Holy mackerel.

http://www.salon.com/2012/10/22/my_daughter_cant_be_average/

I think I need a few more cups of coffee before I comment on that piece. Wow.

The author seems to have prepped her daughter specifically for the test ("Working memory index was our specialty"). I also don't generally like phrasings such as "recommending... for gifted", "getting into gifted", etc. It's gifted programs that one should seek access to, when appropriate. A sad story.

The author is obsessed with her 1090 (out of 1600) SAT score but is unaware of its implications. If she is only slightly above average in intelligence, as evidenced by her SAT scores, why should she expect her daughter to be gifted? She should have read a book such as The Bell Curve.

The author of "My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy" may have other problems.

In my school districts, gifted apparently means that you aren't with the social deviants.

So, no entry into the gifted program and it's off to private school you go.

Intelligence (whatever it is) does have some environmental components.

Truly dreadful. I feel badly for that little girl.

Let me answer, at the cost of perhaps making myself look foolish.

When my middle son had his IQ tested by the school (because of a minor speech impediment which has now cleared up), he scored in the 110s. When I saw the score I was saddened, telling my wife that this is not the type of IQ that typically gets someone into college X. She reasonably replied that it was too early to make such forecasts -- he was 6. I don't have reason to think his score was underestimated, and it is an above-average score, just not gifted (usually defined as 130+). He is not as smart as his older brother, nor is he as bookish. He will read for say an hour a day, if encouraged, while his older brother is a bookworm. He is doing fine in school. There is no gifted program for me to worry about his getting into, but I do think about to boost him academically. I wonder, for example, if he is the kind of kid, bright but not gifted, who can benefit from going to a private school?

Thanks Mom, for giving me a highly Google-able name, and assuring that the first hit for some time will be about my average IQ.

Wrong in so many ways. Someone should start a fund for Tashi to help pay for counseling when she is older.

Ai yi YI.


Okay, what? Is this a thing?

A thing?

Some students compare SAT scores to determine their inherent value as people.

One of my associates in high school was quite angry that I scored about 100 points above him.

I didn't really care about SAT scores or college at that point. They were just things that you did because you had to do them.

No, I do not remember comparing SAT scores. However, my husband, (to my chagrin, because I don't think it is appropriate to ask) did ask my PG SIL. The answer was 1600) I was actually curious too so I didn't give him too hard of a time about it!

Hmmm...I just remember comparing SAT scores in high school, shortly after getting them. Funny though, I think my dh remembers his score about 150 points higher than it really was (at least from MY memory). I don't have the heart to correct him.

I went to college with mostly ACT takers. I could've told them I got an 850 or a 1600 and they would've been none the wiser

What's "working memory" training? They were playing video games like luminosity instead of reading or studying? Did she learn nothing from Tiger Mom last year? We talked about this, you knew better. :P

Yes, I remember comparing them in HS right after we got them. But I don't think they ever came up in college. Maybe once or twice? I think it would have been considered very uncool to ask about that. I just couldn't figure out if this woman is insane, exaggerating wildly (and we are supposed to know that), or just ran with a weird crowd. Or maybe U Penn is very different from where I went to college. (U Penn is harder to get into than my alma mater, but not a lot harder. Different kind of place, though.)

I mean, my DH and I have compared scores, but I'm sure we knew each other for years before it came up.

I remember SAT scores being a major topic of conversation shortly after results were released. I also remember them being a subject many years later, when some friends were recruiting me to join Mensa, because it was useful to meet the admissions requirement. Otherwise, I don't recall it being a subject of any particular interest.

In secondary education, current grades mattered to people a whole lot more than anything that happened in high school.

I've watched a good writer friend get crucified for what started as an innocent post making an observation about her own biases. It was republished to Huffington Post, and the comments came so fast and furious at first, you could literally watch them grow in real time. She was devastated at first by those who misunderstood her motives and those who judged her and said horrid, nasty things about her. Essays for major pubs are usually in this breezy, pithy tone that gives them a certain worldly tone but often leads to an interpretation of callousness and shallowness that may or may not be true.

