I wasn’t reacting to what the OP wrote, but to the initial responses he or she got. Lots of bragging about how people laid down the law and kept their kids in line, but as far as I could tell little evidence that any of them ever had their bluff called. I would love to know how it worked out for the kid the OP described whose father yanked him out of college when he got one too many B-'s.
As for a boy who is “extremely bright” but “a pretty terrible student through most of high school”:
(1) I wonder what the OP considers “pretty terrible.” For a significant portion of the College Confidential community, “terrible” can mean “less than 4.0.”
(2) It is extremely common for bright students who are not top performers in high school to do much better in college. Especially boys. In many places, high school is boring and awful, and it’s hard for kids to see any real connection between the work they are asked to do and anything that feels important to them. Plus, they have little or no control over their curriculum. And they are really immature in high school (especially boys). Granted, mediocre performance in high school does not guarantee college success, but neither does superlative performance achieved with a ton of parental support. This kid is not fundamentally different from most kids starting college.
(3) Of course I understand the feeling of not wanting to pay for college if a kid isn’t going to take it seriously. If your real goal is to have your child be self-supporting and productive, not merely getting Bs or better in college, you need a more subtle back-up plan than enforcing an arbitrary pay-for-performance clause you dreamed up.
Finally, I “lost” my old account when the website restructured last winter and started a new one. I have been an active participant here for more than a decade. I have been familiar with what “senior members” say for a long time. I am not on the same page: that’s the point.
Most of the time there is a reason beyond “lazy” for a very bright kid being an under-achiever. Some times it is as simple as too many distractions from partying or friends, but that is typically fairly easy to resolve as a kid matures unless there is a true alcohol or substance abuse problem. Sometimes it is simply that the kid just honestly doesn’t have the drive to achieve that the parent thinks they should have - a Type B personality in a Type A household. Nothing wrong with that, and many Type B people end up successful enough for their own goals, even if those aren’t the parent’s goals. As a parent, it is hard to see a kid “waste” their potential. Some kids really are lazy or have parents that don’t hold them accountable for anything and so don’t understand hard work. I am sure others can come up with additional reasons.
But then there are the kids with the intelligence to achieve anything but who are hampered by other issues: physical health, ADD, anxiety, depression or more serious mental health challenges.
So many parents of successful kids truly believe that their parenting gets the credit for their children’s success. No Cs allowed means our kid will never get a C. Of course good parenting helps, and really bad parenting or living situations can derail even highly capable kids. But personality, learning issues and mental health, IMHO, play an enormous role in success. Families who have never experienced any of these issues have no idea how they would address them, even if they believe they have the answers. And families that have understand that there is no “one size fits all” response that will “fix” their child.
This is an interesting discussion. While I’m not a fan of gray areas, I do take @MohnGedachtnis ’ point – if a kid is trying hard that is the most important thing. And I also agree that oftentimes it isn’t down to parenting how a kid turns out, or at least the specifics of parenting. I have 3 sons and each is wildly different. One was a partier the other is the most straight arrow you can find – same parents, same household; I cannot take credit for the straight arrow and similarly I don’t take blame for the wild child.
The only time we issued an ultimatum was when we were concerned about the wild child’s drug use in college. Luckily for us, in a heated discussion about it he said “you can drug test me!” and we pounced – we set up periodic random drug testing (through the school, which was tremendously helpful) and with the understanding that if he tested positive he was OUT – immediately pulled from school, no planned semester abroad etc etc. (This was for opiates which clear your system within days, not for something like weed). He did not ever test positive.
This was a kid who also had bad grades the semester he pledged a fraternity; we did not pull him; he understood that once he graduated he was on his own, not for any punitive reason but because we simply couldn’t afford to support him. He’s ended up at a top investment bank, with a great salary, so it ended well (he matured tremendously during college – by the time he was a junior he was firing on all cylinders.
“I wasn’t reacting to what the OP wrote, but to the initial responses he or she got. Lots of bragging about how people laid down the law and kept their kids in line”
I agree that the comments were pretty harsh and a contract between two 45 year olds and an 18 year old seems odd. However these parents know their kids best so if that’s what worked, you can’t really judge it.
I agree that parents are usually the best judge of what works for their own kid. Mine works her tail off. If she did end up with a C or worse in a tough engineering course, so be it. I know it isn’t for lack of effort on her part. It’s a popular true story at Purdue that Neil Armstrong got a C in his freshman calculus class.
That said, she had friends in HS who were big partiers, didn’t put in a lot of effort, and their parents were rightfully concerned, IMO, of how things would be in college. One family had their child live at home and commute until they could earn their parents’ trust before living on campus.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable for a parent to say they have GPA expectations, especially since OP seems to be very reasonable about the threshold.
