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<p>You made the claim; please back it up.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>So I guess what I’m asking is what is too “tightly” controlled? Who gets to define it? With alcohol, if not junior high, what grade? Will it be the same in every situation? I don’t think there is a definite answer. People try to get me to define it far them. It is a question that most parents leave to figure out. BTW, I hope you are wrong about the not drinking in high school making you high risk in college. (I have never been this in the literature BTW.) As far as I know, my daughter never drank in HS, and to hear her tell it, not because of me. She actually lectured me, about not lecturing her! Still doesn’t, as for as I know, and still says she doesn’t plan to before 21, and she goes to a pretty heavy drinking school. OTOH, it was not new to me in college, and that didn’t “protect” me either! So much for anecdotal experience.</p>
<p>nikkistar- You’ve been around a few months. I’ve been around a few years. Yes, there are a few outrageous parents on here. In fact, some of them seem to “recycle”- i.e. we oldtimers suspect some serious ■■■■■■■■ and multiple identities. Some threads are started just to incite everyone. After you are here longer, you will be able to distinguish between sincere questions and concerns and some of these deliberate attempts to stir things up.
Most of the parents on this forum- especially the ones who stick around- are here because they are very interested in higher education and also in helping other parents/students navigate the college selection and admission process. Over time, many of us have made “friends” on this forum and enjoy discussing a range of topics with this group of intelligent and funny posters.
As a whole, we perhaps lean towards over-involvement. We have a wide range of parenting styles here and a wide range of how much our kids actually listen to us.
I guess my point is to not judge this forum by some of the outlier posts about kids being devastated by their first B or whether you should retake a 2300 SAT etc.</p>
<p>I work with someone with a spouse on the school board. He’s said that the children that most get into trouble are those where there isn’t a supervised activity between when school lets out and when parents arrive home.</p>
<p>I had a run-in with Dr. Horse on the engineering board. Parenting isn’t the only thing where he feels he is an expert while lacking any experience.</p>
<p>I haven’t read through this entire thread, but I thought I’d offer a kid’s perspective. As a junior in high school, I see myself as pretty self-motivated. It’s easy for me to work hard in school with the prospect of attending any one of my dream colleges only a few years away. But sometimes I wonder if I would be so motivated now if it weren’t for my parents’ supposedly “dangerous” meddling and pushing when I was younger… Personally, I feel lucky that they encouraged me to engage when I was in elementary or middle school. My parents always expected – and in a sense, demanded – top grades from me. They were the ones who spoke with my first grade teacher to allow me to receive harder assignments, an action that I protested at the time but am now eternally grateful for. Despite (or, dare I say it, because of) the parental pressure, I have never felt a draw towards promiscuity or involvement with drugs or alcohol. They have instilled in me a certain understanding of the steps toward success. Whether choice in college is related to success in life is debatable, but I know that in my opinion it is worth it to be educated in an environment with peers who are as academically motivated as I am. I hope this post doesn’t come off as disgustingly pretentious or anything, I just meant it to dispel the notion that parental pressure is any kind of a negative influence in life… from my experience it has been highly positive, and for that I am thankful. :)</p>
<p>I don’t believe that parents have that much control people do as they please.</p>
<p>owl–I do not have to search months worth of posts for you. If you have been reading for awhile and have not taken away the same attitude from some posters that I have then I guess we just see things differently. So be it. </p>
<p>Mom–maybe being relatively new the outrageous posters have stood out to me like a sore thumb–IDK. When I first came on here it was because I was having a very bad time with my impending empty nest syndrome. The posts in that forum helped me ALOT. Thanks for re-assuring me that most people here are normal!!</p>
<p>shrink–I never meant to imply that if a kid doesn’t drink in high school that they would go loco in college. What I meant (and maybe did not say correctly) was that if a child is held so tightly that they are not allowed the opportunity to make the decision to drink or not then they are at a higher risk when they are totally turned loose. There are without a doubt kids that just say no to drinking at parties in high school. The point is they are given the opportunity to say no–not held on such a strict leash that they cannot experience that decision making process.
BTW-literature can pretty much be found to support whatever you want to support so I wouldn’t put so much stock in everything you read.
