<p>Marite, I think lots of parents are trying to live vicariously through their kids. Dads at baseball games, or moms trying to get their little ones into gifted programs come to mind. I understand wanting to give children opportunities that we didn’t have, as cptofthehouse describes, but when the kids don’t WANT the music lessons or hate hockey, parents have to back off.</p>
<p>I’m a little cautious about foisting dreams on kids. I would worry about spending time showing a three year old flash cards, when they should be playing in the sand, or building things with cans from the pantry. When parents focus on strictly academic activities, especially with young children, they are depriving them of the best learning experiences possible – PLAY! Kids need to play – that’s how they learn. Watching a video about construction sites is fun, but digging in the dirt with an old spoon is better.</p>
<p>When S1 was in Kindergarten, Power Rangers was the big thing. I had no idea what he was talking about, since we’d never watched it at home. But he came home from school one day, and proceeded to make an entire Green Ranger costume out of paper, crayons and tape. He even made arm-holes in the shirt the way a sewing pattern would have them. (I didn’t sew in those days, so I don’t know how he figured it out.) He had more fun with his home made costume than he could ever have had with one purchased from a store.</p>
<p>OT, I know, but the message is to let children play with ordinary household things and let them learn through those experiences.</p>
<p>My cousin first attended Columbia at 15 - didn’t work out well in his case. When he went back at 17, he did well. All kids are different, but putting a really young kid in with a bunch of alphas can have mixed results. </p>
<p>For parents of young children - setting up ‘an ivy’ as the only worthy goal may well be (statistically, anyway) a recipe for disappointment. If good colleges are mentioned - mention a variety of them.</p>
<p>NJres, I had tears running down my eyes reading your post #60. Exactly what I was thinking! Full disclosure: my kids are average–we had to send them to the cheap pre-school.</p>
<p>Stickershock: Oh, yes, we spent lots of time watching construction – our local elem school was razed for renovations in 1999 and it made for hours of fun observation. My son’s OM team even got permission to scrounge around for detritus and spare parts for their inventions.</p>
<p>When I worked in Philadelphia, Liberty Place was being built across the street from my office. Every day, literally hundreds of guys in suits and ties would line the perimeter of the construction site at lunchtime watching the crews put up the building and running the equipment. A little boy’s dream come true. At least they weren’t wolf-whistling at all of the women as we walked by! :*)</p>
<p>Motherdear,
Yeah, I coached for four years (one year OM, three years DI). I always liked mixed-age and gender teams; the younger kids had no hesitation about coming up with wildly creative ideas, and the older kids had the technical ability to implement those ideas. The judges always seemed impressed that we could have second through fifth graders on one team and get something accomplished. But the year I had six second grade boys…oh my goodness!</p>
<p>Let me ask this, then - where’s the line between “pushing your kid to achieve” and “teaching your kid to persevere when things get tough”? What’s the difference between saying, “Yes, you must take the toughest courses you are capable of handling” when the teacher says the kid can do honors, but the kid wants to take non-honors, and saying, “Turn off that video game (or come inside) and do your homework”? In both cases, you want your kid to learn how to tackle things that are hard, and how to work hard to achieve some sort of goal. Most of us would prefer to be lazy; do we want to reward our kids for it? I’m not talking here about a kid who’s not capable of doing the work. How do you teach your kid not to quit without seeming like you’re “pushing”?</p>
<p>I agree with you.
The only exception is that my S liked a computer program called the Incredible Machine. The zaniness of it all was actually helpful later on when the Science Team had to dream up Rube Goldberg contraptions for the Mission Possible section of Science competitions. He also loved K’Nex and Legoes. Neither my Ss turned out to be very outdoorsy. Maybe this is one area where we should have pushed a bit.</p>
<p>I’ve always believed it counter-productive to push. My son was slightly under-achieving until HS. I knew the skills were there, but I let him put his energies into his interests. He did always do his homework in every subject, but didn’t push himself to excell except in interest areas, like creative writing. He loves to read, go to museums, plays, concerts, etc. so I knew he was learning a lot the whole time. My husban dalways felt he should be pushed and I always fought it; the only thing we’ve really disagreed about in our 30 years together. Intrinsic motivation is there to stay. A pushed kid has no space in which to find that motivation or passion.</p>
<p>Somehow, son picked up the message–not from me-- that his permanent record would start in HS and a good permanent record would get him into a good college. He’s a stellar student now, even in areas not of great interest because he really wants to get into a good college. I’m confident his passions will follow him, though they may change over time, into his college years. Because they are his, not mine or my husband’s.</p>
<p>This idea is worth repeating. I don’t think you can make kids become “high achievers.” You can challenge them to do THEIR best in whatever they do, whether it’s Scouts, music, sports or school, but they have to have the desire.</p>
<p>The only thing we found that made a difference was putting them in situations where they were with motivated peers. They grew to like being at the top of the heap, and that motivated them both to do their best.</p>
<p>I’d like to add that the notion of doing one’s best can backfire with some kids. I have one child who has issues with perfectionism, which I didn’t recognize early enough. With him, we try to downplay doing his best. No one can do their best on everything, 100% of the time. We tried to teach him that sometimes “good enough” is all you need.</p>
<p>We did challenge kids to do their best. Luckily, we did not have to nag about homework. We did push S1 to get involved in some ECs.
