My neighbor is a professor with a PhD. Her husband is a top litigator with an Ivy law degree. When her son was in high school and grades, work ethic, etc., became a contentious issue at home, she made a really controversial decision.
Unlike almost all her friends, colleagues and people in her milieu, she decided she wasn’t going to push her son academically when he resisted. She wasn’t going to helicopter over his homework, classes or overall school performance. She did talk with him about what it was going to take to get into the state flagship university, or even into the school’s selective AP courses, for that matter. He knew what he needed to do, and knew what the consequences would be if he didn’t do it.
“I didn’t want our relationship to be defined by arguments over school.” she told me. You can imagine the kind of flack she got from within her high-achieving-bubble. From her own family.
The boy is a senior in high school, a B-/C student with unimpressive SATs but enough to get into some of the lower-ranked state colleges. He’s now apparently a bit disappointed at his options, but also realizes it was very much his own doing.
In reality, I think his options will be… very similar to his high-achieving friends, once decides to buckle down and really work.
Sure, he won’t get into any elite schools – but he can start at a state college or a community college and then transfer to the state flagship university – where many of his classmates, including the ambitious A students – will be enrolling.
I admire the mom for making the choice she made.