Also–if your daughter is indeed telling you the truth then I give here BIG kudos. </p>
<p>eagle–total agreement with that. One area that parents should insist on control is extra-curricular activities. Kids who have nothing constructive to do after school find non-constructive things to do. From my experience as well, these are the kids who get into the deepest trouble. Again–not all of them do–but it is a generality.</p>
<p>fearless–thankyou for your imput. You sound like an exceptionally together person who is well on their way to achieving their dreams. But again–I don’t believe that anyone–not even Dr HOrse (although I could be wrong) --meant to imply that parents should put no pressure on their kids. That is ridiculous. But too much pressure to succeed can and many times does backfire as the kid feels they can never please their parents–and more importantly may never please themself because they are always to busy trying to please their parents.<br>
Your parents seem to have gotten it just right.</p>
<p>I never meant anything hurtful by what I said. My point is that you parents, the ones here on CC seem to care about their childrens education then the actual students do. There are a few families that I have encountered on this forum, ya know parent and child who either share a username or have different ones. When a parent cares more about college then the students do, that really crosses the line. You cant force you kid to have a high gpa or go to a top school. When you do force, you will always get negative effects. No matter what you think, or how you say it to the student, it will always be taken as forcefully. When mom comes home and over dinner asks Sarah if she has looked into University A, that is not interpreted as “oh mom must think this is good, maybe I should look into it” Instead its usually interpreted as “Mom must want me to go here, what do I do”. All it does is create stress and a state of despair for that student, they always feel as if they cant live up to mom or dad. Theirs a better way to go about this, and this is by example. </p>
<p>I don’t claim to be a expert in much of anything. Im 23 and have no true parenting experience, but I can say is that I have been a student and seen other students and how they were raised in comparison to myself and my siblings. In my experience, it was the parents who were not strict and did not force their kids that raised the best bunch. </p>
<p>So in comparison to the rate at which I see only parents here and not the actual children of those parents, I see something wrong with that and for that I say that you folks are going a bit overboard.</p>
<p>I bring up this topic, more because it hits home with a problem my HS faced. A like like such: [Push</a> to achieve tied to suicide in Asian-American women - CNN.com](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/05/16/asian.suicides/index.html]Push”>http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/05/16/asian.suicides/index.html) should clear up my reasons nicely. When you have kids hanging themselves in school bathrooms because of parents pushing them so much, it gets to the paint of insanity. I dont think many realize how powerful and literally a parents words are taken.</p>
<p>“BTW-literature can pretty much be found to support whatever you want to support so I wouldn’t put so much stock in everything you read”</p>
<p>I agree. I like to think they teach us to read critically in medical school , but our “thought leaders” get “outed” everyday for being influenced by the pharmacetical industry!</p>
<p>Dr. Horse, are you saying you think there are more parents than kids posting? How cm you tell? I’ve often wondered how many actual posters there are that post more than a few times. Sometimes it seems like the some 50 or so doing all the posting.</p>
<p>nikkistar,</p>
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<p>No, you don’t “have to,” but you’re making the claim. It’s a big board – you may be reading different posts than I am or have, or you may be reading posts differently than I am or have. So: if you find posts with the attitude you claim exists, please use them to back up what you are claiming is so prevalent on the board. It’s not so prevalent that everyone is in agreement with you, so the burden of proof of your claim is on you. </p>
<p>Your claim: “In many of the posts parents are very upset because their kids want to go to a state school instead of an IVY or Liberal Arts of the parents choice. Or freaking out because although their kids are taking AP classes they only have a 3.8!!!”</p>
<p>How about pointing to just, oh, say, three posts from three different parents who are upset (very or not) because “their kids want to go to a state school instead of an IVY or Liberal Arts of the parents choice” and three posts from three different parents who are “freaking out because although their kids are taking AP classes they only have a 3.8.” If these attitudes are as prevalent as you say they are, surely it wouldn’t be hard for you to find six posts which support your claim, right?</p>
<p>Well, there’s a new one under “Devastated” that I just replied to, but to be honest I have a suspicion that it’s a ■■■■■. Maybe to provide convenient “proof” that similar posts are prevalent.</p>
<p>yes, I agree, lderochi, the “harlotte” comment was a bit over the top.</p>
<p>Well, if someone is going after “prevalent,” he/she will have to do better than that, because everyone else on that thread demonstrates a completely different view, making the dominant view the opposite one the someone was after!!</p>
<p>re: devastated. maybe a ■■■■■, but my oldest D “dated” a guy who basically sucked the independence right out of her. He was a manipulative jerk and I ended up having D go live somewhere else during the summer one year just to create the physical separation. This was before the prevelance of cell phones, and so … it worked! </p>
<p>In any event, there is a difference between pushing kids to reach their potential and living their lives for them. There are plenty of both sides on this forum. But i do find it ridiculous that kids make chance threads with perfect test scores and GPA’s, a huge list of EC’s and then wonder if they’re good enough. There is something seriously wrong with that. And then there are the parents that once their kid gets into an Ivy or otherwise top school think it’s all about their sterling credentials or their mind-blowing essay and that those who were deferred or denied are just merely inferior as if that EA letter defines THEM or their children. It does go a bit over the top and sometimes it is necessary to let a cold strong wind blow it all out of your thinking. Still, there is a lot of good advice and questions answered that really couldn’t be found anywhere else. And the fact that there are admissions people on their own school’s websites legitimizes the information factor of the site.</p>
<p>I just say, proceed with caution and good common sense.</p>
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<p>I’m curious why this is so scary to the poster. Most people see it as convenient shorthand that helps preserve a bit of anonymity. Real names are out, cutesy nicknames don’t work all the time (and can also reduce anonymity, especially if they end up being used on other non-CC forum sites), and writing out “my 17 year old younger son” or whatever gets tedious. Except for bloggers who are using their real name, it’s a pretty standard internet convention. It is easy for me to just refer to my mom and dad, since there’s only one of each.</p>
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<p>By example meaning that the parent should go to University A? 
