Getting into college is your student’s responsibility and the least of your parenting concerns

It’s the moment of truth as I receive either a pat on the back or a knife in the back. The cornerstone of my Student Success Project presentations is that a successful student is a self-sufficient, self-reliant, self-resilient, confident and yes, happy kid. However, with the college acceptance game in full swing, for many parents that definition just doesn’t cut it.

I mean let’s be real, for some parents, college acceptance approaches the culmination of every single parenting choice ever made. It can seem the ultimate goal, the ROI of parenthood, and the epitome of a parenting job well done.

It feels like the end game for every AP class, honors class, volunteer opportunity, and sports involvement that you required of your child.

This college acceptance looms as the justification for the hours upon hours of helping with homework, rewriting their homework, doing most of their science fair projects since sixth grade, hiring expensive college counselors, and pushing, pushing, pushing your kids to get the A at any cost. “My child got into his first choice university” will be worn proudly and loudly as a testament to how well you have done as mom and dad.

What started out as just wanting the best for our children, suddenly morphed into – my child needs to be the best.

So, what do we do as a result? We DO too much! And, we expect our kids to do too much. We start believing that we need to start the long process of getting our kids ready for college in elementary school. We begin having massive anxiety about college acceptance when our kids are in middle school. And by high school, we become out of control!

We lose our focus on our children and what’s best for them and instead start seeing them as a reflection of us as parents. They must get into a great college or we have failed miserably at parenthood.

We have strangled the creativity out of our children by forcing them to do things they may not want to do, but as good parents we have to check the box that reads competitive sports — check! Many of our kids don’t even know what it is they like to do because we have been telling them what to like for their whole lives.

Our children are riddled with anxiety and we are medicating them more now than ever. Why are we doing this? So that they can get into college and be successful! Let me tell you something — college acceptance does not make a person succeed, nor does it say one thing about your parenting.

You know what does speak volumes about your parenting? Ask yourself the following questions:

● Does your child have a compassionate soul?
● Does your child have a healthy dose of intellectual curiosity?
● Is your child resourceful and independent?
● Is your child happy with whom he/she is?
● Can your child creatively problem-solve?
● Is your child passionate about anything?
● Can your child sit alone and enjoy his own company?

We must stop the competitive, ridiculous, and oftentimes painful race to college. We must remember that our children come from us but are not a reflection of us. Together, we can stop this madness and allow our children to find their way in this world, prestigious college or not.

By embracing what makes THEM happy, and by seeing them as the creative beings that they are, we can stop competing with each other as parents, and they can enjoy, flourish and even love this one life they have.

And therein lies the real purpose of The Student Success Project!

This column is by Ritchie Lucas, Founder of The Student Success Project and Think Factory Marketing. He can be reached at 305-788-4105 or via email ritchie@thinkfactory.com and on Facebook and You Tube as The Student Success Project.


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