I think the book “Excellent Sheep” is good on this topic.
Entitled people have always been around. However with reality TV and 24/7 news shows, I think outrageous behavior has become acceptable and in some instances, admired. We’ve all seen times when the “squeaky wheel” gets the desired outcome. Many emulate the behavior, because these individuals garner a lot of attention and seem to become successful financially. But it seems like bullying to me.
Not only ^^, but now with the internet you too can learn how to be an effective squeaky wheel.
It just the first step of Helicopter Parenting
I wanted to re-echo TheGFG’s comments above:
“And third, she brushed off pretty quickly the role of high schools and colleges in creating the need to be tirelessly perfect. The elite schools have contributed to the escalation of over-scheduling by admitting the over-scheduled superstars over the normal, balanced kids who actually sleep 8 hours a night. Maybe that’s why the kids are so depressed. They’ve been sleep-deprived for years. Seriously, as one example of what goes on that has nothing to do with parents, in just ONE of D’s high school classes the teacher handed out a sizeable novel on Monday, demanded that it be read by Friday for a quiz, and assigned 5 mini essays about the book to be submitted on Friday also. Then a timed writing test would be given the class after that. In addition, there was a timed writing and major essay due the same week for the previous literary work. Multiply that workload by 7 other classes, and that’s what these kids deal with. So again, excuse me if I do her laundry for her and have to wake up her poor exhausted self on Friday morning.”
Been there, done that.
It seems to me that the Stanford Dean’s blaming the standardized tests for the admissions frenzy and over-scheduled applicants is missing practically all of the picture, in some regions of the country. A smart student can take the standardized tests and score very well with zero prep. And often they have to take them with zero or near-zero prep, because of the time demands of homework.
The local high school was perhaps not quite as crazy as TheGFG’s daughter’s high school in terms of the homework demands, but it was pretty close. The idea behind much of “homeworke nouveau” involves “authentic” tasks, which take the better students longer than they take weaker students–see the comment about mini-essays above. That is different from the situation in my day, when a stronger student could usually finish the homework faster. Okay, probably someone will suggest that a “savvy” student would just quickly dash off 5 mini essays that are adequate for A’s in order to spare more time for better things; but a serious, reflective student might not do that. In many schools, the students cannot afford to simply write off or ignore the required homework, because of detrimental effects on GPA (too many B’s and/or C’s).
It is years too late for our family, but I still don’t know what would have been the right response to excessive homework. My spouse has remarked to me that at the military academies, a homework assignment is viewed as an “order.” (I don’t have direct confirmation of that, but he is often right.) Without treating homework assignments with quite that level of seriousness, I myself was brought up to take them quite seriously. But it seems counter-productive now. On the other hand, I don’t know how college applications turn out for students with high standardized test scores and a 2.8 GPA, either.
In at least two schools (TheGFG’s and our local one), it is the excessive homework assignments that are preventing the students from exploring their personal interests, and not the fact that they are not doing laundry, nor waking up by themselves on Fridays.
Another situation that impacts busyness and stress is that the requirements for every honor and position have escalated in our high school. Take NHS, as an example. Ten years ago when S was the same age as D, the number of volunteer hours required prior to admission to NHS was some minimal number like 15, with 30 required after induction to remain active. Now to get in it’s 80 hours divided between school and community (can’t apply more than 40 of either*), and any hours performed for scouting or CCD or other activities do not count. A two-page essay is also required now, something my older children did not have to do for NHS. In addition to community service, the students must show evidence of leadership, but one cannot double dip. Let’s say the student organized a charity event. She could apply that to the community service component or to the leadership component, but not both. I have no opinion on whether the requirements are fair and representative of what is typical at other schools, but the point is that it’s now harder to achieve than it used to be. The same applies to honor roll, the subject honor societies, ( a new prerequisite for the science society is that the student must do research and give an informal lecture) and even to becoming the team captain for athletics.