I know a lot of kids who don’t want to go to a school precisely BECAUSE their parents went there, so even this way of “setting an example” doesn’t work. </p>
<p>OK, let me be a little less facetious. I’ve watched friends over the past decade as their children have gone through the college admissions process. The one thing I kept hearing, time and time again, is that this is NOT the college admissions process that we parents remember from our callow youth. The level of gamesmanship has ratcheted up, and not just at the most selective schools. The entire picture of aid, both need-based and merit-based, has totally changed, along with all the different ways to finance an education. I couldn’t possibly “set an example” by using my experience of 30 years ago; it would be a massive disservice to my children (and to our family finances) to not educate myself about how the process works now. </p>
<p>Let’s talk about the “have you researched University A?” business. Yes, there are parents and students here who are fixated on tippy-top schools. Many, many other parents here have learned from reading CC that there are a lot of really wonderful places that would be great for their kids, and which their kids might not have heard of. For that matter, their peers and counselors might not have heard of them! Yes, it would be great if my kids were to go out and dig for every hidden gem of a school on their own. Reality: they won’t. There’s no peer pressure to do so, there’s no school pressure to do so, and they certainly wouldn’t know on their own that they could do so. Parental suggestions, on the other hand, can be a way to widen the kid’s horizons.</p>
<p>Like the other high school kids in this thread, I feel compelled to give my two bit.</p>
<p>As a first generation Asian immigrant and a senior in high school, I know exactly what Dr.Horse means by excessive parental pressures. I’m not big on predestination but I do agree with Dr.Horse in that talented and capable people always end up where they should be and get what they deserve. If someone is truly meant to go to Harvard, they will go to Harvard and they will get in relatively easily, doing their 120%. Working your 200% to get into these top schools is just trying to get to a place you don’t deserve.</p>
<p>I, and many of my friends, have never been pressured at home to attend the top schools. In fact, my high school is notorious for having so many students turn down Harvard and MIT to go to in-state schools. I believe the extent of parental interference is, like SlitheyTove says, to widen their kid’s horizon. I would have never discovered some of my passions if my parents did not force me to try it, and I am truly grateful for that.</p>
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<p>Ha! I’m usually the one digging up safety colleges and D looks at me like “are you trying to insult me?”.</p>
<p>Like everything else that is important in parenting, it’s a complex interactive balance between context, parent and child. All parents grapple to get the balance right, and it’s difficult because one parental approach does not at all work for all kids. Moreover, some kids turn out messed up, others turn out very successful, and its quite possible it had little or nothing to do with parental behavior, or everything to do with parental behavior. </p>
<p>Of course, before anyone is a parent, they think it’s much more black and white and simple than that, (and oh so obvious based on their biased tiny sample of observation and personal experience). Part of the experience of parenting is learning that our naive simple beliefs before parenting were all wrong. Or learning what worked for us as kids doesn’t work for our own children, or what worked with the first child has the opposite effect with the second. </p>
<p>My sister’s children with very different backgrounds: A child you could never pressure or it would entirely backfire. Another who is entirely self-propelled so it was a non-issue. Another who thanks his parents repeatedly now, as a very happy adult, for pushing him relentlessly to study his instrument when he wanted to quit so many times in his youth (now is an accomplished professional musician but I used to think they were wrong in their approach). </p>
<p>While anecdotal evidence can be helpful for showing a general theory has exceptions, it’s useless for drawing general principles. You’ve got small biased samples, selective memory, selective interpretation of the data, and no control group.</p>
<p>There is this thing called social science. Sure, as a naive lay person you can find some newspaper article somewhere on some study on just about anything, but that is a far cry from examining the evidence from controlled studies in peer reviewed journals emanating over decades of research that points in a particular direction.</p>
<p>To the OP- you said:
When mom comes home and over dinner asks Sarah if she has looked into University A, that is not interpreted as “oh mom must think this is good, maybe I should look into it” Instead its usually interpreted as “Mom must want me to go here, what do I do”. All it does is create stress and a state of despair for that student, they always feel as if they cant live up to mom or dad.</p>
<p>Actually, in our house, it worked out just opposite. Last night my son sent off the last off his college applications. Just recently he thanked me for suggesting a number of different schools to him. He said that if I hadn’t mentioned them, he would never have known much about them, nor looked at them seriously. He applied to several of the schools that I had suggested and he is quite happy with his college list. He feels that he would be very happy at any one of the schools (including his safeties) that he applied to and he credits that to me. I know him well and I found schools that I thought would be a good match for him. After looking at many of those schools, he agreed. Some of the schools I suggested he did not like after visiting them. But I don’t see that as a negative - visiting those “rejected” schools just firmed up in his mind what he really did want.
In the end, the list of schools he applied to was HIS list, not mine.</p>
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<p>The thing that would scare me most is if my children called themselves “Dr. Horse” and went on message boards in their spare time in graduate school to lecture parents how to raise their children :)</p>