<p>So S is undergoing a very rough patch here in HS and several people I have spoken too, including some at his school, have indicated that he may be resisiting his work because he is intimidated by his folks. Theory: Me and the wife are both graduates of top schools and kid feels he can never measure up so why try. Does this make any sense? </p>
<p>We never talk much about our alma maters and we aren’t the type of parents who say “You have to follow in our footsteps and go to so-and-so.” My parents never went to dollege, my wif’e’s folks did but never pressured her into going to either of their alma maters. But S will brag to his friends about where we went, I’m told by his teachers, in what seems like some weird compensation for his own failure to adequately compete academically. Seems to me like a young boy’s immaturity at work in overdrive, but I’d hate to think he won;t live up to his potential because we lived up to ours. Anybody have any experience with this sort of thing?</p>
<p>Yes, younger S’s therapist said the same about our sons: that they were intimidated by our accomplishments even though H and I didn’t go out of our way to show off. Therapist said our sons were very aware of our accomplishments, and feared they wouldn’t measure up.</p>
<p>I’ve also read some research that indicates that kids who perceive their parents to be failures are likely to do better in life than are kids who perceive their parents as successes. I remember posting a link to the research on CC. You might still be able to find it in the archives.</p>
<p>Had an interesting dinner yesterday with older S, 24, who despite being brilliant (no exaggeration) flunked out of a 2nd tier college that was his safety school. He hadn’t bothered to go to class. Anyway, he’s been supporting himself for 2 years doing temporary office work jobs, the type that one doesn’t need a college education to do. Yet, he in h.s. was doing paid internships – including one that was out of state – that college students and grad students usually got to do. He got those internships due to his hard work, not because we lined them up for him.</p>
<p>S seems perfectly happy with his job and life even though he can’t afford a car, has to have a roommate for an apartment, and has no benefits. He is happy to be able to easily excel at his job, which he probably could have excelled at while a h.s. student. His roommate works as an assistant manager of a pizza parlor.</p>
<p>I am absolutely baffled at the choices S has made in his life. He did not have parents who urged him to be a doctor or to follow money and prestige when it came to selecting a field. We told him to do what H and I did – follow his passions, whatever they were. How he decided to basically settle for an easy job that he has little interest in is beyond us.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, for fun, he reads the great books and stays up on current events. There are few people whom you’d meet who are more well informed. Yet, he doesn’t see any reason to bother finishing college. </p>
<p>Hard for me to understand how S grew up in our household and is choosing the lifestyle he’s chosen.</p>
<p>NSM: So I guess there is some truth to this idea. I’d never thought of it before. Never occurred to me that being proud of my folks meant that I had dispensation to underperform. In my darker moments I feel that I would be lucky if S ended up as well as yours. He at least has a job and reads good books. In my darker moods I have the distinct feeling I’ll be walking down the sidewalk ten years from now and find him sleeping in a cardboard box. (No, there are no drug/aclochol problems.) Probably an exageration, I know. But I’ll keep seeking to find him a way to take ownership of his life (not mine) and look for some of the research yoou talked about.</p>
<p>NSM: perhaps S’s passion is the books he reads for “fun” but he was never able to figure out how to make his passion a career that appealed to him or would support him? Sounds like, in a sense, he is following his passion, just not getting paid for it.</p>
<p>You are right scansmom. S also is an avid creative writer.</p>
<p>Now that I think about it, perhaps he is acting like the creative writers who read avidly, write avidly while working menial jobs. </p>
<p>He also was a really good journalist, but got sick of the field. Prefers creative writing lots more.</p>
<p>I am grateful to CC because comments like yours have helped me appreciate the fact that although S is a college drop-out, he is living independently and supporting himself. </p>
<p>Back to the original post: My dad was brilliant, and was good across the board in every subject. I remember he told me that he’d gotten 100% on the French Regent’s test in NY State. That’s a reason that I switched out of h.s. French: I figured I’d never be as good as Dad. He was a dentist, graduating first in his dental school class, and getting a commendation on his score on the NY State dental boards. When I was young, I wanted to be a doctor, but switched out of that because I figured I wouldn’t do as well in the courses as Dad had done in dental school.</p>
<p>Interestingly, I don’t remember my mom or dad’s ever expecting me to do as well as Dad had done. I was the one comparing, and feeling I couldn’t come up to the standard that he had set.</p>
<p>Honestly, though I believe your concerns are real and genuine, I think a more common path is the one hinted at by Northstarmom: Choosing to excel in a different field when your parents are intimidating. Sometimes when people talk about a gift or a profession skipping generations, this is actually what they’re getting at. Both my parents were scarily smart med school professors; my brother, sister, and I all chose media related fields instead.</p>
