Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Parenting arms race article

Well, to be fair, most faculty here support public schools, too. But they want their kids to be valedictorian there, and NMF's.

In a class of 300-400, both (public) high schools regularly produce a few DOZEN national merit semi-finalists annually here. None of the private schools is anywhere near that kind of performance standard. We've gone the online route mostly because it doesn't require the time obligation that the local public schools would, and allows DD to be her chronological age for more of each day. Less on the massive (but not so meaningful) homework load. Least-worst. Well, everyone here gets that one.



But yes, it's a lot of crushing expectation for the kids who are bright-through-MG. They'll also pretty much do or say anything to make it so that their own kids are always in the "top" group. Whatever it happens to be. Which means that nobody that runs youth activities here can AFFORD to give the HG+ kids the appropriate openings/opportunities, or they'll be inundated with requests for "exceptions" for a lot of other kids who don't really legitimately need/qualify for them.

As noted, I see a lot of the familiar in this article about McLean. It irritates me as the parent of an HG+ kid who gets told "NO, because if I'll do it for you... "

but it also worries me for the MG kids that my DD is friends with-- whose parents are about fifty-fifty in terms of Tiger Parenting, and the ones that are seriously riding that particular train are more than willing to CUT my kid's accomplishments down to size, pump her (or us) for information about "how to get that for my kid" and/or pressure their own kids to perform like my (PG) DD. Naturally, MG friends whose parents expect PG performance from them as a result of knowing my DD aren't too thrilled by that outcome, and my DD feels terribly guilty for being the (unwilling) tool to make their lives less pleasant.

I see them, and so does my DH. I have had this conversation with a number of faculty here who refuse to drink the Kool-Aid, but wow, do their kids get pressure from school administrators and the entire culture. In a small department where I worked when DD was young, there are SIX young ladies who have/will graduate in the space of 24 months. DD is the youngest of them. ALL of them are GT, and two are very clearly HG+-- recognize that all of these kids are from parents who are GT themselves, so that bit isn't surprising. All have earned national merit commendations, all will earn merit scholarships. Two of them are not really technically "faculty brats" at this point, but have parents in hi-tech. The MG among them have been mostly pretty well accommodated in the schools here (30% identification as GT, recall), and the HG+ ones... er, not-so-much, actually-- because they hit ceilings and there are real barriers surrounding accommodations (or even-- allowances) beyond that point. One of these children was consulting with a high school guidance counselor about college applications are the start of her junior year and was told 'Is this ALL??' when she showed off her soccer record, work with Special Olympics, and stellar (3.9uw) transcripts. REALLY. This is a family that has definitely chosen NOT to Tiger Parent, but the message that this lovely and very bright, decent child got from her high school guidance counselor was that she was a complete slacker and a loser in the college sweepstakes, for sure... WOW doesn't even cover it. And yes, her parents were livid when she came home in tears.



Two of those six children have had regional or national media attention, two others have had LOCAL media attention (including the one savaged in the anecdote above) and all of them are probably Ivy hopefuls (if they chose). I'd call that cohort the "top 10%" here. It's that kind of town. They would all six look like complete rock stars in a rural small town in a neighboring county, and here they aren't really THAT special. The top 15% or so of both public high schools are easily "elite" college material. Average SAT scores in that cohort are north of 2000 combined and ACT's are 30+.

Sounds like it'd be a great place for a HG+ cohort of kids, right? Like they'd be better able to find peers, etc, and all that. But it doesn't work that way now because of the competitive parenting-- the top 25% of the population is INSISTING that the ceiling be set at 100% for THEIR kids-- because those MG kids deserve a shot at Stanford, too, and if they look less able compared to the top 5% (as they would, if not for the ceiling-- this is clearly an enriched setting where HG kids are more like 1:250-ish or so, I think) then they won't get in. It's only by hiding the fact that there is a difference between MG and HG+ that it's okay when you live in a place like this.




The problem for me as a parent is that my DD doesn't know that there IS a place beyond the ceiling, because nobody will allow her to go there.