The pressure on these kids to go to the best schools in the country is rather outrageous.
My daughter is a senior in high school this year. She will be attending a wonderful college in the fall and everything has worked out fine. Yet the insanity of the college process can be a painful one. I lay 90% of the blame of this insanity on parents. The pressure on these kids to go to the best schools in the country is rather outrageous. Particularly when this pressure comes from parents who didn’t attend Ivy League schools themselves and have turned out to be (despite their college obsession) decent people.
Through most of this year, I sought out the company of my laid back friends who took the college process in stride and with the overall belief that their child would do quite well in life regardless of the college they attended. If I heard one more parent talk about their child’s “safety school” as if it was the worst place in the world, I was going to lose it. One person’s safety school is another person’s Harvard. To suggest otherwise is both demeaning to your own child, as well as another’s child.
This proud mother said, “Well, my daughter will be attending her Harvard in the fall.”
I have to share a lovely conversation that I had with a local mom. She and I hadn’t met before, but we had a number of friends in common and it turned out that her daughter was also a senior at the same high school as my daughter. I ran into her one day and the conversation turned to our children and where or if they planned on attending school in the fall. This proud mother said, “Well, my daughter will be attending her Harvard in the fall.”
That sentence has stuck with me and I’ve stolen it in my own conversations. Why can’t the school that our children attend be their perfect school? Why must it be a safety school or a backup school or the best liberal arts school or the best engineering school or even Harvard? Why can’t it be the school for them? It’s the school that wants them and our student must have wanted it as well because they applied to it.
Why can't we, as parents, say, 'Do your best. Enjoy the ride. Everything will work out fine.'? Click To TweetWhy can’t we say, “This is their Harvard – the school that they are meant to attend – and the school that will lead them into adulthood?” Why must we, as parents, put such outrageous pressure on this decision? Why can’t we, as parents, say, “Do your best. Enjoy the ride. Everything will work out fine.”? Why must this be a life and death decision when it isn’t and it doesn’t need to be?
I am a proud Western Illinois University graduate. WIU was my Harvard. It was the perfect place for me at that time in my life. Today I have a successful career, a happy marriage, great kids, and lifelong friends. WIU was the place where much of that started. Why can’t we believe that the same will happen for our children? Let’s take the pressure off and if our children want to go to college, let’s let them go to their Harvard and have one hell of a ride!
Love,
Lisa Kaplin Psy. D. PCC
As a financial planner, I see so many people who are worried to death about where their kids are going to go to college, and how they will ever pay for it. Moreover, the brighter the parent thinks the kid is (or the more ambitious parents are) the more activities the kids will be driven to. This micromanaging is the worst preparation for actually succeeding at college. I even saw one mom supervise her son’s haircut. The kid had to be at least 16 and had been sitting in the lobby with his sweatshirt pulled over his face when mom tried to talk. It’s become an arms race, and when people spend a quarter million dollars on something, they can’t bear thinking it would be wasted. Yet kids arrive at college unable to do anything for themselves–parents set up the room (at my daughter’s college one mom hired a decorator to help her daughter win the best dorm room contest), pay continually for carryout because the kid is too lazy to walk to the dining hall or the food doesn’t meet their dietary prejudices and latest fad. Nearly everyone is right out of high school (few military vets anymore to lend reality) and because no one can put themselves through school anymore, few work at all.
Kids have come to believe that they are all special little snowflakes but in reality many are teacup children–so fragile they break at the slightest jostle. I don’t have a quick solutions, but I’d say–don’t do everything for your kids. Don’t fix their problems, make them contribute to the family and expect some real work out of them instead of just academic achievement, and try to believe that it’s more about who they are than where they go. Have enough respect for your kid to believe they can handle their life themselves.
The amount of suicides, visits to the emergency room for anxiety and panic attacks, and high achievers dropping out is just stunning. Without parents to make everything nice and make every decision, too many kids break down, or expect the college administration to make everything nicey-nice for them–after all, mom and dad did. It’s what adults are supposed to do, and they definitely do not consider themselves adults with responsibilities.
Just this morning I saw a sewing pattern for protecting the back of your car seats, with a kid’s shoes propped up. Gimme a break–tell the kid to get his damn shoes off the upholstery. And pick up after himself, and hit the garbage can with the tossed trash, and clean her hair out of the sink and the shower drain. Those few rules alone with transform the living space in most dorms.
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry at this comment but either way I loved it and completely agree with you. Thanks for your input.
I’ve told all three of my kids that there is no “perfect” college fbut rather a place where they will feel at home, comfortable making new friendships, taking manageable & interesting courses, and learning to live independently and explore the world beyond our community. When my oldest was early in the process she was concerned about what others would think of her decision. I asked her where her friends’ parents went to college. She had no idea. And that was my point – beyond the first job or admission to grad school, in ten years no one will know where these kids went to college. The college experience will belong solely to them, and hopefully will have helped them become confident, happy adults, whether it was at community college or Ivy League.
Amen!