Parents can be the best judges of what works for their own kids, but not all of them will be. Consider overbearing tiger parents, or parents who force their kids into specific majors or career paths, or parents who surprise their kids with unexpectedly high expectations after the kid has failed to meet them, etc. that have been the subject of threads on these forums.
However, it does not look like the OP is being especially unreasonable (mentions 2.5 GPA and C grades in post #0), unlike some of the parents in those other threads.
@mom2and I like your posts. I was going to write the same thing as your last post but probably less articulately
My main question to the OP is why did he do “terribly” in school? Even kids who party often have a reason, such as avoidance. Is there any chance he has ADHD or some other challenge?
There is a book called “The Myth of Laziness” that might be worth reading.
How does someone get into a state school with “luck and charm”? Usually admissions at state schools is pretty much based on GPA and scores and not exactly holistic. Is he a star athlete? (Maybe athletics are taking time from academics?)
Some kids have addictions to video games, that kind of thing.
It may be too personal to reveal but I don’t feel I could offer any kind of opinion without understand why a bright kid isn’t doing well in high school.
ps I had one who came home after a year, did CC and is now in a continuing ed degree completion program that allows her to take one class at a time while working. At 27 she has one more year. It’s fine. I didn’t have any contract with her.
What I did was put as much as I could into the relationship so there was trust. I visited her at college that first year and she revealed some things to me and made the choice herself. All in all this scenario avoided both carrot and stick, and I am happy about that. I always tried to convey that I believed in her, and I do.
Other kids in the family went to top schools and finished the traditional way. The kid who left college and worked while taking classes is very mature and has gained some experience deaing with challenges.
I don’t like contracts. The school will put a student on probation without your help, and I am not comfortable with the notion that my money gives me the right to drive the bus that is your life.
I learned this the hard way – we felt this same way about our bright charming child, right until his “laziness” was diagnosed as a learning disability, after college crisis [insert long story] uncovered it. Do you want your student to feel like you are on his side, or you are just another force arrayed with approbation?
I would rather see the OP sit down and express the worries, discuss the options, and without formalizing things, let natural consequences teach the lesson. Our kids are not an investment from which we deserve a return; they are people who are guaranteed to make stupid, stupid mistakes and need to get up again. It’s going to cost money, yes.
my money gives me the right to drive the bus that is your life.<<<<<<<<<<
But the kids are also driving that destructive bus, destroying parents and families with selfish choices. It is a thing, not every naughty kid has a pathology.
Relationships are an important factor in motivation. Communication, mutual trust, support can do a lot more than contracts and punitive measures. Autonomy is also important even at a time in life when financially kids are hardly autonomous.
Bottom line is, maintain the relationship. If the kid fails and has to leave, it is not the disaster everyone thinks it is.
OP here. Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts. The responses of the sort I was asking for–your experiences–have been most helpful, and I look forward to spending more time with those.
I also understand some people like to share their philosophies of parenting and to criticize other parents, and my post probably seemed like an open invitation. No hard feelings or harm done.
As I write, the tide seems to be turning on higher ed for Fall 2020 in general, so it’s look like a very good time for a gap year, which we really haven’t thought about enough (though we’ve talked vaguely about starting school “later”).
Be sure to consider what the student can do during a gap year (or semester). Many of the typical gap year activities mentioned on these forums are likely to be more difficult to do.
Thanks, ucbalumnus. (Are we fellow Berkeley grads?) That’s a very good point.
He was working part-time at a gym before things shut down, and I think they’d be happy to have him full- or part-time if they get on their feet and able to hire. So that may be something for a start. There’s a lot to figure out . . . .
It is very common that these threads drift from the original question and move to a broader discussion of the issues raised in the OP (or even on one small aspect of that). Some responses have provided info on parenting philosophy to explain why they did not enter into a contract with their kids, which is their experience on the topic at hand.
Just one last reminder of how much growing up 17-20 year olds do- and it is rarely linear. Sometimes it’s not laziness, it’s not medical or psychological or wildness- it’s just the brain syncing up and maturing. I have been astounded with each collegekid just how big a jump in maturity we have seen- most dramatically in the first semester of first and third years.
The overall gist of these posts are compatible with a “be very very specific about the expectations and be very very clear the checkbook is not guaranteed” approach Call it a contract if that language works in your family. Call it a 'we are all transitioning to your becoming more adult and more responsible for yourself, and these are the parameters for now" talk. Make it be about his ‘new job’ and his remuneration (tuition, room & board) and the review and renewal process. Whatever works for you and him when you are all operating at your best! The real point is to try and have as bilateral a conversation as possible, given the power disparity.