<p>None of my siblings followed in my Dad’s footsteps, and we are all considerably less ambitious than he was. He wanted to be the top of his profession and was. </p>
<p>I’m waiting for Northstarmom’s son to surprise us all with the great American novel, or the next big screenplay. Promise to tell us if it happens!</p>
<p>Based on what evidence do the schoolfolks suggest this? I thought: maybe the schoolfolks are intimidated by his folks’ pedigree, and are merely projecting that onto your son. They’ve only heard him brag to his friends; that’s not enough to make a causal connection that it’s the reason he’s not performing maximally himself.</p>
<p>There’s not enough communication here to satisfy me. At best, consider the teachers’ comments as hypothetical heads-up, and a chance to initiate a warm-spirited conversation between you and S at home to see if there’s any truth here, and if so, stand on your heads to reassure him that you know he’s smart, but it’s time to start performing a bit on his own genetic fabric. Explain to him that it’s off-putting to drop names about colleges. Many h.s. teachers have solid educations from a wide range of universities. They honestly don’t appreciate hearing pedigrees dropped in conversation to impress. They did your S a service if all this does is lets you teach him not to do that.</p>
<p>My instinct is that “immaturity in overdrive” could be the real story. He is trying to tell his friends he’s smart, and choosing to do it this way instead of by making the grades. </p>
<p>My pathway to discuss this (uh oh, a pathway) would be to tell S at home that he IS smart, can’t not be, but that’s not the point. Does he want others to know he’s smart? Of course he does, we all want respect. What are the ways to show that? (well, one way to NOT do it is to coattail on parents’ diplomas). Maybe you’ll get him to say he has to show his own merit. The face-saving thing is that you know this is a developmental stage and needn’t be a permanent way he relates to others.</p>
<p>To me, it sounds like he’s making a social faux-pas around school, the teachers picked up on it, he’s insecure, and he’ll outgrow it if you help him supportively.</p>
<p>Northstarmom, I can sympathize. I have 2 of them. Both id’d gifted and in those programs while in school but flunked out of colleges. Working at lower level jobs, maintenance and retail. Only their passions are the computer games. </p>
<p>Now, after a couple of years, both are starting to look at going back and finishing. DH says in his day, the military took care of the growing up time and going back to school after serving made all the difference. After he flunked out he was drafted. I guess this is just another path to the maturing process.</p>
<p>They are sandwiched between successful S1 and DD. So maybe other factors in there, too.</p>
<p>Sounds a lot like my father. Who was not only the valedictorian of his high school class, and admitted to Yale at a time when they had a strict quota limiting the numbers of Jewish students they took, but also, out of approximately 100,000 high school seniors in New York State, had the second highest score in the entire State in the statewide, all-subjects Regents exam they had back then. (They still had that exam when I was in high school, but I believe it no longer exists.)</p>
<p>And I remember knowing this from the time I was a little kid; my father still had the newspaper clipping from the New York Times. Of course, I also knew all about his straight A’s (because he had saved all his report cards!), as well as about the fact that after he graduated from Yale he went on to Columbia Law School, where he was a brilliant student and on law review. Occasionally, when I was a young lawyer, I would run into people who’d gone to law school with him who remembered how brilliant he was and told me all about it. And, of course, he ended up as a partner in tax law at one of the larger New York City firms.</p>
<p>I never felt I could live up to his achievements, or my mother’s either for that matter. (Graduating from Columbia Law School the same year as my father, as one of only three women in her class – five years after arriving as a refugee from Nazi Germany, and after zipping through Sarah Lawrence, where she was admitted as a scholarship student, in about two years.)</p>
<p>No matter how well I did academically in high school, or thereafter, I couldn’t live up to his achievements. (Even though I actually did better than he did in college.) But I certainly wasn’t on law review at Harvard. And I know I deliberately stayed away from tax law as a field, because I felt I couldn’t possibly live up to his standards. And, unlike him, I’ve never been a partner at any firm, let alone one of the big ones. When I think about all of it, he still makes me feel like something of a failure by comparison!</p>
<p>I really don’t get the feeling, though, that my son has felt intimidated by my own achievements, such as they are. He certainly hasn’t seemed to, although he has enjoyed comparing his SAT scores to mine, and seemed happy that combined, they were identical to mine (not counting the writing section, which didn’t exist, of course, when I was in high school), that he did as well on AP’s and subject tests, that he got into as many good colleges as I did, etc., etc. So, competitive, perhaps (which is fine; I’m kind of amused by it), but not, I think, intimidated.</p>