With S2, who was not competitive-minded or a perfectionist, we allowed him to challenge himself by taking advanced classes. As long as he was comfortably in the middle of the pack, he could stay. If he felt that he was struggling, he knew he could go down one notch. He was not invested in achieving best grades, so it worked for him.</p>
<p>No reply to my PM. This thread has its own life now. I found out I’m just as gullible now as I was xty years ago. Interesting bits about DI and OM. I ended up coaching a middle school Rollercoaster event that played out like one. The rules were atrocious, another team switched topics, but my group, who didn’t know each other before, wanted to build a rollercoaster. No engineers in the group and the coach stuck to the rules (it was a challenge to try to guide and keep it legal…) The group dynamics was its own rollercoaster, an experience I would never repeat. Son aquired a good friend through it, though. </p>
<p>Engineers- not my son. Interest in physics expressed in string theory, not erector set or KNex, those were unused gifts. Legos starships still sit on the dresser (you buy kits as a gift, they get put together, dismantled and reconfigured). We would call our son to see the inside of the computer when we were adding memory or some such- no interest (we have a cute picture of our Shih Tzu looking, though- the dog had more interest). Father and son are alike- guess who does the practical things around here?</p>
<p>Gifted education is my interest/passion; my experience has been casually talking to parents who have obviously gifted kids who don’t realize that their kids are way beyond the norms (some are used to high thinking levels amongst their relatives) not the pushy parents of bright kids. Around here it seems as though more parents ignore appropriate opportunities, and no one signs up for SAT prep type courses etc (I wish there were no test prep centers, I don’t relate well to people don’t just take the test and use it as a reflection of who they are at the time). Anyone who wants info on introversion, perfectionism et al feel free to ask me, I can find published sources of information in my files.</p>
<p>Well, I won’t put myself in that category, but I’ve been around long enough to see some definite ■■■■■■ on CC. One even admitted he made up his original post and just wanted to see if people believed him. (I can’t remember offhand what it was that he was claiming, but a few people did believe him.) There has been more than one person that was pretending to be black in order to try to make some point against affirmative action (at least this ended up being the consensus opinion). One person was claiming extreme credentials and decrying those who thought he was a ■■■■■ (and people were believing him) … until I looked up a contest he claimed to have won and found out that the winner had yet to be announced.</p>
<p>My favorite is the guy who said he was from a small town in Siberia and spent his free time helping his mother out in the frozen fields and praying with the family priest, Nikolai. Much discussion of his credentials ensued. But he disappeared once I pointed out that his broken English disappeared in some other threads.</p>
<p>So skepticism is not unique to this thread nor entirely unwarranted on CC. Quite frankly, I hope I never see one of those “I scored a 2350 on the SAT; should I retake” threads.</p>
<p>This thread has actually proved quite interesting. And I have a new expression I love – “bug eating nuts.” I plan on stealing it and pretending to be as witty as curmudgeon …</p>
<p>DianeR…I agree that there ARE ■■■■■■ on CC and on other forums too. I just am not convinced that this person is one. Could be. But I’d not have been quick to assume it without more posts, etc. There are things about the post that could go either way, in my view. </p>
<p>Anyway, as you say, the thread has gotten into interesting discussions. I’d rather see discussion about the topic, than about the poster who posted it.</p>
<p>Who cares whether it’s a ■■■■■ of not if it encourages interesting discussion. If it doesn’t encourage interesting discussion, ignore it! As I said in an earlier post, we don’t need others telling us what to believe and what not to believe. Why risk scaring someone legitimate away with your accusations when all you have to go on is a “hunch”? It’s ridiculous in my opinion to make these accusations on the boards. Don’t respond to what you don’t like and I’ll do the same.</p>
<p>The question, however, is quite ambiguous. It can be read as: should my child be kept back or should he be advanced.</p>
<p>Lots of families, in particular, middle-class families, in my community actually hold back their children, especially boys, in the belief that this will give the children an edge in maturity and even make them stand out among their classmates. So we see a lot of college applicants who are 19 or close to 19 by the time they begin college. The families who start their children young are less affluent. They do so because they cannot afford continuing paying for daycare (extremely expensive) and school here is full day beginning in kindergarten and afterschool programs are heavily subsidized. Some schools even have a two-year kindergarten program.
