Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Offshoot of Parenting Arms Race Thread

I didn't have the faintest idea what I wanted in a college, or why I was going. I looked at it as "Grade 13".

As far as I could tell, I wasn't going to feel like I belonged in any of the colleges.

I was waaaaay to socially immature to deal with college.

And I will say that college made my immaturity worse and not better, since I was less socialized when I was finished. That really didn't help with law school.

Fortunately, it was free....

I see what you mean, but for me, it wasn't that I thought my alma mater was "one of the great ones," it was just that it fit. I didn't get the same feel with either of my graduate level institutions., although perhaps there is that difference between undergraduate and graduate.

There you have it!

What I probably needed was another year or two to grow up more than anything else.

DD9 has expressed her desire to attend a college nearby so she can continue to live at home, since she's a member of the generation that inexplicably likes its parents. So at the moment, that's not an issue.

DD is naturally competitive, is responsive to extrinsic rewards, and is perfectionist to boot, so she'd be a wonderful tiger cub, as she already has the claws and fangs, and she just needs to earn her stripes. But since we're [insert the opposite of tiger here, what is that? bear? antelope? meercat?] parents, we've been spending a lot of time helping her file down those claws and fangs. Among the dulling exercises, we deliberately cut back on her schedule if she's getting overloaded, we aggressively schedule her some down/play time, we emphasize mistakes as a valuable part of learning, and we pay her for earning Bs.

At age 5 she became fascinated with Olympic gymnastics, and we discouraged her from pursuing that by pointing out all the hours of training that requires, and all the things in her life that would displace. Once she knew the opportunity costs, she decided she was unwilling to pay. The same argument will still play when it comes time to pursuing an elite college. She can remain an emotionally stable human being who makes connections with other human beings while earning some B's in high school, or she can strive for valedictorian.

And then she'll probably qualify for an Ivy anyway.

I try really hard to make sure that DS fully enjoy his childhood without pressures or inappropriate expectations, partly in the hope that he will be ready to be a grown-up by college. By the way, not that I am implying that was your problem.

Well, I also had effective total control over my school environment since my father was the school superintendent.

College didn't have that....

PRECISELY.


#1 is important to my DD-- no idea if she'll get there or not (it's possible), but an Ivy ultimately was not.

She's eying possible national (maybe Olympic) competition in another area, and has made some choices about college appropriately... but that meant either MIT or {where she's chosen, which is a "best buy" but FAR from elite}.

I like that visual - claws and fangs! For some reason, DS is not particularly competitive, at least with his classmates but that can change.

It's also kind of weird how clearly DS understands statistics from an early age. He undestands that even 99.9 percentile is ultimately a dime a dozen when there are millions of people. He is the one who pointed out to me that you can hit perfect scores on all the AMCs and be a long way from gaining one of the few slots on the USAMO team.

I'm hoping to reach an emotional age of 20 by the time my kids are in college. I figure I'm about 17 or 18 now.