Your parents' style

College Confidential Community
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<p>My parents are completely hands off. They don't even really look at my report cards any more. After parent teacher conferences, they usually get on me to sleep more, but they're both asleep by about 10, so there's no real enforcement. </p>

<p>Also, to legendofmax: I don't get rides anywhere either. Both my parents work, all day. I have a bike, I have legs, and I have a brain. That's more than enough to get around in most places. It helps if there's public transportation. We have metro in the DC area, and it works. It's not fantastic, or particularly quick, but it gets you there.</p>

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<p>ELorax: I lived on a mountain with no public transportation really freaking far away from everything else. I didn't live in a city -- nor did I have access to a car to get to where I wanted most of the time unless I paid for gas, which was 120 bucks a fill every two weeks. Bikes, legs, and brains are not more than enough sometimes.</p>

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<p>also 2 words:</p>

<p>Indian parents</p>

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<p>My parents pretty much motivate me, and took me on college tours in the 8th the grade, but I also motivate myself too. For example, I cried when I didn't get into a magnet middle school, but was estatic to be accepted into the IB program and other magnet high schools *which i wanted to go to. Sure, I go to a state school (based on college rejections :( )now but I'm pretty motivated to study abroad, get involved with my college, and get the top notch grades. I prefer to transfer to a more prestigious school (yes I said a more prestigious one), but I'm looking at schools to study abroad for a year. I go on this board just to motivate me on why I'm in college, and what I'm here for ;) !</p>

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<p>Haha my parents are...interesting. My dad really wants me to go into medicine, even though he knows I can't do anything with math and science. My mom's more understanding. They're both fairly hands off though; it's probably because they've pushed me all throughout middle school that I've acquired my own really high expectations in high school. Report cards aren't a big deal...I told my mom that I'd be getting a B in chem and she was like "ehh I knew it" (even though I managed to bring it up in the end). </p>

<p>Test scores are another thing though. First mother dearest didn't care (though she really wanted me to take a prep course) and told me she won't butt in as long as I'm happy with what I got. Now that I raised my SAT score, she's been bugging me to raise my subject test scores, even though they're still fairly decent.</p>

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<p>I'm a unique case: my parents were my teachers. I was homeschooled at least part-time until high school, except for 4th and 6th grade. And my mother is a teacher at my high school, and I had her for two years of Spanish. And almost all my friends had her as a teacher, too. :p</p>

<p>So in that way, my parents were very hands-on. They've always been involved in or at least supportive of everything school-related I've done. And even non-school-related things like the music I listened to... in 8th grade my dad drove me all the way across the state to take me to my favorite band's concert. :p </p>

<p>However, they haven't put pressure on me: "You should be taking these classes... Why did you get a B on that assignment?... Those SAT scores aren't good enough; here, I'll sign you up to retake them." They've always been with me: "Oh, good job!" or "Well, that's a pity." They've encouraged me to do ECs that interest me. The only pressure they've put on me was when I was going into 9th grade and my mom practically made me join the cross country team. She said it would be a good way to make friends, and it was. Nevertheless, I hated it; my mom made me stick it out, but then she didn't make me do it again in 10th grade. She signed the two of us up for fencing classes later in my freshman year, and it turned out to be something we both really enjoyed. </p>

<p>She knew that I would be disappointed in myself if I performed poorly or got in trouble, so she never had to bother with guiding me in that regard. I'm self-motivated.</p>

<p>She helped with looking for colleges, but she never forced her opinion on me or anything. I always, always had the last word. She was a good resource, though, because... well, all that research is easier as a two-person job, and she and I share points of view on nearly everything, and we talk about nearly everything, so I could discuss colleges with her, and she knew what points to make that were relevant to my college search, and she had looked at different descriptions of the schools... so that was good. Not pushy; definitely not helicopterish; just useful. </p>

<p>And my dad... well, he doesn't meddle. He helped homeschool, and he's supportive at the appropriate times, and sometimes he helped me with my math homework (though usually I answered my own question by just explaining the problem to him), but he's not too involved. He did take me on my college visit trip, but I think that was mostly because he doesn't work and my mom does, so he could more easily take off for the East Coast for a week and a half in October. :p</p>