So, I really do feel for this parent who wrote honestly about her own issues and how they affected her child. And I guess my only question is why she finally felt like she was a bad mom. She never explains that. I wish she would have explained what she learned so the reader could carry away something more valuable than just being horrified for the kid's loss of privacy and the mom's depicted dysfunction.

I write about my kids, but it is always with their prior screening and approval. If they nix a post, it doesn't publish. Ever.

As to the perceptions themselves, I've had counselors accuse me of the same thing - of wanting my kid in gifted for the validation and ego. And I had one counselor who was just as horrified when I told her I wouldn't wish Giftedness someone's kid, because it came with a boatload of problems that most people never understood. Gifted signifies elite, special, better than, and I think that is where all of it goes wrong. Because then the opposite starts to happen - when one isn't "gifted", the tendency can be to tear down the value of that person with comments like, "they may be smart, but they can't even figure out how to...". It sets up a destructive us-versus-them dialogue that harms all sides.

Then again, this parent has already written one book addressing a controversial issue, so maybe this post was more about trolling for reaction for the sake of publicity. If so, it will likely be a successful marketing ploy.

I feel for her too. The story about SAT's being compared at Penn was eye-opening for me. But...

The author is responsible for her control over that tone. In this case, it goes way too far into realm of "Ha ha, look how neurotic I am, but it's all okay because I'm confessing to it!" (I blame Anne Lamott for this particulary noxious trend.)

Here's where I think the writer does not get a pass: She coached her kid intensively for an IQ test. She gamed the system. But this is not one of the things that gets a self-mocking "How stupid am I?" from the writer. It's pretty clear at the end of the article that she feels relieved and vindicated that her kid is labeled "gifted," and that she believes the tester who tells her that her kid is very smart.

Absolutely no self-insight here, which is supposed to be one of the hallmarks of this genre of breezy writing.

You couldn't possibly look foolish for having such feelings, in my opinion. Angst over academic performance and IQ must be worse than normal for parents who have one child who significantly underperforms another. Maybe that's how it will be for me-- my second son had a significant expressive language delay and is developing quite differently from my first.

I usually think of these issues as arising due to parent competitiveness with other parents, or from wanting one's children to have opportunities or successful outcomes. In the linked story, though, I found the opening particularly poignant ("I want my daughter... to think she’s one of the smart kids") even if it is partly motivated by performance concerns. Everyone wants their children to have a positive self-concept.

ETA: ... but I also agree with MegMeg.

I remember comparing LSAT scores at law school more than SAT scores in college.

This may be because I was in the honors program at a state school, so the group of students I was with was going to be significantly more intelligent than the general university.

In hindsight, I probably should not have attended a university that would admit someone as intelligent as my sisters, being that I'm pretty certain we have a 30 point IQ difference.

This is something that would have been nice to know, but when you're 18 your pretty much completely ignorant about how anything really works.

In any event this article is classic Salon and which is why I love reading Salon comments so to the extent that we are discussing this here, there needs to be some acknowlegement that it's Salon.

Even I have resisted the urge to join the commentariat at Salon because it's just too dangerous there.

Kind of like wandering through a bad part of town naked at midnight.

GGA.


I keep coming back to this thread...


and then realizing that, well, no; I still haven't had enough coffee-- er, time-- um, whatever-- to formulate anything coherent in response.

I think Megmeg probably articulated my horror here the most succinctly.

Is this kind of push parenting COMMONPLACE?? I shudder to think that maybe it is much more common than I'd thought. Now I'm sifting through a decade worth of offhand commentary from parent-strangers eager to demonstrate to me/us that their children are "bright, too" even when it's almost comically awkward to bring it up.

I'm a little dumbfounded; it would never have occurred to me that this kind of enmeshed parenting was behind that drive. I assumed that it was trophy parenting, which I suppose is just as bad in its own way.

