My oldest like was fully potty trained before age 2, took to immediately and never looked back. I assumed, naturally, it was because I read all the right books and did all the right things. Then came my youngest, and well, he taught me none of that meant anything at all. He was humbling to say the least! Now I use my kids as examples of how the books are great resources, as are other parents, but your kids are who they are and not much you can do to change that, you just got to follow their lead.
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Agreed there are many factors and its interesting to read some of the research out there for sure!
Modeling and teaching resilience and listening to our kids is all many of us can do.
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OMG my life.
My other favorite “well, just tell him to do it” (homework, chores, whatever)
Sure, THAT works… sigh.
I think, or at least hope, that there some aspect of parenting where we all wish we could do better or differently or more effectively. It’s one of those things that I suspect is a lifelong learning and improving thing.
I know it killed me when i asked my son why he was lying to me about having done his homework and his answer was “I didn’t want to disappoint you.” It’s not that I expect good grades, any “disappointment” wouldn’t have been related to doing poorly on a test or whatever. It was because he wasn’t telling the truth - he’d spent a week of break telling me he was going to the office to do homework not actually doing homework. And when i asked how he was doing and if he was making progress or if I could do anything to help, he said he was doing well, and he didn’t need anything.
And all of that was a lie.
So we talked about what I care about. I don’t care so much about grades. Yes, I want him to put in effort and not blow it off, but I don’t expect perfect. I do expect truthfulness, because that’s an important family value.
I think it’s ok to have expectations, but they should be rooted in what really matters to you and your family and what is achievable and balancing that with an understanding that they need to stretch their wings sometimes and they are going to screw up sometimes.
Like I was unhappy when he skipped practice yesterday (first time ever just ditching) to go out and celebrate a friend’s birthday after school. I don’t expect him to be the best athlete, but I do expect him to follow through on his commitments, and attending practice is a commitment. So that disappointed me. But I didn’t tell him that, this is one of his best friends and he’s been struggling a bit socially lately, so if they wanted to go to the mall, ok. But we did talk about what he needed to do today in terms of talking with his coach, and we talked about how it was maybe not the best timing, since he’d literally the night before emailed her asking for a letter of recommendation for a scholarship, and that wasn’t a great time to be skipping practice.
If he’s diminished his chances for the scholarship, that’s on him. If he’s harmed his standing on the team, that’s on him too. He made that choice. And hopefully it will help him think about why we value showing up and meeting your commitments.
I’m not sure where I’m going with this other than just talk talk talking at this point. I guess I wanted to say that while I think it’s ok to have expectations and to make them clear, it’s also important to make sure that those fit with your kid and your family, and that everyone is always trying to make the best choice and decision they can for their own situation.
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I think these things can go hand in hand sometimes. Speaking solely for myself, I was one of those HS kids who Could Do No Wrong. School was easy for me, I had a near perfect GPA (8th grade Algebra was my only non-A and yes, I am almost 50 and remember that clearly) and I had a very very high SAT score with just one try. I got into three Ivy’s when it came time for college, but ended up going to William & Mary - the in state tuition couldn’t be beat and it’s a great school and I was in the honors program and living in an honors dorm. And those first semester classes were the biggest ego buster of my life. I had never, NEVER seen even a C before and my first French paper had a D- and a “see me” on it. At the end of the semester I think I had two C+'s, a B and two As. And that B was a gift. I had never, ever felt so stupid and so down on myself. I had also never been in an environment where EVERYONE was smart, EVERYONE was a high performer, and the expectations on me were just so much higher to be anything other than average. I was the smart, chunky, yearbook editor in HS - my friends were the theater kids and the lit magazine people but I wasn’t as arty as them; the “popular” and sporty kids talked with me when they needed tutoring. My whole identity was wrapped up in being “the smart one” and to not be that anymore caused me some serious anxiety. Obviously, I dealt with it and got past it. But I think for a lot of kids it’s very hard to go from being the big fish to being just another fish in the middle of the school of fish, and that leads to some of this anxiety. For kids for whom school has never been hard before, it can be a heck of a learning curve.