(* This precludes the student from single-mindedly pursuing some service passion in all his spare time, because unless he wants to forfeit NHS he must put in his 40 hours doing something different.)
As long as the ‘Stanfords’ of the world keep accepting these kids, their parents will keep writing their resumes for them.
One of the “problems” is that many kids do take to these expanded expectations and stretch well. And sleep, have friends, etc.
Wearing my Mom hat, we did pull our kids back from some things, seek balance, depending.
But if your kid is aiming for a tippy top, the Olympics, professional ballet, national marching band competition, Siemens, etc, it will take the hours and effort.
I don’t blame the top colleges for having tough competition. Though some posters feel it’s manufactured, fact is, all those driven kids are vying for the same win you are. You/your kid still have some choice.
People- know your kid. If you are raising an anxious, perfectionist kid, then making sure he/she’s got the profile for Stanford at the expense if his/her mental health is just bad parenting. If your kid is chronically sleep deprived gunning for some award or stupid honor society at HS, take your kid out for an ice cream and explain that there is nothing more important to you than your child’s health- mental, physical, spiritual. If your kid is being tied up in knots trying to craft the perfect resume at the expense of his/her true self (not to get too Oprah about it) then mom/dad- fix it. Tell the kid that the new household rules involve attending grandma’s 80th birthday party even if means getting kicked off the soccer team for non-attendance at an important match, and that all children living in the house must make dinner once a week even if it means dropping yearbook to get home in time. And that you will no longer communicate with club leaders, coaches, faculty, etc except in case of a medical emergency where you will be at your child’s side the second you can get there.
Be a parent.
Don’t act like some outside force is making you abdicate all grown up judgement in order to mold the perfect clone.
blossom’s #48 provides totally sensible advice. However, I still do not know how I as a parent should have handled unreasonable homework demands–obviously, I mean unrealistic demands on the students. I was brought up to think that one was supposed to do a good job on homework; and I continued to adopt this view in advising QMP about the view one should take. Some high schools–and it sounds as though TheGFG’s is one–have quantities of homework that make that view unrealistic.
Some high schools have much less intense homework than others, and it’s not purely a weaker/stronger school situation. I do not know why this is.
As for lookingforward’s comment that “some kids do take to these expanded expectations and stretch well. And sleep, have friends, etc,” this sounds to me like the classic case of the Caltech/MIT slogan “academics, social life, sleep, choose two.” In the broad set of QMP’s acquaintances at the local high school, there were a good number of students who went to “top” schools. I think every one of them stretched well, had friends (many), and had outstanding extra-curricular activities. From informal conversations, I don’t believe that any of them got enough sleep.
I have to agree with many of the posters, while we certainly cultivated the thought of most anything is possible with hardwork, an equal amount of the time, and especially when they got into their mid and later teens, was about reinforcing slowing down, enjoying the activity and moment, and not always projecting for some moment in the future. Not sure, if it was some form of quasi reverse psychology, but they were by and large self-starters…I guess sometimes less is more…
We encouraged a kid who was in a HS class with a “busywork” mindset teacher to drop down a level. The non-honors section was straighforward- homework was for reinforcing what was learned in class, not for building igloos out of ice cubes with a glue gun and a pile of felt.
If your kid is getting ridiculous amounts of non-pedagogically relevant homework- find an alternative. Drop down a level, enroll in a distance learning class and drop the class entirely, have a few parents meet with the teacher to air concerns.
But don’t act like having your kid up until 2 am every night is a good practice for an adolescent- especially one who gets behind the wheel of a car.
Locally, the “igloo-building” pretty much stopped by the end of 6th or 7th grade. Essentially, all of the homework in the higher-level classes was academically justified. There was just too much of it. Dropping down a level would have meant more posters, art projects disguised as academic subjects, and perhaps even some igloo-building.