I've always wondered why on earth parents would behave in such a way... WHY would you want your child to be "Gifted" (capital-G-gifted, I mean). Having lived this, honestly, I think I'd much rather have a kid who was 'bright, but not gifted' than PG. Besides, unless this is overtly delusional thinking, and what happens if you succeed in prepping your child into a gifted magnet (or whatever passes for the rarified differentiated instructional format locally)?? Won't it be pretty damaging for an otherwise bright, even above-average, youngster to try desperately to keep up with a pace and level of instruction that they simply aren't intended to cope with?? ??? I truly do NOT understand this in the context of loving parenting.

I think that this comes close to the heart of what bothered me most about the author's subtext. The author seems to be suggesting that her PERCEPTION of her intellect is all that matters. That she was "plenty smart enough" until she knew that she wasn't that unusual. Fair enough, and I don't disagree with the notion that you basically are what you can do, generally speaking...

BUT. What bugged me about this was the notion that the label is utterly without meaning, and that therefore gaming the system to GET it was just dandy. Because it implies that there ARE no truly 'gifted' kids-- only parents who are more (or less) motivated to purchase the label for their children.

That I clearly disagree with. I have to think such things are at least somewhat rare. Or maybe I just hope so. It's possible that a large percentage of "MG" kids in the 125 range are merely groomed to look that way instead, by parents who for some bizarre reason think that this will garner their kids more opportunities and better instructional quality (which is kind of laughable, if you ask me).


I hate to break it to her, but yes, Virginia, there is PG, and it looks very little like "groomed for the test." Some people really ARE that much 'smarter' than others. Not in some made-up way, but in an authentic, day-to-day way. Sorry that probably doesn't make her feel any better.

Wow.

Because you're a believer in positive eugenics and you want the entire human population to have IQs over 150?

I'd guess the motivation is commonly much more personal. "My child has a number that makes her super-awesome, thereby establishing my own super-awesomeness."

Well, my DW is pretty insistent that we get both our children into the "gifted" program so that we don't have to pull them out and send them to private schools.

However, that's so that they avoid things that will lead to deviance, social dysfunction, and laziness more than proving that they're "really smart".

But to answer your question,

Yes.

As in Push Parenting -----> Gifted = Winning!

Weelll.... yes, if that programme of education really does have a much faster pace and higher level of instruction than what the child would get otherwise. But, maybe it's a mistaken impression coming from the concentration of parents of children who need way more that we have here, but I don't have the impression that that's common over there. Provocative? suggestion: actually a bright, well-adjusted, well-motivated child with supportive parents would be just fine in almost (not quite!) any gifted magnet or rarified gifted programme in the US. The gifted programmes are just better education, full stop.

I think the relationship between IQ and success is monotonic -- the smarter the better. This does not mean, of course, that other qualities do not influence success or that the correlation between IQ and success, however defined, is very high. So it is not surprising that many parents want their children to be really smart (or good-looking, or athletic).

As for getting into a gifted program -- suppose the cut-off is 130, your child's "natural IQ" is 120 but he can be coached to a 130 score, and the alternative to the gifted program is a regular program where the average IQ is 100 and the curriculum is geared to students with IQ below that. I'd rather have my child in the gifted program.

I think this is pretty much my DW's logic.

I agree with this entirely, primarily because almost any gifted magnet or program in the US fails to meet the needs of the truly gifted, in my experience. These options appear to me to be optimized for the bright, well-adjusted, well-motivated, well-supported, not-quite-gifted child.

I'm guessing so, too. See, this is actually why we've deliberately chosen to go with "our DD is what she can DO, not a number" and not ever get her evaluated.

