<p>I am new to the boards but have been lurking for a bit. Am I recalling correctly that your child is an URM theGFG? (Please correct me if my memory is failing me). Could the nastiness that is hurled at you be an unintended consequence of affirmative action? I have no doubt that your child is worthy of acceptances to such great schools, but maybe others feel that her URM status was the clincher. In no way am I condoning this behavior, but others may see that as an unfair advantage and it could explain a lot of the animosity. My experience has been that most parents are quite nice and genuinely thrilled for the fortune of students who do well in admissions, so I have to wonder if there are some other factors that are contributing to all this negative attention.</p>
<p>Not trying to stir the pot…just commentating.</p>
<p>I despised those “parent projects” in junior high. </p>
<p>They tend to be given out by young teachers who have not yet been assigned parent projects of their own, yet. Teachers who have kids in high school seem to give out less of these “batteries sold separately” type of assignments.</p>
<p>In one teachers meeting I asked the 23 year old guy sitting behind the desk if he was aware that I had already done my fifth grade homework. </p>
<p>The worst were the ones where my kid would walk in with the helix constructed of gumdrops and marshmallows which was sort of hanging off the posterboard and some other kid’s parent would be carrying in the one made in the woodshop and painted and mounted and ready for it’s art show installation.</p>
<p>the onion recently had a hilarious headline “Third Grader Fired From Science Fair Project” or something along those lines. Picture of Mom and Dad at work on said project.</p>
I know people will think less of me for this, but at 9 PM I probably would have just told my kid to write down that, yes, ping pong balls and corks float in water, without verifying it empirically. Unless, of course, they were required to document this experiment on video or photographically.</p>
<p>I feel the same way as flyaround. I would have laughed and probably said something like, Help me out Brad. Tell the paparazzi to focus on others too. The press is kinda crazy sometimes but dont quote me on it. </p>
<p>That said, Ive seen my share of competitive parents starting about my Ds second grade. At the upstairs viewing lounge, some of the parents were criticizing the kids shots during their tennis lessons. After the practice, a couple of the parents complained to one of the instructors that he wasnt feeding enough balls to their kids and seems to be favoring X (which was my D!). :rolleyes: Sometime during middle school the entire kids in an age group in a private team clubs my D belonged to separated ways going to 3 competing teams because the parents were squabbling with each other about attention and playing time given to their kids. A new club was even formed just especially for the snowflakes.</p>
<p>Yep, poetgrl, one of those it-sounds-like-a-good-idea-but-in-practice-it’s-a-nightmare projects just shifted from being required to being optional, when the teachers’ kids started reaching the grade where it used to be obligatory. This particular one specifically instructed the students to work on the project with their parents’ help.</p>
<p>TheGFG was talking about honors and awards (both academic and athletic) earned by her children in HIGH SCHOOL, before they were accepted to colleges in the first place. There’s no “unfair advantage” to be had in this regard.</p>
<p>TheGFG - I am Asian, but I have very few Asian friends just because they weren’t around, not by choice. We lived in a very white town and my kids’ school had a large mix of Jewish, Asians (Indian, Japanese,Chinese, Korean, Black), and very large percentage of white people. I tend to be quite reserved in front of people and they generally get the sense what they could say to me. I have walked away from people if I didn’t like what they were saying.</p>
My sons HS baseball team recruited player Joe from a town 35 miles away from our town. During one of the snack shack volunteer hours, his parents and I talked while the father was grilling tri-tips. He told me they live in X town and I asked how Joe could play for our HS. He said his sons aunt lives in our town. Joe is the teams MVP and received the award so far for Frosh and sophomore years. My H told me that a few parents were complaining during one of the rare parent meetings that their kids hardly have any playing time. They didnt mention Joes name though, just focused on their son’s playing time. Since my S has no way of catching up to Joes caliber, I am not complaining but I understand the feelings of vexed parents since we pay high property taxes in our town.</p>
<p>Teaching our kids to compete, to strive for excellence in an area, is not a bad thing. It becomes problematic for our children, and their parents, when the desire to win becomes more important than the experience of participating, of growing, of learning. Some people have a harder time maintaining that balance than others.
