Some parental advice from all the lovely parentals? Non parentals also welcome :D

[Losty]

Rhythm, I just wanted to add in here that my daughter is 7 in the first grade. She was 6 when she started kindergarten. Had we lived here when she started kindergarten she would be in the 2nd grade and would be in 3rd next year. I have a choice to keep her here, or skip her 1 or 2 grades. If I skip her 1 grade she will be the same age as her classmates. What do you think about that?

[The Grand Nudger]

That it would be an athletic wash, in that case...a coin flip..as mentioned before.  However, and again I'm an endgame kind of parent..if you successfully challenge her -in that environment- (as opposed to at home) you run the risk of dropping her out of a top academic spot relative to her peers and into a larger pool in the upper percentile (in a perfect world..assuming that it isn't more difficult than anticipated and she underperforms).  You basically manufacture competition for college scholarships where once there was none or less.

All that matters so me, with my kids, is creating better odds for the college game...and I accept that I have very little leverage here.

[Losty]

Honestly, if I have to work 3 jobs and my kids still have to work their way through college...I feel like I can deal with that. My daughter's happiness is more important to me than a college scholarship. Also, where I live you can go to any public college for free up to a bachelor's degree so long as you graduate high school with a 3.0 or higher.

[Edwardo Piet]

I appreciate the different opinions. It's ok to disagree.

It's not the disagreement that bugs me.  It's that as smart as he obviously is, insisting on misrepresenting what I'm saying seems to be deliberate.

If he has misrepresented you - I'm not sure TBH, I think I'm on his side in this matter I think your slippery slope argument is a bit too far fetched in this case - I totally disagree that he has misrepresented you on purpose. Rhythm simply isn't like that.

You don't have to trust me on that, but I knew him years ago. We had a long argument about pantheism when I was playing devil's advocate and arguing for it as an experiment... I felt he misrepresented what I said many many times but NOT ONCE did I think he did it on purpose. We were rather talking past each other.

[The Grand Nudger]

Honestly, if I have to work 3 jobs and my kids still have to work their way through college...I feel like I can deal with that. My daughter's happiness is more important to me than a college scholarship. Also, where I live you can go to any public college for free up to a bachelor's degree so long as you graduate high school with a 3.0 or higher.

-and that metric makes all other considerations irrelevant. If it would make her happier, and her happiness is paramount, then just dooooo eet. Remember, though,when you ask a kid what they want for dinner, they might say "cotton candy"...that would make them happy, lol.



I'm not shooting for the local public college, or my kids happiness....when it comes to my dealings with the D of E....that's where we differ, I think. Fuck those little bastards and what makes them all warm and fuzzy.

[Edwardo Piet]

I'd say it's a combination of asking your child what she wants Losty, but at the same time making sure she sufficiently understands the long term implications of getting what she wants... I mean she might think she wants X but in the long term she'd prefer Y.

Ask what she wants, she's a smart kid... but make sure she's as informed as she is able to be

Also, if what she wants you think would actually not be beneficial to her happiness long term, despite her thinking otherwise, try to advise her and explain why you think the other choice would be better... but ultimately I still think it's best to let her decide when it comes down to it. You'd never want your child to resent you in the future for convincing her to go against her own wishes because I think we both agree that the "It's for your own good attitude" wouldn't be good parenting And that wouldn't be good for either of you.

I know we both hate that "it's for your own good" shit, and I know you'd never use that phrase itself

[Losty]

Honestly, if I have to work 3 jobs and my kids still have to work their way through college...I feel like I can deal with that. My daughter's happiness is more important to me than a college scholarship. Also, where I live you can go to any public college for free up to a bachelor's degree so long as you graduate high school with a 3.0 or higher.

-and that metric makes all other considerations irrelevant.  If it would make her happier, and her happiness is paramount, then just dooooo eet.  Remember,  though,when you ask a kid what they want for dinner, they might say "cotton candy"...that would make them happy, lol.



I'm not shooting for the local public college, or my kids happiness....when it comes to my dealings with the D of E....that's where we differ, I think.  Fuck those little bastards and what makes them all warm and fuzzy.

I think you misunderstand my meaning when I say her happiness is paramount. Im considering her life long happiness, I just think elementary school experience affects middle school which affects high school. Hating grade school can turn intelligent kids into "rebels" teachers tend to already struggle with Leli because she vocal and she's too smart for her own good. There are some really great public schools in Georgia. Like Georgia Tech for example. Yea sure there are Ivy League colleges that are super prestigious....if she decides that's the way she wants to go I suppose she'll have to work her ass off and get a scholarship. But that would be true either way. I have a lot to think about and another few weeks to think on it.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Here's what I wrote:


Drug abuse is a complex phenomenon which has many antecedents and correlates. I used the word "odds" for a reason, because the causal relationship is not deterministic. Winnowing out one factor would seem to be pretty difficult, which is why what I offered is an opinion -- one which you clearly don't share, and that's fine. But -- while you're entitled to your opinion, you're not entitled to assign me mine for your ease of argumentation.

Taking drugs is not exactly a life choice. It's not like becoming a criminal. A lot of drug abusers start out as occasional users, I bet. I'm sure other factors may be involved as to why they become so dependent on them, but those same factors may very well account for a lot of other things that the drug abusers wouldn't necessarily do. It's a bit extreme I think to correlate boredom with drug abuse, though. If that's not what you did then why do you care about misrepresantation? Just set the record straight and that should be enough.

I believe I have done so already, having acknowledged the multivariate influences and disparaged any single cause-effect relationship.

[The Grand Nudger]

I don't know that her lifelong happiness will truly be affected by your decision today to skip her a few grades in elementary school (nor do I think that deciding not to skip her, or skip her, is any more likely to turn her into a "rebel" either way).   That sounds like alot of pressure on top of your decision where it may not apply, to me.

[Losty]

I'd say it's a combination of asking your child what she wants Losty, but at the same time making sure she sufficiently understands the long term implications of getting what she wants... I mean she might think she wants X but in the long term she'd prefer Y.

Ask what she wants, she's a smart kid... but make sure she's as informed as she is able to be

Also, if what she wants you think would actually not be beneficial to her happiness long term, despite her thinking otherwise, try to advise her and explain why you think the other choice would be better... but ultimately I still think it's best to let her decide when it comes down to it. You'd never want your child to resent you in the future for convincing her to go against her own wishes because I think we both agree that the "It's for your own good attitude" wouldn't be good parenting And that wouldn't be good for either of you.

I know we both hate that "it's for your own good" shit, and I know you'd never use that phrase itself

While I'm certainly against "because I told you so" and I hate "it's for your own good" (especially when said to adults). I will admit that after I have explained myself and answered all of the "why?"s if they still disagree with my decision it is tough luck, buttercup. I nurture the independent thinking as much as possible and I encourage them to try to make their own choices, but in the end I have to have the final say. Kids can be intelligent but they tend to lack common sense and they suck at considering the future. So yea, most of the time they don't get to have the final say.