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Add in nursing also attracts the empathic feeler types (along with high gpa) and its challenged me to approach both teaching and parenting adults in new ways. Add in my own adhd and my 2 boys both with very different kinds of adhd, its been eye opening!
Im always amazed at those who remember grades (cue complex trauma and bad memory). No clue what my gpa was in high school (nor undergrad, masters, and doctorate) but not sure I ever had a 4.0. I do remember getting kicked out of class for talking too much. 
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I had to step away for a bit after that response you’re referencing. It really, really stung, but then I tried to assume good intention. Having worked in higher education for 25 years, I’m well aware that some of my behaviors and anxieties are not healthy or good for my child. It’s why I am working on them. My mental health issues are very much treated, and I was being vulnerable about the fact that I still struggle. I also regularly model self reflection and verbalize with my son that this is something that I grapple with. Because he’s watched his parents regularly process their mistakes and struggles he’s a really reflective and self aware teenager. Again, I know that micromanaging is not healthy nor is perfectionism. My kid is far from perfect, and I have been there for him when he’s failed. We had a good conversation last night about college, how hard it will be, and that there will be setback and possibly failures. S25 said, “I know I will stumble, but the important thing is that I will get back up and keep going.” So I haven’t screwed him up that bad, I guess.
But thanks for all the well-intentioned comments. I know how much faculty and staff see the outcomes of this type of parenting, and I appreciate the concerns about not perpetuating this dysfunction. I like to think we’re all doing the best we can in the moment with the skills and experiences we’ve had.
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IMO any parent who is willing to admit they aren’t perfect and who is willing to be vulnerable with others about their struggles is a great parent. YOU are a great parent.
Don’t let someone who has never met you, doesn’t know anything about you or your family, and seems to be incapable of admitting they perhaps truly overstepped the bounds of what is acceptable to say to a total stranger get to you. I know tons of families who sound like yours they have strong successful children who don’t depend on mommy for anything other than emotional support (I mean who are we kidding, I’d do a great many things to call either of my parents right now just to hear that unconditional love in their voices).
You are doing a great job, and I appreciate your vulnerability because it makes me (and I’m sure others) feel like they aren’t alone in this world. We need a lot more people to be vulnerable and a lot less judgement.
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I am also a college professor and I agree with you.
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This is actually a stated worry from my C25, who has never gotten below an A in a class (and only very rarely gotten below an A on any assignment), has been taking 13–16 credits of college classes per semester for a year and a half already, completed the calculus sequence while running rings around all the pre-engineering students in those classes, did well enough in the first-year writing sequence to be recommended as a peer writing consultant at the college’s writing center while still in high school—how do you deal with academic difficulties, knowing they’re certainly on the way but never having had any experience with how to deal with them?
I don’t know the answer, my spouse doesn’t know the answer, the older siblings don’t know the answer, and C25 most definitely doesn’t know the answer. But we all know the answer will have to be there in the moment. It’s a little scary, and for C25 sometimes a lot scary.
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Again, just from one person’s experience, I’d say the best thing any of you can do is just to talk about it and be prepared. I think for me I was just so surprised. Like it never occurred to me that I WOULDN’T be a rockstar in college. So when that happened it rocked my world. I was dealing with both the self doubt and confusion and frustration of not doing well and not knowing what was wrong, and then the person I defined myself as just disappeared in a poof and I was just… lost feeling.
So I’d suggest acknowledging C25’s fears as possible, and reminding them that it’s ok, no one expects perfection in college, and that everyone has an adjustment period, and that they are more than their transcript is really all you can do.
To tie all these recent posts together, isn’t the point of all of this to just make sure our kids know that we love and support them? So I think the more we vocalize that, the better.
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From what I can tell, you are a wonderfully kind and self reflective parent. Those are fantastic traits to model for your son. He will take those lessons with him to college.
