My friend is one of those 'overly involved' parents with his daughter: tennis lessons and competitions, sailing lessons and competitions, skiing lessons and competitions. He sacrificed a huge amount of time to give his daughter every opportunity.
I asked him one time "do you think she might end up hating you for making her do all these activities?"
He thought it would be ok. He said "it will open doors for her. She's now so good at tennis that wherever she goes she'll be in demand to join the ladies team."
Looks like he was right: she got into a good university with a sailing scholarship, she is athletic, has a good relationship with her parents and is an all round happy and pleasant person.
Isn’t that a bit like raising your kid with the intent of playing in the NBA though? I understand that it worked well for your friend and I am not knocking athletics, my own daughter is doing gymnastics, but that seems like either a post-hoc justification on the part of your friend or a strategy with a low rate of success such that it seems a bit odd to go for as a parent.
Personally, I’ve seen far more of my helicopter-parented high-performance peers burn out and die in the last 15 years (I am in my mid thirties). I grew up in the Gifted and Talented cohort but without that Tiger Mom kind of parenting. I did fine, got a full ride to a state school, make good money and work a relaxed remote job.
Most of my cohort went on to MIT, Stanford, Carnegie, the Ivy Leagues. Of the dozen or so I really think only one made it through that pipeline unscathed and successful. Several dropped out to become bums at their parent’s house, one was homeless and became a stripper. Two have sadly taken their own lives despite seemingly good FAANG careers.
These are all “good kids” from stable middle class or even richer families. It’s a bit strange to have watched.
That's sad. There are so many factors at play. I would say that with my friend and his daughter, one of the reasons it worked out well was because they spent so much time together: traveling to competitions, driving to the mountains for skiing every weekend. They enjoyed each other's company and bonded over these shared experiences, and things like introducing her to the Beatles and the Grateful Dead.
> They enjoyed each other's company and bonded over these shared experiences
My son competes on the national and international level in two different sports, so we do a lot of traveling. The bonding is very important, just as it is knowing when to get out of the way and let them shine.
In one sport, I drop him off and pick him up for practice (he gets distracted/flustered when someone is there watching him practice). In the other, I practice with him and am trying to stay better than him as long as I can.
There are a few other things I think are important...
If they don't want to do something, don't push them to. My son decided not to compete in a national ranking event in a couple of months because his competitions are on Thursday and Saturday and he would miss three days of school when factoring in travel.
Try to anticipate their eventual needs and make sure the right tools/equipment/etc. are available for them before they realize they needed it. Also, have backup equipment just in case something breaks or fails.
Make sure that they understand the 'why' behind all the things that both they have done, and what you have done, to enable them to get to that level.
Finally, from a young age, teach them to "always do your best, and always do better next time." The first national competition he went to, he literally finished dead last out of over 250. When we were in the airport heading home, I let him know that it's alright if he doesn't want to do more of them. He didn't back down in the slightest, and asked me when the next one was because he knew he could do better. Next month will be the second time he competes in the Junior Olympics for that sport.
> Isn’t that a bit like raising your kid with the intent of playing in the NBA though?
No: getting to the NBA is very difficult, but you don't have to be that good. You 'just' have to be good enough to play at the college/university level with a scholarship. One doesn't necessarily have to 'go pro'.
I knew someone who got a scholarship to a business/finance program for cross-country running: he wasn't planning on being a pro runner. And doing these activities in high school is probably a good thing, from a social and health perspective, regardless of if it leads anywhere else.
> Two have sadly taken their own lives despite seemingly good FAANG careers
Sorry to hear that.
Unfortunately I think we have way over indexed on "success" being tied to money and seeking these careers at companies that drive people to exhaustion and let the competitive environment drive everyone harder and harder with a ratchet effect.
IMO it’s less about success but a lack of reliable safety nets. Absent a good supporting environment, what choice does an individual have than to maximise their own outcome.
Not just safety nets, but the disappearance of the middle class at least in the US. It increasingly feels like people either make twice or more what they need to live, or half what they need to live.
I can absolutely see why parents see the way things are, try to extrapolate out another 20 or 30 years, and feel like they have to make sure their child is in the "well-to-do" group. It feels like the days are gone where you could be an average performer at an average job and live an okay life.
Fighting for the crows nest on the titanic
Do countries with reliable safety nets have lower rates of taking one's own life? What does reliable mean for a safety net?
> Isn’t that a bit like raising your kid with the intent of playing in the NBA though?
Not quite. NBA is for a tiny minority a a great well paying career. Most parents who raise their kids to play in the NBA will fail in that goal. However if you instead make the goal get a great scholarship playing basketball which is then used to pay for the degree that becomes their career it can be a great plan.