But I think that our real reasons do have a lot to do with the idea that:

a) you can't Un-know things once known (which is one of this author's main points, actually),

b) we don't even want the APPEARANCE of being parents like this (for whom the number is about our own needs), and

c) if the number is as high as we think, it potentially dwarfs WHO our child is for far too many people (honestly, even her overt abilities do that sometimes)-- if it's far lower, then what on earth would we change? Clearly what we and the school have done with DD is stuff she's well capable of, and they have not seen any reason to ask for the number either. I'm about accommodating a child's needs, not the number's needs.

I have my own IQ number. While it's in the range that this author clearly (still) envies, I haven't actually found it to be all that useful in practical terms. I absolutely don't need my DD's in order to bolster my own ego. I was left feeling incredibly sad for this woman's child... and significant anger and sadness directed at the author herself, who clearly needs to just grow up and get over herself already.

I mean, wouldn't all of this parental energy be better spent in the direction of actually making the educational offerings BETTER rather than trying to guess the secret password to get into the private lounge where you HOPE that they're better??


Ick. Just ick.

Ahhhhhhhhh... I'm seeing something here.

So the real issue is that maybe MOST of the kids in that gifted programming are kids like this who are bright but not gifted?

That explains so much, and it's entirely consistent with what I've observed locally as well. The labels (including the R-word) are about parental needs, the education is what all mainstream students could (and maybe should) benefit from, and it really only doesn't work for kids that are HG or PG. Mostly.

So this is about private school privilege without tuition. I see.

Agreed with many of your points, especially this one. It's the same point that I tried to make concerning college admissions when others argued that college admissions should be based purely on ACT / SAT or some other entrance exam score. There is much more to predicting the probable success than a simple test score.....as many if not most college students and especially GT students can vouch to. If you put people who don't have the majority of tools required (not just the knowledge or intellect) to be successful, you're much less likely to produce the desired results.

I think most public school systems serve the Gifted AND Talented in one program, if properly identified, that works just fine. Bright kids with exceptionally strong work ethic and strong study habits often can pace just fine with Gifted students. The ideal scenario is to get every child what they need to be challenged and learning constantly.

Like I said, I'm still trying to recover from college and that was 15 years ago.

I just had another stupid college nightmare last night.

Annoying.

Yes.

Private schools cost money!

Plus, only a few people ever make it out of the indignities and hopelessness of the middle class and into the upper classes where life contains hope, meaning, and wonder.

Only if you can repurpose *all* the parental energy, which, as an individual parent, you can't. As an individual parent, you can do almost nothing to influence the quality of a school, especially in the time your child is actually there, *especially* if you also have a full-time job and a child with high needs, i.e., no time.

I'm sensitive about this argument because in the UK it's often used to argue that it's wrong to send your child to a private school, or even that they should be made illegal: "if you put your energy into improving your local school everybody would benefit". It just doesn't work that way.

You are oversimplifying. If the two choices are gifted schools for 130+ IQs and regular schools geared to 95 IQ students, the 120 IQ kid may be "mainstream" but still better off in the gifted school, while the 90 IQ kid is also "mainstream" but is better off in the regular school. If there were ability grouping in regular schools, the 120 IQ kid might be better off in tracked classes in the regular school.


When I lived in NYC, I was one of the taxpayers, in a city with millions of tax-eaters. I would not have felt guilty about prepping my kids for the gifted program tests, so that I could actually get some benefit from my tax dollars.

Gifted programs vary quite a lot, though. There's the one I was in when I was a child, which was something like once-weekly enrichment (maybe less). It was things like logic puzzles and cool science demonstrations. I had a French mentor for a while, which was fun. But I was not accelerated (though we were ability-grouped). Yes, any bright kid could have enjoyed and benefited mildly from this somewhat goofy program. Why not?

Then there's DD's gifted magnet. I think MOST kids with IQs over 115 (?? I'm guessing) could hack it with effort and given no LDs, but for some it might be quite difficult, and they would need a lot of parental support. Some of the kids in DD's class need a lot of support now. Note that my hesitations have a lot to do with the writing expectations (high) and the workload (heavy). Reading level is also expected to be high, though--no instruction in learning to read has been given at all, as it is assumed all students are reading above grade level on entry (in grade 2). Math also proceeds double pace much of the time. Science and social studies are at least a grade and sometimes several grades ahead (one curriculum DD8 is using is clearly intended for middle schoolers).