I have to give credit to my kid’s high school for fostering values of sportsmanship in all areas of their education, from competing on the field to applying to colleges. It seems that being on the west coast makes being laid back about academics a bit easier (not so much with sports), but there also was a lot of effort put in to teaching respect, compassion, and integrity along side developing excellence. The efforts to foster the sense of community paid off in the friendships and true support that the kids had for one another, and in most cases, the parents also shared in promoting this spirit. My son is still very close to his high school friends, they care and support one another seven years out from HS. I am still friends with many of the parents of his class and we love sharing the stories about our kids being accepted to grad schools and getting good jobs. Many of us meet several times a year to catch up. Most are coming to my Ds wedding this summer. We were all pretty involved parents, but that didn’t translate to hyper competitiveness- we are genuinely happy for each success whether it’s the “linear” kid (your word) who always wanted to go into medicine and was accepted to med school or the one who wanted to live for awhile on her own in Europe and landed a teaching job in France. </p>
<pre><code>So, no, it’s not “all of us.” I guess, for you, finalchild, it’s two feet in any direction. That’s too bad. But that’s honestly not my experience in RL, and while I do see some of the hype on this board, I see a lot more parents coming here for information, advice and sharing. The college process is complicated, and most of us are proud and happy when our kids are happy and moving forward with their lives in a positive direction.
</code></pre>
Me neither. In a church sermon a while back the priest mentioned something about them - “to know morality you need to experience morality IRL” or something like that. It stuck in my mind. That’s the extent of my knowledge and I’m not even sure that’s correct. :)</p>
<p>This forum compares in many ways to a gardening forum I frequent. We’re all trying to find better ways to help our children bloom. We share experiences, ask for help, advise.</p>
<p>There are a lot of tricks to successful gardening: learning how to sow the soil, give just the right amount of light and water but not too much, allowing enough space for the plant’s roots to spread and of course, clearing out weeds that might stunt it’s growth. Even if you do everything right, you still might not get the results you were going for. It can be frustrating, but also very rewarding.<br>
While some people are committed to having the best garden in the neighborhood, and strive to be recognized in their local magazine for their “Garden of the Month,” most of us are just happy when our yard looks cared for and seems to be thriving. But even that takes a lot of work, knowledge, and not a small bit of dedication. So I go to the forum.</p>
Seriously? You don’t think a post like this is going to stir the pot? You backhandedly brought up probably the most controversial topic on this website. Maybe unintentionally, I don’t know. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. But really, “Now I don’t think this … but some people might say …”</p>
<p>I wouldn’t blame GFG if she thought you were Brad.</p>
<p>I thought Brad’s comment was clever. I guess it depends on how it was delivered. Tongue in cheek comments can be witty, especially if delivered with the appropriate wink and nod.</p>
<p>Pizzgrl, re: 331…So, at the tennis matches you made a choice, multiple times, assuming you went to at least a few matches. Even if it was almost as quick as a computer makes a calculation, you had to make a decision about how you were going to interact (or not). And I’m assuming that is is at least based on the kind of instant assessment we make when we assess a scene we come upon and “decide” how we’re going to handle it. So, what did you imagine might happen or what reactions you might have if had engaged more?</p>
<p>As an introvert who can get annoyed with others pretty easily, I’ve been at many a field where I checked out the landscape ahead of time before deciding on the perch for the game, trying to make sure I ended up far enough away from the worst sideline offenders, the ones who have a running commentary on the game, look for a new stranger to demonstrate their knowledge, yell at the refs incessantly (and/or the kids), and /or who love to enlist anyone available on a long monologue about how incredible each of his kids are (which I’ve already heard about 50 times at prior games).</p>
<p>Purely unintentional. I appreciate theGFG and her contributions to these boards and I have said so. </p>
<p>I was just trying to understand why she faces such negative feelings. I was just pointing out that there may be some consequences of affirmative action that may play into the emotions of competitive parents (and students). Really, I was just trying to make an objective observation and it was not intended to be personal in any way.</p>