However here it sounds like the sailing was done not to get a great career, but to get a great college scholarship. This is likely a great plan. I suspect that while there are more basketball scholarships than sailing scholarships, there is a lot less competition for the sailing ones. It wouldn't surprise me if the typical sailing scholarship was higher than the typical basketball one - if you want someone on your team you need to get them away from the other schools, while for basketball if someone isn't obvious NBA bound (and thus your star starter) if they go elsewhere you just pick the next kid on the list for the scholarship.
The above isn't just sports. In music Violin vs Bassoon gets the same issues. Acting also fits in somehow. And your kids may well be doing more than one of the above.
> I’ve seen far more of my helicopter-parented high-performance peers burn out
I've seen a lot of kids burn out from all backgrounds. The real problem I see with helicopter is because the kids never get to make mistakes they don't learn how to deal with them. The less controlled kids learn to be a little cautious and so when they rebel they are not going to go as far.
note that this example isn't doing these things professionally, but leveraged them to get into a good school, which nets a lot of valuable connections... it's not all or nothing, this person will be fine even if they don't become a pro tennis player
also I hear you on the suicides, but I grew up in a much poorer background and those are just overdoses in my situation.... there's easily a dozen kids in my graduating class that weren't pressured to do anything, had no idea what to do, and got addicted to drugs that killed them
there's no single right path
What school is offering sailing scholarships?
HINT: NONE. If this is true, I'd really like to know what program that is.
Sailing isn't an NCAA sport, it's governed by its own association the ICSA. Sailing Scholarships are explicitly disallowed, in fact the bigger issue that's been happening in collegiate sailing is the opposite of a scholarship.
Eager and wealthy parents making huge donations to sailing programs, rowing programs, lawn dart programs, fencing programs, etc to get admission into top schools where their kid wouldn't be able to get in on their own merit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varsity_Blues_scandal
I was probably incorrect stating that it was a scholarship, my bad - I know there were some incentives, but whether it was a financial deal or not I don't know. The main point for her, the student, was that due to her sporting achievements she was given offers of places from several of the top universities so she could take her pick.
These extra curricular activities, were the secret game you had to play, to get into prestigious universities. At least, it was just a few years ago. Besides niche sports like lacrosse and rowing, there was the volunteer activities like serving at a soup kitchen. When Ivy League universities saw a resume like that, they knew which social class the student belonged to.
So much of your comment is wrong:
> These extra curricular activities, were the secret game you had to play, to get into prestigious universities. At least, it was just a few years ago.
Extracurriculars have been a part of elite school admissions for about a century.
It hasn’t really been a secret for most of that time.
Some people (somewhat correctly) say that this requirement was added to discriminate against Jews at that time, but it was also an education idea (“Progressive Education” by Dewey) that gained popularity around the same time.
Regardless of what the initial catalyst was, the universities seemed to like having folks who were “doers” as a significant part of their student body.
> Besides niche sports like lacrosse and rowing
These are not “niche sports” in certain parts of the country.
> there was the volunteer activities like serving at a soup kitchen.
I can tell you point blank that serving in a soup kitchen does not help you get into an elite school.
For any school that ranks such things, if you have a laundry list of volunteer activities like this, it would get you the next to lowest rating in extracurriculars — this is basically the same as not doing anything.
The key to getting an high rating for any volunteer activity would be to show leadership (which is something the elite schools says point blank that they want) and meaningful impact.
> When Ivy League universities saw a resume like that, they knew which social class the student belonged to.
I’ve got news for you. A wide range of classes of people do these things.
There might be a floor at the absolutely lowest end of the economic spectrum (just due to instability of housing and food), but I’ve seen a ton of great examples from folks who were not upper or upper middle class. Often times necessity can be the mother of invention!
I assure you that these stories stand out to admissions committees, with the biggest challenge often being simply to get some of these folks from modest means to apply.
Really. A wide range of classes of people do these things. I didn't know.
I think there are basically two kinds of micromanagement that need to be distinguished. The first one is encouraging your child to do something which you think has direct benefits, like learning to swim, which is good exercise and prevents drowning. The second is encouraging your kid to do something because you expect indirect social benefits: either some admissions officer will be impressed by an applicant who plays the oboe or the child will socialize with "the right crowd" or something like that. It's the second kind that can become pernicious because it creates an opportunity for the parent's own status anxieties and prejudices to be projected onto the child, like "lacrosse players are smarter than basketball players" so you want the kid to play lacrosse and not basketball even though they are basically comparable activities and this is dismissive of the needs and capabilities of children to learn to navigate social environments and pressures for themselves.
I would guess a parent who can enroll their kid in sailing for leisure could have paid for college anyhow