I've never personally met anyone who knew what to think of my own number. My SAT score, yes, but IQ numbers are not quite mainstream enough that anyone seems to know or care beyond that I passed some cutoff.

It's actually useful to me, because as an adult I found Hoagies' and learned about LOG and it explains a lot about how convoluted my interactions with non-HG+ folks are.

My overt abilities, on the other hand, turned me into a 'problem to be dealt with' to every educator I met until college. Gah. So glad to be past that. I have abilities, they don't have me.

Also, amusingly enough, the math gifted program around here is something that some parents would like to escape from.

Maybe they thought they won a prize or something, but the not quite so gifted are having a tough time with some of it.

So that's funny in the context of this thread.

I haven't played with my kids enough, mathwise, to know whether they are like me (let's sleep through Calculus!) or not.

The real problem is that the number isn't even something that necessarily makes sense.

We're measuring *something*, but IQ isn't quite true intelligence, which I don't think we've figured out what to measure.

It's really a proxy for something that has an odd geometry and which we see as "fuzzy" because we don't know what we're looking at.

And in any case, half the problem is that our "let's separate kids into industrial lots by age and process them" is technically insane.

Exactly, Jon.

You both nailed my school district precisely.

The higher the threshold you set for a gifted program, the more the identified children may need a different educational program, but the fewer the parents there are to support such a program. Therefore a relatively broad definition of giftedness may be politically inevitable if a gifted program is to survive.

Agreed.

Actually, I fundamentally disagree with "This one is Gifted and that one is Not Gifted," which might make it sound I think All Children Are Gifted. I don't. I just think it's very complicated and not very measurable by the tests, which are a blunt instrument at best. I wish we could just teach to the kids where they are, which would first of all mean demolishing grade structures. But my fantasy education world is awfully idealistic.

As I've said before here, I see vast differences in functioning even in a group of kids who are all 130+ in DD's class. It's really something. (However, I think the magnet attracts unusual kids and those with LDs--you have to really think your kid needs it to transfer, as there are some reasons why the school is outwardly unattractive to striver parents).

The magic of language and labels... we have magnet program lotteries where you pick a 1st 2nd and 3rd choice. Only if there are not enough students in the 1st picks, do the 2nd and 3rd get picked. One of the magnet programs is named "Traditional" and its pool of 1st picks is many times the seats, the stranger sounding "Learning Immersion" feeder to the gifted path often has less 1st picks.

So, with that type of lottery, you could push it even further for self-selection... maybe "Competitive Rigor Prep" vs. "School for Unusual and Asynchronous Learners"

Not entirely, because economies of scale. Magnet schools.

My DD's school only identified 2 kids her own age for G/T instruction, so yeah, the offerings were limited. But if the district were to concentrate services at a school, not only would they likely find 20 kids in the city schools for an all-day program, but they'd also attract homeschoolers (and their budget dollars) back into the fold.

That idea makes a lot of sense, which is why the district will never implement it, until someone successfully sues them for violating the state legislation guaranteeing the right of FAPE for gifted children.

Ah. Well, that explains why we don't do gifted here. Very little of our budget is per-pupil, and the schools are overcrowded. If more kids are pulled out-of-district, homeschool, private, or otherwise, the district can avoid opening more schools and spread the existing budget more generously among those who stay. In an extremely screwed-up way, they are trying to give the best education to those who can't afford to buy their own, but with a strong incentive to not make it truly the best around.

