Post by gatordog on Sept 14, 2011 12:01:47 GMT -5
from todays Tribune
Can success be summed up in an ACT score?
The average parent, it seems, will not accept an average child
By John Keilman, TRIBUNE REPORTER
September 14, 2011
Psychologist Madeline Levine once tried to give a lecture about parenting the average child. Nobody showed up.
When she told this story the other night to an auditorium packed with moms and dads at Glen Ellyn's Glenbard South High School, the crowd broke into nervous titters. Parents who can't face the fact that their kids are average? How ridiculous!
And yet … those must be other parents. Right?
After all, if our kids were average, we wouldn't put them on year-round travel teams, force them to practice the cello for three hours a day or sign them up for every honors class short of AP taxidermy (and we'd put them in that, too, if we heard that the admissions director at Princeton had a weakness for stuffed opossums).
Such is the madness of many a suburban parent, a folly stoked by ego and fear. We treat our children as monuments to our own awesomeness, taking unseemly pride in their pristine report cards and all-conference awards. Or we gape at America's smoking wreck of an economy and conclude that if our kids are to get anywhere in life other than a drive-thru window, they'd better become full-time members of the 99th percentile.
Levine, who practices in super-rich Marin County, Calif., often sees this relentless focus on achievement in affluent families. She also sees what it can leave behind.
Teens who are in the grip of clinical depression (the rate is higher in the suburbs than in cities, according to one study). Students who think nothing of cheating to get better grades. Young people who feel so stressed that their only relief comes from cutting themselves.
Levine, who has written a book titled "The Price of Privilege," is part of a wave of therapists, researchers and social observers who argue that many of today's parents have found a new method of screwing up their kids: ask too much of them in some ways, not nearly enough in others.
We push our children to get A's in high-level classes and top scores on college entrance exams, and we pay dearly to make that happen (some tutors in Manhattan earn $1,000 an hour, Levine said). But all this harping on grades and test scores isn't producing imaginative problem solvers or passionate seekers of knowledge. It's producing kids who care only about grades and test scores.
Meanwhile, we're letting a lot of other things slide. We allow our children to shirk household chores if they say they need to study. We skip family dinners to drive them from one team practice to another. We worry far more about their fifth-grade science fair project than their sense of integrity.
In the end, Levine told the audience, we're churning out young people who, for all their accomplishments, are sheltered, fragile and passive.
"Life is going to hit them just the way it hit you," she said. "Our job is really to set up our children to cope with life on their own."
So, if you buy this calamitous vision, what can be done? Levine said we need to redefine our idea of success. It's not about getting into the Ivy League or landing a job on Wall Street, but about developing positive character traits: self-control, self-efficacy, self-esteem, self-reliance, enthusiasm, creativity and work ethic.
Levine's message certainly registered in Glen Ellyn, a prosperous town with plenty of achievement-minded parents. One dad told me after the talk that his daughter had just put in a 13-hour day between classes and extracurriculars (he wasn't counting homework time). Another said that among his social set, a child going to community college would be considered a failure.
They sensed that something had gone off the rails, and were glad to hear Levine spell it out.
"It's affirming that the little voice we're hearing in the back of our heads is right," said Kim Opem, who has two children at Glenbard South. "Your ACT score doesn't make you a success. Being a kind, loving, compassionate person is what's really important."
I believe that, too, but it's hard to turn off those notions of success I've spent a lifetime absorbing. I recently had a long, serious talk with my son about how he needs to do well on a standardized test so he can get into an advanced math class. He's 8.
I do think it's important to push children to give their best effort — sloth, it seems to me, is a far greater threat to most kids than self-mutilation — but restraint is undoubtedly in order. The next time we urge Timmy and Tammy to add another demanding class to their schedules or try out for one more all-star team, we should think about what's driving our insistence.
Maybe our fear isn't really that we have average kids. It's that they have average parents.
jkeilman@tribune.com
Can success be summed up in an ACT score?
The average parent, it seems, will not accept an average child
By John Keilman, TRIBUNE REPORTER
September 14, 2011
Psychologist Madeline Levine once tried to give a lecture about parenting the average child. Nobody showed up.
When she told this story the other night to an auditorium packed with moms and dads at Glen Ellyn's Glenbard South High School, the crowd broke into nervous titters. Parents who can't face the fact that their kids are average? How ridiculous!
And yet … those must be other parents. Right?
After all, if our kids were average, we wouldn't put them on year-round travel teams, force them to practice the cello for three hours a day or sign them up for every honors class short of AP taxidermy (and we'd put them in that, too, if we heard that the admissions director at Princeton had a weakness for stuffed opossums).
Such is the madness of many a suburban parent, a folly stoked by ego and fear. We treat our children as monuments to our own awesomeness, taking unseemly pride in their pristine report cards and all-conference awards. Or we gape at America's smoking wreck of an economy and conclude that if our kids are to get anywhere in life other than a drive-thru window, they'd better become full-time members of the 99th percentile.
Levine, who practices in super-rich Marin County, Calif., often sees this relentless focus on achievement in affluent families. She also sees what it can leave behind.
Teens who are in the grip of clinical depression (the rate is higher in the suburbs than in cities, according to one study). Students who think nothing of cheating to get better grades. Young people who feel so stressed that their only relief comes from cutting themselves.
Levine, who has written a book titled "The Price of Privilege," is part of a wave of therapists, researchers and social observers who argue that many of today's parents have found a new method of screwing up their kids: ask too much of them in some ways, not nearly enough in others.
We push our children to get A's in high-level classes and top scores on college entrance exams, and we pay dearly to make that happen (some tutors in Manhattan earn $1,000 an hour, Levine said). But all this harping on grades and test scores isn't producing imaginative problem solvers or passionate seekers of knowledge. It's producing kids who care only about grades and test scores.
Meanwhile, we're letting a lot of other things slide. We allow our children to shirk household chores if they say they need to study. We skip family dinners to drive them from one team practice to another. We worry far more about their fifth-grade science fair project than their sense of integrity.
In the end, Levine told the audience, we're churning out young people who, for all their accomplishments, are sheltered, fragile and passive.
"Life is going to hit them just the way it hit you," she said. "Our job is really to set up our children to cope with life on their own."
So, if you buy this calamitous vision, what can be done? Levine said we need to redefine our idea of success. It's not about getting into the Ivy League or landing a job on Wall Street, but about developing positive character traits: self-control, self-efficacy, self-esteem, self-reliance, enthusiasm, creativity and work ethic.
Levine's message certainly registered in Glen Ellyn, a prosperous town with plenty of achievement-minded parents. One dad told me after the talk that his daughter had just put in a 13-hour day between classes and extracurriculars (he wasn't counting homework time). Another said that among his social set, a child going to community college would be considered a failure.
They sensed that something had gone off the rails, and were glad to hear Levine spell it out.
"It's affirming that the little voice we're hearing in the back of our heads is right," said Kim Opem, who has two children at Glenbard South. "Your ACT score doesn't make you a success. Being a kind, loving, compassionate person is what's really important."
I believe that, too, but it's hard to turn off those notions of success I've spent a lifetime absorbing. I recently had a long, serious talk with my son about how he needs to do well on a standardized test so he can get into an advanced math class. He's 8.
I do think it's important to push children to give their best effort — sloth, it seems to me, is a far greater threat to most kids than self-mutilation — but restraint is undoubtedly in order. The next time we urge Timmy and Tammy to add another demanding class to their schedules or try out for one more all-star team, we should think about what's driving our insistence.
Maybe our fear isn't really that we have average kids. It's that they have average parents.
jkeilman@tribune.com