Consider what's most important in life -- happiness, purpose, power, wealth accumulation, adventure, knowledge, creative freedom and expression -- and question whether an elite school is what supports what you want most.
Go Ask Your Dad is parenting advice with a philosophical bent as one dad explores what we want out of life, for ourselves and our children, through useful paradigms and best practices. Share your insight at the CNN Parenting Facebook page.
Before you"help" your kid get into an Ivy League school through various methods of chicanery, take a very deep breath and consider why it's so important to you that they get into an elite school. If your reflexive answer is,"Because my kid wants to go there," then consider who may have influenced that desire. There is a reason you both share it. Go Ask Your Dad is parenting advice with a philosophical bent as one dad explores what we want out of life, for ourselves and our children, through useful paradigms and best practices. It considers old problems in new ways, and new problems that previous generations didn't face.
A much less fraught start to the college scouting process would be a values exercise. As you and your teen consider what's most important in life, use those factors -- happiness, purpose, power, wealth accumulation, adventure, knowledge, creative freedom and expression, etc -- as a filtering device. Stanford, Harvard and Yale may not be ideal for some of those values. Screw up at parenting.
If I'd gone to a more prestigious school my life would have been different, I have no doubt. But different isn't the same as better, happier, more fun, more fulfilling, or wiser. Leave it to the kids to figure out most of this college journey on their own. And use your waning parental influence over your teenager to impart values over trying to game the system.David G. Allan is the editorial director of CNN Health, Wellness and Parenting.
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