Yearning for parental approval

Parents Forum Parent Cafe
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My D22 is about to head off to university here in the UK. A few months ago, she mentioned out of the blue that she’s now interested in medicine and kind of regretted not applying to medical school. I was very surprised to hear this because we spoke about medical school a few years earlier and D22 said she was absolutely not interested so I never raised it again.

Anyway, I tried to be encouraging and told her that she could still go to medical school after completing her current STEM course (or she could take a gap year to self-study A-level biology and apply to medical school this cycle).

Since then, she has grumbled on a few occasions about not applying to medical school. What has puzzled me, though, is that there’s been no follow through on her part - no sharing of which field of medicine interested her, no desire to get “work experience” at a leading hospital that’s literally down the street from our place, etc.

So I called her on this this weekend and after a very long discussion, including numerous diversions, she finally said, “You’re always so impressed when I tell you someone I know is studying medicine at Oxbridge.” Here comes the part that floored me - she felt that because I didn’t react similarly to students studying any other subject (including what she has chosen to study), I must not be so pleased with her choice of subject and/or must be disappointed in her.

I told her that yes, perhaps I am (overly) impressed with Oxbridge medics (it’s quite hard to secure such spots) but it doesn’t mean that’s what I want her to pursue. I added that even though I am in awe of athletes such as Michael Phelps, it doesn’t mean that I expect my daughter to win Olympic gold medals in order for me to be proud of her.

Anyway, after further reassurances on my part (which i won’t bore you with), I think I finally allayed her concern that I was secretly disappointed in her for not going off to Oxbridge to study medicine (for the record, I am truly excited by the course she is pursuing and couldn’t be more proud of her).

But isn’t it interesting how kids (mis)interpret their parents’ words/actions and how much they yearn for parental approval? Fellow CC parents - is this something you’ve also experienced?

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Yes. I needed to tell them I was proud of them. I always thought it but I realized that I needed to say it. I would also like to say that your D is very insightful.

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I want to thank you for relating this story. This is something that we all should be careful about.

At one point recently I mentioned to my wife that I did not want our younger daughter to think that she needed to attend a graduate school at the same level that my wife, and I, and our older daughter attended. My wife’s reply was “too late”.

I think that it might be difficult to avoid subconsciously putting too high a level of expectations on our kids. I am not sure how to avoid this.

It does sound like your daughter has her head on straight – which is particularly difficult for someone who is still a teenager.

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I think your analogy of Michael Phelps was perfect.

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My wife and I have also sought to be mindful about this but it surprised me that my off-the-cuff reactions (that I quickly forgot) had such an effect on my D22.

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Thanks for sharing your story @LostInTheShuffle. You highlighted an important issue.

We live in an area with high performing school districts where many kids go to the Ivies and other elite schools each year so most kids tend to grow up with an “Ivy or bust” mentality. Going through high school it’s common for these kids to hear their parents say with awe “Did you hear? So-and-so got into Princeton! (or MIT or Harvard)” Unconsciously sets up unrealistic expectations and an implicit declaration of what type of school would make mom/dad proud. We fell in the same trap too but fortunately caught ourselves in time and did our best to assure our daughter how proud we were.

I understand the Phelps analogy but it’s different praising someone you don’t directly know vs someone who’s a friend or neighbor that you know well.

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That’s exactly what my D22 said.

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I think this is something that is unsaid rather than anything verbally expressed.

I call it the “Wow” factor. When you/your kid says a school name and people say Wow or their expression shows the same. There are many people (often engineers IME, why? lol) who are only impressed by others in their field. Or people for whom the school they attended doesn’t matter at all because they have surpassed that stage of their life.

I STRONGLY discouraged our '22 from applying to the Ivy I attended. I wanted our kid to have their own thing; Live their own life and be proud of their path. It worked. The path is very different than anything my husband or I would have taken, but it seems to be going well so far. We’ll see.
Med studies are difficult and impressive anywhere. But so is philosophy or physics or about 200 other subjects.

My husband was a bit disappointed that our kid ended up not going to school for engineering ( was accepted to very top programs). He keeps mentioning that all '22’s friends are in pure STEM. But, it’s his issue with thinking that STEM is a stronger path. Our kid went into a combined path and I think it’s the correct path based on being true to one’s self.
And I wouldn’t entirely blame you or your wife. It’s likely also the responses from other students.

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This topic came up when I was talking to my kids’ psychiatrist. They had expressed the opinion that they had felt a lot of pressure to do well in school. I told the doctor I was surprised, because I had consciously tried NOT to put pressure on them as they were growing up. He said, “There were implied expectations in your family. One of their grandfathers was an engineering professor who got a lot of awards. Their maternal grandparents were both physicians. Their parents were both engineers.” Well, not much I could do about that, so I didn’t worry about it. DH and I do try hard to tell them often how proud of them we are (even the son with mental illness - we know it’s a victory for him to get through every day).