The daughter of a friend of mine, who had run out of steam by the end of the year in AP Economics, did encounter a semi-igloo-building type of requirement: Design a board game based on the economic principles learned in class. She came up with a game that involved selling blubber to the Inuit.
So where do students with 2300+ SATs and 2.8 GPAs go to college? Especially if they are female?
We had a similar slogan at Stuy back in the early-mid '90s. “Academics, friends, sleep…pick two.” And unless one was a genuine genius…most of us lived that slogan. I probably emphasized too much on the latter two. Then again, one was considered a slacker if one was able to finish homework/assigned readings/studying at 1-2 am.
Most of the AP/dual-enrolled with 4-year universities students I knew who weren’t genuine geniuses either complained or noted with great pride that they didn’t sleep till 3-4 am…and pulled many all-nighters.
Is the kid getting a 2.8 GPA because she’s bad at arts and crafts in a lower level class, or because she can’t keep up in AP’s/honors?
blossom, it’s neither of your suggestions in #54, and the 2.8 is merely hypothetical. I think that the high school your children attended must have been different from the local one, and from the one that TheGFG’s daughter attends.
The 2.8 GPA is my rough projection of what just opting out of the excessive homework would have led to. An outstanding performance on tests that required knowing the subject would not compensate (locally) for undone homework, even in the classes that weighted tests most heavily. So it was not a question of “keeping up” so much as meeting unrealistic time demands for work that was academically justifiable.
Calc BC was the fairest course in this regard–homework that was not too time-consuming for a student who knew what he/she was doing, and no project overload.
cobrat’s comment is a more extreme version of the local situation, due no doubt to the over-the-top character of Stuy.
How do the CC members on here with high-school or post-high-school children feel about this issue, if their own work requires occasional all nighters, well into adulthood? Does that make one more accepting, or less?
My work doesn’t require as many all nighters as it did when I was young and climbing the corporate ladder. But I had the luxury of taking a commuter train, getting a ride, or taking a taxi when I had to go to work or travel on no sleep. Even now- when I take the red-eye and have to do a full days work on no sleep, I won’t get behind the wheel of a car. I regularly do a NY/DFW/LAX trip and then back home where I’m not just sleep deprived for one night, but for three straight nights.
I am baffled by parents who know their kids were up all night and hand them the keys in the morning to get to HS.
I actually just finished reading her book. It’s pretty good with some grains of truth. The bottom line is do you chase after your kid down the street with the forgotten bike helmet or do you let him go crack his head open and next time he won’t forget? Some people are more comfortable with the former, but are “encouraged” to be the latter. Obviously the author is not a “put your sweater on I’m cold” Jewish mother, or at least not anymore. 
Just so happened DS1 forgot his school lunch today (again). I mentioned to DH that I just finished reading this book that says if that happens, too bad, let him starve for a day and next time he won’t forget. He said, “That’s mean,” and dropped off the lunch on his way to work(again). I guess the message really sunk in.
Some things I liked about the book:
- we shouldn’t shape our kids’ dream, let them dream their own dream
- we should each make a point of telling everyone we know about 5 good schools that “no one’s ever heard of”, to help stop this elite college worship madness
- we should push back on over involvement in the school PTA and other school volunteer work to find time to nurture ourselves
- give kids chores, don’t do their homework for them, let them keep track of their own homework deadlines
- stop wrapping our lives around the kids’ insane sports schedules, e.g. let them play local youth league soccer instead of select soccer, or if they do do select soccer, don’t feel compelled to attend every game. Simplify your schedules to enjoy one another’s company
- listen to your kids, let them follow their interests in choosing classes rather than insisting on AP/IB in every subject, all the fighting to get through AP/IB classes they don’t enjoy isn’t worth it
I suppose as long as the sun still rises from the east, there will be both parents and kids who are hell bent on getting into elite schools; for those the book’s message will be lost. They are not lost on me.
It is easy to discern who the CC helicopter parents are from reading these posts.