<p>Seiclan<br>
My condolences to you and your family on the loss of your father in law.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for your kind thoughts. I am in the process of trying to find the “best fil” photo on my harddrive so I can make a hard copy to frame and put in our family room. We don’t have any photos of him on display but I have lots on my computer. We are going to go ahead with our planned 25th Anniversary trip this weekend (to Scottsdale and Sedona Arizona). I think it will be good for both of us.</p>
<p>seiclan, have a wonderful anniversary trip! I love Scottsdale!</p>
<p>If your child is not interested in putting in the extra effort to up his/her grade by a few points than that is who they are and would not be happy in a college that expects more effort. Accept your children for who they are at this point in life and life will be much more pleasant!</p>
<p>^^ my feelings exactly. Or as a wise CC sage once said: “Love the kid on the couch, not the kid you wish s/he was.”</p>
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<p>Will students who fight for a 98 or 99 to get an A turn out to be different later in life than those who work for a 91 or 92 to get the same A? If I were an employer, I’d prefer the former.</p>
<p>Not me, necessarily. There is a lot more to an employee than just someone who does extra work for a just-barely-better outcome. I’d choose the latter if that person was a better team player, better at motivating others, was willing to learn new skills, willing and able to handle new and more complex responsibilities, etc. etc. In other words, I’d hire people like my D in a heartbeat over some of her classmates who fought for the 99 but didn’t demonstrate many of the other skills that I look for in an employee.</p>
<p>Sure type A gets things done. Most employers would like that. The challenge is how not to push our type B’s. We could tweak a little to bring them up to be as competitive as allowed within their temperament. But not beyond. That is if that line is drawn with a thick marking pen for us all to see…</p>
<p>PRJ, There’s that, too.</p>
<p>^I was thinking about what kind of doctors/surgeons one would like to see, one that rarely makes mistakes or one that once in a while cuts the wrong thing off.</p>
<p>oh, lake42ks, I was thinking more about the smart liberal arts grads I try to hire, not surgeons! I definitely prefer the surgeon who strives for 99 or 100! DH always worries about the doctors who graduate last in their class - they are operating on someone somewhere right now :eek:</p>
<p>I am not sure about the doctor analogy. I don’t want one who is sloppy and careless, but I also don’t want one who has been so focused on getting the “right” answers that he/she has become robotic, arrogant and unable to relate to the “little people” who only make 95’s or less, as will be the case with most of their patients.</p>
<p>I don’t think the doctor analogy is relavant to a 14 year old freshman boy. A 14 year old doesn’t “see” the worth in doing just that little bit more. The kind of 20 year old interested in med school certainly does appreciate the need for extra effort. I think the “pushing” we did was in an effort to get our DS to recognize the worth. He now does all on his own. Any more “pushing” is up to him. For us, this wasn’t about making our DS a hyper type A only concerned about grades. He’s never been that kid and he’s not now either. He now does have a freshman and sophmore GPA that will allow him potential access to the type of schools he is interested in attending. So, I do love the kid on the couch. Sometimes a little direction is a good thing. Again, a little push or redirection, not a massive one. Carrot, not stick. His choice on whether he decides to go for it or not. </p>
<p>My DD’13 is the kid who does not need any encouragement to always do her best. I see the difference. However, now my DS’12 also tries to find the balance.</p>
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<p>…it depends on your child. I feel that there is a time to push. My oldest seemed to be shy - not lazy and afraid to fail. We had to push him. Had we not intervened, he would not have raised his grades. He is a confident person now and very passionate about his chosen major. Sometimes, we need to push them to should them how success feels.</p>
<p>Seiclan: So sorry to hear of your family’s loss. You all we will in my prayers. Try not to spend to much time trying to figure out why he made the choices he did - you can churn up a lot of time and there is no way to ever get inside his mind to that degree.</p>
<p>we went on first college visit with D2. It just worked out that I was taking D1 to visit a friend at Smith, and Smith was on (my) list for D2, so we did the tour/info and then had a great lunch/visit with D1 and her friend who is a senior. She said that although she would prefer a coed school she did like it a lot and would apply there. I hope she also processed other things she did and didn’t like that she can relate to other schools. We did drive through Mt Holyoke and she did not like the smaller town it was in.</p>
<p>We will have the motivation/push yourself discussion in a week or so. She is a math/sci kid and is taking 3 APs (this is the high side at her school) and her English class she has the option to take it at an honors level or a reg level. She planned honors but now is saying she is not sure she will have the time for the extra work. I’d like her to try it, we’ll see after she settles in before she needs to make the decision, today is just the second day of school.</p>
<p>Food for thought: Napoleon categorized all of his officers into four types:</p>
<p>1) very bright + industrious (type A)
2) very bright + lazy
3) not so smart + industrious (type A)
4) not so bright + lazy</p>
<p>He wanted category 4 out of his army. He found category 3 very useful because they would take orders and work hard. He wanted category 2 to lead the army because they were very efficient at discerning what really needed to get done and getting done with the least waste of resources.</p>
<p>glido - I don’t know where my S would fit now. He would have been a cat 2 just 2 years ago!</p>
<p>A friend of mine has a senior who hasn’t started his college search. The parents don’t seem to be very proactive and even though I’ve sent many books, websites (including cc!) their way, they just push it on him to do all of the research. </p>
<p>He is very overwhelmed and doesn’t know where to start. He’s not sure what he’d like to study. His mom has been a helicopter mom for as long as I’ve known her and pushed her S to take all of the rigorous classes yet she stops short of helping with the college search/apps. Her “threat” is if he can’t do it, he can go to a comm college. This attitude frustrates me to no end. I feel that this is not the time to pull back since she’s been hovering for so long and he’s probably expecting to be guided. Community college isn’t a punishment but a viable alternative. Why do parents do that?</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing, Glido. Sounds about right to me, but I still have a problem with the word “lazy”. In this context, it is not so much a moral weakness/character flaw as it is a worthwhile skill.</p>
<p>azcpamom: okay i can go along with that. Lets do away with “lazy” and just say “inately talented at energy conservation” and “prone to prioritize using a system of valuation widely varyying from parents’ sytem.”</p>
<p>oooh, glido, now that you say it that way, S is a 2.</p>