Have to disagree here. Where I live at least, tuition buys the following:

• A longer school day (varies from school to school, but usually at least 30 minutes)
• No furlough days because we ran out of money (n=5 this year in the local public schools)
• No short days on Wednesday when school ends at 1:20 pm or so, because we have to have a meeting and we can't possibly meet at 2:30 without a major contract renegotiation to compensate us for the extra 48.43 minutes our time (every week in most or all of the Bay area)
• No "minimum days" when school ends at noon (don't know how many in the local district; at least ten per year).
• Freedom from NCLB-induced test hysteria

I once calculated that because of furloughs and shorter days, public schools around here lose the equivalent of roughly one school day per week compared to private schools. This means that private schools have lots of time for music, art, science, PE, recess, and what I call "random misc," which is random stuff that they do. One year the first grade learned ceramics once a week for 9 weeks; in second grade, it was swimming lessons. Etc.

ETA: This information may look very different in different places. The public school I attended in New Hampshire in the 70s and 80s was a wonderful school, for example. But around here these days, that's just not the case.

As for the OP, well, yuck.

Understood-- though in one of the top 20 largest districts in the nation, that shouldn't be so much of an issue. And from a simply financial perspective, I undertsand why they do things the way they do. Simply put, a tiered program, or one with a raised bar, would cause them problems. They couldn't use it as a Good Mommy Reward for the largely-affluent, PTA-supporting families; not to mention that it would create more work and more accountability. And for what? The gifted program as it is already fills magnet programs which skew the standardized test statistics the way the board needs them to be skewed. Not to mention that that top group tends to be higher maintenance than those kids who are brighter-than-average-but-test-well. From a purely crass and political POV, there's much to be lost and little to be gained in trying to better meet the needs of exceptionally and profoundly gifted kids. It's simply more expedient to throw them under the bus.

I completely understand why they do it. I don't much like it, but I get it.

When I read the article it brought me back to HS 1980 and an SAT score of 990, I took the test a 2nd time and scored 970, so much for the SAT. I was middle of my class 63 of 121 with a 2.61 GPA. I only remember this because I recently found my HS transcript. The funny thing is everybody thought of me as smart, I thought of me as smart (still do sometimes). It was unfortunate that the lady in the article identified herself by the score, and or the label. Maybe because of my age or life experiences I have learned that I choose my own labels, not a score on a test. It’s my choices that define me, not the labels others give me. It’s unfortunate that societal labels such as gifted carry with them so much emotional content. How easy it is for us to say my child is not the best athlete, or even athletically gifted. But when it comes to IQ (By whatever means you test) it is much more important. Most studies show it is the better emotionally we are able to deal with adversity, and the better work ethic we have the better off we tend to be. Many based upon poor anecdotal experiences believe that gifted means successful, and by that not gifted means failure. In looking back at my history, any failures I have had are usually due to lack of effort, lack of desire, fear, or bad choices. I have never been held back because of IQ. Yes if you are smart, (a quick learner) there are some advantages, as well as costs. I do not condemn the lady in the article; it’s hard not to project our fears and perceived inadequacies on our children. DS10 at 6 was going to be a world champion chess player. I had it all worked out for him, until he decided he didn’t want to play anymore. He chose not to because of the effort needed to be great at chess was much more than the fun in just playing. Lucky for us I saw that chess was not his passion. He is now starting the Baritone Sax (Maybe a world class musician?) No this time, I let him pick the level of commitment. I have no college degree, and yes he will have one (No choice for him on this one), but he will be able to pick the school (I hope Cal Tech, my dream school) and pick his own major. We all live a little vicariously through our children, and we all hope they will do better than we did, and make better choices in their lives. I agree that there is a big difference between pushing for ourselves and pushing for them, but as the writer indicated our pasts are big influences on our choices for our children. The best we can do is recognizing it and adjust as best we can. (Note you can probably tell the verbal part of the SAT was my lowest). I only hope that as a parent, I can give my child a good foundation to build upon, to be a good person, with the strength and courage to overcome life’s adversities. I want him to identify himself as he chooses, not with the label of Gifted, HG, or PG.

