<p>Great article. <a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/in-mclean-a-crusade-to-get-people-to-back-off-in-the-parenting-arms-race/2014/03/23/9259c6a2-a552-11e3-a5fa-55f0c77bf39c_story.html”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/in-mclean-a-crusade-to-get-people-to-back-off-in-the-parenting-arms-race/2014/03/23/9259c6a2-a552-11e3-a5fa-55f0c77bf39c_story.html</a></p>
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<p>People are really out of control. I feel for their kids.</p>
<p>Our school district recently announced that they would be introducing IB. My first thought was thank god it is too late for my sons to have to decide whether or not to participate.</p>
<p>"Many fellow parents think that disarming sounds good, in theory. The problem is, they’re reluctant to try it with their own kid.</p>
<p>So, the pressure mounts."</p>
<p>This is what makes it so difficult to step off the train.</p>
<p>My child was with group of kids when one high school junior said, “Were your SAT scores “X High School” good, or just “Y Instate Flaship” good?”</p>
<p>The culture of that particular high school is a pressure cooker for some kids. </p>
<p>I also think we live in a country where some kids are living in a pressure cooker of parent/peer/self/school expectations, while forty miles away other kids are living in a vaccuum of family/peer/school breakdown. The story is completely different. Perhaps many kids across the country are not being challenged at school. The article addresses those places where people read that we (as a country) are failing to challenge our kids, and assume that all schools are failing to challenge students. Thus, the pressure cooker that I see in my area has been created.</p>
<p><a href=“America's Workers: Stressed Out, Overwhelmed, Totally Exhausted - The Atlantic”>America's Workers: Stressed Out, Overwhelmed, Totally Exhausted - The Atlantic;
<p>I think this article is entwined with the one Sally linked. Overworked parents who believe overwork is the path to success for their kids create overworked kds. </p>
<p>Interesting. And really sad, since overworked, stressed-out people are generally not as happy and healthy as those who aren’t.</p>
<p>Our HS started IB after S graduated. My first thought was that he probably would have found it very interesting, intellectually. :)</p>
<p>In reality, a lot of people live here in Maine because they wanted to step off the treadmill elsewhere. Here, women I know who are lawyers can and do choose to work part time until their children graduate from HS and still live in a nice place. Other families can choose to always have at least one parent working at home during those years. And these parents are grads of Ivies and Seven Sisters and Stanford. Yes, it is a trade-off, but here one can MAKE the trade-off.</p>
<p>It is true, though, that the economy is very small, so replacing the professional job that provides the economic basis to do this can be very, very difficult. </p>
<p>I’m finding my college sr. daughter seems burned out. I think probably because the academic pressure cooker started in jr. high and she’s been working like a dog since. She was gearing up to apply for graduate school and just crashed and burned - my opinion from stress although that’s not what the doctor says. She’s taking a year off to regroup (and probably get married). I’m just glad she got through undergrad, something I never did, it will be interesting to see what she does next. </p>
<p>It is hard to see clearly when you/your kids are in the middle of it, but clear as a bell to see in other families. My own are out of college, in college, and a high schooler. My SIL is working full time, with two young children. The oldest is in elementary school, and their lives are crazy. Drop one off at preschool/daycare, drop the other off at before school care, race to the metro, long commute into the city, high pressured job, reverse at the end of the day, hit the house with barely time to eat, out again for soccer, running club, brownies, tutoring, swimming, race home for homework, baths, bed, catch up on emails, throw in some laundry, hit the bed after midnight, up at five AM and repeat. </p>
<p>She believes every one of the activities she hauls her kids to 7 days a week is vital. From my perspective so much of it is meaningless, unless the kids love the activity. The girls could not care less, but they still get pushed to go, go, go. </p>
<p>This thread is an interesting juxtaposition to the Adam Lanza father thread… there, people are saying “do more”, here, “do less.”</p>
<p>To the right of this article is a link to a list of 13 things “Successful People” do during their lunch hours.</p>
<p>Workers whose lifelong dream is to be successful are encouraged to write out To-Do lists, have one networking lunch per week, work on their career plans, rehash the problems from the morning, read newspapers and books, run errands, work out, and brainstorm for new business ideas. And eat healthy of course.</p>
<p>Slackers should just sit down and enjoy their food and the peace and quiet. They will never know what they are missing. </p>
<p>eastcoascrazy, I have a friend like your SIL. Until she lost her job she had a nanny doing all the driving during the week, and then on Saturday and Sunday she and her husband did the crazy routines of swim lessons, dance class, enrichment activities, church stuff, Mandarin and Chinese culture (their kids are adopted from China). Now she does it full time and is incredibly resentful. Nevertheless, they have been doing this for years and the older one is only now in fourth grade.</p>
<p>I am glad to have successfully avoided most of the madness. If my kids had had a different father or we had lived in a different environment we could have been those people. And I get how easy it is to justify all of it.</p>