<p>I did hear a 17 year old recently say “My dad went to yale and berkeley; my mom went to yale, harvard and stanford. There’s no way I’m ever going to get into any of their schools.” He sounded defeated. At 17!</p>
<p>This is so coincidental. I live in an exurb with a good high school and lots of well-educated middle and upper middle class families. I know of at least 3 local families in which the parents were very accomplished - Ivy League educated, high-paying or otherwise impressive jobs - but their sons (I haven’t heard this with daughters) were slackers in high school. In one case, one son is out of high school but not in college and still trying to figure out what to do with his life. Another one “fell in with the wrong crowd” and is now in community college. Another finally got serious about his school work in his senior year and is going to a small college out west. I was wondering whether these kids were “intimidated” as the thread starter stated, by their parents.</p>
<p>Kids today have much more information with which to judge others and be judged by. My father was very accomplished, but I never compared myself to him because he grew up in Europe and his life and education were not comparable to my own. I chose my college based on what I wanted to study, not USNWR - it didn’t exist. My kids know how everything is perceived and measured in the marketplace that is their school and city, and they are much more stressed about what constitutes success. My children don’t seem to burn with the same ambition I had at their age - but then, I wanted to move out of the sleepy suburb I grew up in, while my kids already live in a place others seek to move to. I viewed education as my ticket out - but my kids aren’t trying to escape. Intimidation is in the air now - not necessarily because of parental accomplishments, but that may be part of the larger package.</p>
<p>A large percentage of boys are slackers through high school years. They slack for a myriad of reasons, but mostly because it doesn’t do them any harm. Personally, I’d say that a teenage boy who avoids competing is avoiding competition with the most important people in his life–his peers. Blaming Mommy and Daddy? I don’t buy it. </p>
<p>Besides, on another thread, I read that educational researcher Carol Dweck believes that boys benefit from the relentless criticism of their slacking. One, they learn to filter harsh criticism (which teacher-pleasing girls don’t learn). Two, they learn to associate learning with effort; ie “If you don’t do the work, you won’t get the grades.” I like that theory as it goes a long way towards explaining why so many boys turn the heat on in college–and do very very well.</p>
<p>Make sure his bookshelf is well-stocked with books he is naturally drawn to and wait with patience.</p>
<p>Don’t think S or D were intimidated in anyway. Parents PhD’s taught at ivies, both kids ended up at ivies. S in dual degree one of which in same field. I am guessing it depends on the kids, parents and situation.</p>
<p>I’m intimidated by my father, who didn’t even get a four-year degree. He has other personal qualities that I could never measure up to, but in terms of academics:</p>
<p>He’s an engineer (used to do stuff with automation), and I’m studying at an engineering college. He wanted me to study either computer science or electrical/computer engineering, since both involved developing highly desirable skill sets. So, I tried a course in each. But I quickly realized that I have absolutely no aptitude for either. </p>
<p>I told him earlier in the semester that I was struggling, and that I’d probably end up doing mechanical engineering. He sounded surprised that I was having problems, and said I should avoid mechanical engineering since it’s becoming a more stagnant field, and because it would be better for me to have CS skills and stuff.</p>
<p>I’ve never felt pressured by him, but all the sudden I’m feeling like I’m not quite meeting his expectations. He probably feels that if he can do it, I should be able to do it too. Maybe I’m just too easily discouraged, but to be honest I’m afraid of falling short of his expectations if I go into CS or ECE. And frankly, I don’t think I’m really smart enough to be a good programmer, and I’m just not really an E&M person.</p>
<p>I’ve been given a much greater academic opportunity than my dad was. He tells me I have a promising future. But I’m not sure that I’ll be able to live up to it. I <em>should</em> be able to do well in CS/ECE, but, for some reason, I kind of suck at things like that. But I’ve pretty much decided on mechE now, and I’ll probably enjoy it and be good at it.</p>
<p>I’d think there can be vastly different messages from brilliant parents, depending on the amount of interest in the next generation. My dad was exceptionally intelligent as well successful without looking as if he was trying very hard. An incredible intellect as well, with myriad interests that he followed with great dicipline. I was never seen as having much promise and others were mostly an audience for his accomplishments. He was a great example of someone who lived a very interesting life, and some of that rubbed off. But there was little interest in his kids and their paths. As recent research on Aspergers has come to light, I’ve realized that some of those patterns have been part of my family, perhaps for generations. Perhaps I’m not the only one whose family has been touched by both brilliance and Aspergers.</p>
<p>As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to see that maybe I’m not so dumb after all. But I grew up in a different age and time, with perhaps my own set of neurological and socioeconomic issues that kept me from his level of accomplishment.</p>