it. He carved his own world. He decided that he would be a great sax player, and he really has turned into one for a kid with just two years of lessons. He plans to learn the tenor and bari in addition to the alto sax. He also wants to run track next year as a JV participant. Older brother has his thing – student government, volunteering, tutoring, etc. </p>
<p>The colleges that the older one really didn’t like the little one did. </p>
<p>So, embrace the differences. </p>
<p>The little one keeps saying that he will be so glad for the older one going to college. Right. He’ll be gone three days, and I’m sure I’ll hear, “Mom, I’m bored. When is he coming home?”</p>