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Well, S25 for his first unexpected negative news tonight. It’s not awful, but he got deferred from Clemson Honors. I mean, he’s still in to the school, and that’s what ultimately matters, but I think he thought he had this in the bag and clearly, he didn’t. It’s not his grades and test scores, so must be his essay. He reused something that he’d written for something else and I suspect he just didn’t tailor it enough. Either that or his recommendations were not as positive as he had hoped. It’s not a definite no, just a “we got a lot of great people and you didn’t quite measure up from this round but maybe later.”
We’ll see, but it’s taken some shine off of Clemson for him.
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S25 is in at Union College and with a hefty scholarship that makes it affordable. This is a huge relief after a few rejections and deferrals at the end of December. Four more decisions are coming next week. Eeek!
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Awesome!! We’re waiting on a few left and I’m not sure what the release dates are!
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I’m sorry, especially that he was interested in Honors. I don’t know how deferral for Honors works at Clemson, but maybe it’s something to check into more? Mine was deferred in general from Clemson so I think maybe the ship sailed. I can understand the shine comes off, though. We have that with one school, well make that two. Both in Pennsylvania, too. It’s going to factor in the final decision, I think.
C25 is also in at Union with a good scholarship. Exciting news. There is a trick where they will give more money to commit by Feb 20. This is hard since union was top 3 but one of the others won’t come out until end of March.
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That is excellent news. My kid did not apply there but I know our kids applied to some of the same schools. Congrats! This process is an emotional roller coaster.
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Yes, it’s been a really hard week. We were on an evacuation alert yesterday - it was scary and stressful. The winds died down and the water- and phos-chek dropping aircraft pushed the fire back enough to eliminate/lift the evacuation orders for the surrounding areas. So many have lost their homes and neighborhoods. Entire communities really. It just puts things in perspective.
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Unrelated to everything here, but it’s top of mind at the moment… we appear to have a mouse (who am I kidding, mice, it’s never one) in the kitchen. This happens every two or three years. We live in an old house, there are surely ways in. They usually stay out unless it’s miserable outside and it snowed on Monday and snow is still on the ground and it’s well below freezing.
And how did we find them?
My husband insisted he would clean the frying pan - from Wednesday night - that had bacon grease in it. He kept not doing it and I wasn’t going to because I was working all week and he was off and dammit, I worked AND cooked and I did all the other dishes. I was making a point and refusing to do it.
And then when I came down this morning and made the coffee and glared at the frying pan I noticed the footprint in the grease.
Gah!!!
So today no one got to sleep in. I had to work and S25 finally had a full day of school again (the snow was causing closures and late openings). I woke college kid up early so he could finish the job applications he wanted to do and get packed - he goes back to college in the morning. And I woke husband up because DAMMIT THERE ARE MICE AND I AM NOT DEALING WITH THIS ■■■■.
No one saw them all day. Traps are out. With my luck the trap will catch one and it will just be there, waiting for me, when I’m the first one down to make the coffee.
(Also, current kitchen yuck notwithstanding, I swear we aren’t disgusting unclean people. I do clean. Probably not as often as I should, there’s usually dust to be found, but we aren’t filthy.)
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D25 got into a BFA program she has been eyeing tonight! We’ve been celebrating all the wins with ice cream; she’s eaten enough that she decided a big box of goldfish was her preference tonight. 
I find it fascinating to see how she’s changing; I’m not sure she’ll choose a strictly ballet program if she has other options at the end of the day. But we’ll see. I mean, I just bought four more pairs of pointe shoes, so it’s not like she’s turning her back on it.
In that @MidwestPack was fast in seeing this response before I edited specific schools out (I can never decide how much detail to put in public), I’ll put her admit tally back in:
Point Park
Hope
St. Olaf
Dominican U/Alonzo King LINES
She is admitted to four more schools academically, still pending audition, and one school vice-versa, that I expect will come through next week. Then there are a goodly number that are entirely up in the air.
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