I finally got around to reading the article last night (damn you, corporate firewalls!!!), and I do not share this interpretation. The problem that jumped out at me was how she was overly identified with her daughter, to the point where she was describing her with the royal "we." At the end of the article, she acknowledges that her daughter is a separate person with her own identity. It would seem that she saw the same problem I did.

You cannot force someone to go to college, and even if you could, you could not force him to study once he was there.

Force no, encourge strongly yes.

For thouse of you who say, you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink. If you hold his head down long enough he will drink. Just Kidding.

Bostonian, of course you cannot force someone to go to college or to study. But having an expectation of your child is a good thing. I expect good behavior, I expect politness, and I expect him to go to college and get a degree. These are not bad expectations. I as a parent must help my child set his expectations. Not having a standard of expectations would be bad. I fear to many parents (Myself included) do not set the standards of expections. Homework before video games, i.e. delayed gratification. Allowing failure is also a good thing, kind of like a disney movie I saw once. Why do we get knoked down, so we can learn to get back up. Just my 2 cents.

Sure. Expectations are grand. But see, the thing is, if you raise a child to be a strong, intelligent, independently thinking young man or woman, there's an inherent danger-- it may work. And strong, intelligent, independently-thinking young adults have this crazy habit of...oh, I dunno, let's call it "independent thinking". Wherein they are just as likely to decide not to go to the Ivy school, but instead join the military/take up residence in a commune/start a rock band/embrace the life of a cloistered nun/become a welder or textile artist.
Never mind how I know this.

I went to college because I was supposed to go to college.

I don't think I realized that I could have chosen something different because I was still (generally) executing the instructions from my parents, in part knowing how horrible I thought any form of adolescent rebellion was.

Of course, once my mother died and my father had a stroke, I was kind of left without instructions.

One problem with college is that it completely shatters your sense of self, destroys your self-confidence, and obliterates all of your social support.

I truly hated that period of my life.

Jonlaw, sorry to hear about your parents and your college experance.

Eldertree, As a parent I would be supportive, but probably I would show it after the choice not before. Just playing the numbers, and its hard to say where things will go in 6 to 10 years.

You're speaking too generally. Many people don't feel that way about college. I didn't. My husband didn't. My father, sister, and cousins didn't. Lots of my friends didn't. Etc.

I think most people rebuild their lives to some semblance of function rather than wandering around for five years feeling lost and confused.

So, it's definitely a personal problem, although I really do want to stop having college nightmares. They're getting annoying.

One of the more amusing things about my college experience was that my absolute worst grades, my C's, D's, and F's, started showing up when I was actually in my major in my junior/senior year when you are apparently supposed to be doing well rather than poorly.

It was just an example of complete social withdraw/depression/lack of coping skills.

You need a certain set of skills to function in a college environment. If you don't have them, things won't go well.

Now, I would be just fine there and it would probably be a positive experience.

Indeed. Some of us didn't have those things before going to college. Nothing TO shatter, if you see my meaning. Wow. I think that perhaps I have finally discovered a personal narrative perspective which allows me to feel quite content about my deeply dysfunctional upbringing. Bonus!

It helps if you go from a system where you are essentially omnipotent (meaning that you get to watch guns getting pulled on unsuspecting kids playing with a ball at 2am and get to tell the teachers what to do) to a system where you are completely irrelevant.

:claps hands:

Oh, YAY!! Personal insight = accomplished.

See, it was very soothing to go from a place where life had no rules or meaning from day to day, unto one where the rules were clear and I apparently-- for the FIRST TIME-- had both the authority and ability to see to it that bad things didn't happen to me on a regular basis as a result of highly predictable cause-and-effect. (I think that this means that I pretty much WAS one of the kids in Jon's example.) College life was amazingly, exhiliratingly empowering.

My personal insight is that it's hard to raise kids when you are emotionally an angry, angsty 17 year old who hates life.

I still haven't figured that one out.