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I also feel that my D22 chose the correct path for her.

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So, I can 1000% understand where you are right now. I had several talks prior to drop off. Our kid chose a path that isn’t an immediate wow. But there were WOW acceptances.
We talked a lot about finding your path. Our '22 knows that I would work for free and my husband likes his job a lot and is great at it, but would prefer not to do it anymore. That shapes what she knows for work.
Kid started talking about what to “be” post graduation and I said well think about what motivates you, what you enjoy ( and we are pragmatic so how much it pays!!) how you can blend these things into something you love.
If your daughter is on her path, then all the flowers on that path will be ones she loves and she can’t go wrong.
Also, IMO, the transition to college/university is tough. They are going to question everything.

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I don’t think it was flawless. Most of us have much higher chances of being admitted into medical school than winning a bazillion of Olympic medals or an Oscar. Deep inside, the kid probably still thinks that the former is quite achievable and that she can too be similarly admired.

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This is a challenge. We don’t want the kids to feel the pressure by looking at other people’s kids, siblings or other family. At the same time we want to set expectations as to what they can do given the opportunities that life has given them. Setting low expectations is also harmful, and we are not doing them any favors. It is a delicate balance. Something we are grappling with as parents every day – no one said parenting was easy :slight_smile:

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Aside from the “wow!” reaction is parents commenting about a high stats/highly accomplished kid - “hmm, she’s going to xyz college? Thought she’d get into an Ivy :thinking:”

Of course, plenty of deserving and highly accomplished kids won’t get into an Ivy or S or M, for reasons best known to those colleges - but the implicit takeaway for kids hearing this is “kid X is not as good as we thought” and “if I don’t get into an Ivy I’m not good enough either”.

This needs a major change in how society talks about a small set of schools. It doesn’t help that the media reinforces these views.

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I think there are two steps here;
WOW based on a educational institution
WOW based on field of study.

#1 may be out of one’s hand any way depending on what your family can afford.
#2 I hope in most cases, the only “WOW” that matters in field of study is “What One Wants” - this is a student decision and should not be parent driven (of course we recently had a thread on that I think!)

Start early praising and supporting your kids passions. Whether that is a school subject, a hobby, a sport - whatever. Decision making is hard. Do your best to support decision making and back it up with more than the word “wow” for your own kids. Talk about why you support a school or field of study, why it seems right for them, how significant the work is - all the stuff that helps them build confidence in their choices and their selves!

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That’s right. 3-4 of her classmates are headed to Oxbridge for medicine so she thinks it might be feasible for her. The problem is, as far as I can tell, medicine is not her true interest so she’d be doing it for the wrong reason, IMO.

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We did make a conscious effort to let our kids know about people in real life- who they knew- who we admire.

One of them is a religious figure in our community who the kids knew well growing up. Not an academic. Not a scholar. Not an intellectual. (and the kids know religious figures who are all those things). Those are the easy ones to admire.

This is the person who sits up many nights in a row with an elderly community member who is dying to give the family a break. This is the person who figured out a covid safe way of keeping the local food bank functioning. This is the person who creates an anonymous way of funneling funds to the families who get displaced due to fire, flood, whatnot, and figured out how to keep a landlord from evicting a commercial tenant when business went soft. Not members of our congregation- just neighbors, community members in need.

Well read? Not really. Graduate of a prestigious college? No. Top of the seminary class? I can’t fathom he was although I don’t know for sure. Award winning whatever? absolutely not. Computer literate? Barely.

Just the person EVERYONE wants with them before surgery, when they hear the prognosis from the oncologist, the guy who can figure out how to make lemonade from life’s tragedies and setbacks.

I think talking about these kinds of people is a way to counteract our winner takes all society. Talk about the volunteer who drives the bookmobile into the parking lot of a housing project. Talk about the bus driver when you see him/her helping a mom with a stroller and three other kids go up the steps. Make sure they notice that the bakery owner is wrapping up beautiful cookie platters to be donated to the homeless shelter-- which our local bakery owner said when I called it out to my kids, “Who doesn’t like a cookie?” which really touched them.

Nobody gets elected to Phi Beta Kappa for being kind, but we can make sure our kids see how much we respect these people!

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I don’t think setting low expectations is the answer. It’s setting appropriate expectations. It’s letting them push themselves academically or otherwise; be challenged intellectually, be the best they can be - but don’t create the mindset that only a small set of schools are “worthy”
(As we know, with TO, focus on diversity of all kinds, etc - admission to these schools has become even more unpredictable). So best for parents to talk to their kids about the dozens of great schools where they can excel and grow.

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I am very happy if I see effort and good attitude – ability to take feedback etc. Whatever it is they want to do.

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You raise a really good point. While my example above reinforces our obsession with prestige/elitism, throughout D22’s upbringing we’ve also pointed admiringly to people who were kind, selfless, possessed a deep sense of duty, brave in pursuing unconventional paths, etc.

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