Very few consider skipping grades and those who do are discouraged from doing so (one family we know actually switched schools to enable their children to skip grades).
Colleges will not give bonus points to younger applicants. In fact, their applications will be scrutinized even more closely for signs of inadequate preparation or immaturity. So there is no advantage to applying young.</p>
<p>Another way of interpreting the question is whether a student should be accelerated through the curriculum if that student is advanced in certain subjects. And here, my answer is yes. Not accelerating the student risks fostering boredom and bad study skills; the combination, if sustained, can lead to underachievement. A bored student can also be quite disruptive.</p>
<p>As for the dreams of Ivy, I’ll ignore that part of the post.</p>
<p>I care, because if it’s a ■■■■■ we are being played for fools, and we are wasting our time trying to solve a theoretical problem instead of a real one. Plus, I hate it when people lie.</p>
<p>If it suits some people to spend their time arguing about a string of lies put forward by someone deliberately trying to make mischief, well they are welcome to have at it.</p>
<p>PS: I am talking here about ■■■■■■ in general and not the OP on this thread. I’m not convinced that this one is a ■■■■■.</p>
<p>About pushing: I’m sort of a believer in gentle pushing - call it maybe nudging. I believe in that because many kids, when offered a new activity or something they smell as ‘educational’ will automatically say “no.” And keep saying “no”. And that’s when the gentle push comes in. My 13 yo S seemed musically inclined but fought piano lessons, and still makes a stink about interrupting sports or playing with friends to go to his lesson. In the evenings he puts off and whines/sighs about practicing. Given the opportunity, he’d quit in a heartbeat. But you know what? He’s playing - he’s beginning to master even more complex classical pieces. He’s learning music, and music theory. He’s seen firsthand that even half hour a night of practicing yields results. My hope is that one day he’ll become truly interested in piano - or at least appreciate this knowledge. But if not, that’s OK. It’s just another thing he learned to do that maybe he doesn’t enjoy - like taking out the trash or geometry. And it’s OK because I believe that musical literacy is part of being an educated & cultured person, and that it’s OK for me as his parent to pass on that value to him.</p>
<p>First, Marite, every single thing you wrote in post #115, is completely my experience, and view. By the way, we also moved related to acceleration. </p>
<p>CTTC, you are questioning how I stated that our HS has a 66% rate of graduates going onto four year colleges when I also mentioned that in my D2’s nursery school class, 1/3 of the students were boys whose parents waited an extra year to send them to K. </p>
<p>I can explain this quite readily. There is a mix of people in the six towns that attend our HS. Some have no college education and have blue collar jobs. Some are well educated and some are professionals. The kids who attended my girls’ private nursery school come from families who value education (though they themselves may not have been well educated; some may be middle class or lower middle class, some are professionals) and I venture to say that most of those kids will end up in the 66% of the HS graduating class that do go onto college. So, already that is pretty black and white. If one third of her nursery school class were boys who started K at age six, we are talking about five boys. One of these boys went away to boarding school for HS and he is now a freshman at Brown. Another also went away to boarding school for HS. Another ended up graduating HS a year early anyway even though his parents sent him late to K (his mom is also a K teacher). He goes to Champlain College. Sending my kid early was very against the trend. I know the parents of these boys who started K late. These parents are WELL educated ones and would care about a perceived advantage to start K late and be at the top of the class, more than if their sons truly showed a developmental need to start late (for some boys, that can be a GREAT GIFT…my nephew did it and for him, it was a developmentally appropriate decision as he was “young”). I never said these parents were shooting for Ivies. One family sent their sons to private boarding schools and when they got there, they repeated ninth grade. They entered college at 19. One goes to Vassar, and had attended Deerfield. Are these parents typical of our community as a whole? NOPE. However, my children have two professional well educated parents. My kids go to selective colleges. They went to HS with many kids who will never go to college and whose parents may not aspire for them to do so either. Even of the ones who go onto colleges, many will go to Johnson State, Castleton State, UVM, etc. I can tell you for CERTAIN that nobody around here EVER talks about the Ivy League or aspirations for that. Each year perhaps one student ends up at an Ivy. That is coming from six towns, by the way.</p>
<p>I totally agree. Not all of our kids go on to college, but we have a percentage of highly aware parents. Our son will be almost 19 when he gets to college. We would have had to advocate to get him in to K early and I knew he was “smart” enough academically, but not socially or physically. He needed time to grow in to his brain. It’s worked well for us but we needed to enrich at home and advocate at school. The ECs have been crucial. Having plays, a cappella group and Scholars Bowl has kept our kid going through some slow academic times. He’s found ways to challenge himself and our few AP courses have helped.</p>