I have no problem with parents giving guidance (advice) to their adult children. That is appropriate, but it has to be just advice, not direction. Because it is advice, the recipient is free to accept it, ignore it, or tell the parent to go " take a flying #### at a rolling doughnut (my favorite Kurt Vonnegut quote)." I hope my kids would do the latter if anyone (including me) tried to give them direction at that age, I certainly would have when I was 19.
Some people take advice…some don’t…It’s one level of maturity.
The parent has absolutely no right (or responsibility) to keep the “rest of us” safe from another adult. If she knows he’s out driving under the influence, she should call the police (just like it was anyone else).
WHAT…Sure she does…She has EVERY right…Glad she took the iniative to do it.
“Some people take advice…some don’t…It’s one level of maturity.”
I agree, I certainly hope my kids are mature enough to ignore much of my advice by the time they’re 19 (they’re already off to a good start). I also hope that I’m a mature enough parent to know when it’s time to butt out of their lives. It’s the role of a parent to work them selves out of a job (the sooner that happens, the better the job). If I do a very good job, they will be trying to give me advice pretty soon.
Do you think she would be justified if this “kid” was 22? What about 25 or 30? If this “kid” has a clue, he will hit the road.
“I guess you simply value headstrong teenagers more than I do.”
I was thinking about your comment and wanted to clarify something. I don’t really “value headstrong teenagers,” they are actually a giant PITA (just ask their parents, teachers, and the local police). However, that is the only way I know to end up with headstrong adults, which is something I believe to be very important. Therefore, I feel it is my job to “put up with” headstrong teenagers (i.e., provide them with the minimum possible direction to keep them out of real trouble). They need to feel like they are making “sink or swim” decisions on their own, although I’m not really going to let the sink (at least not too far).
I don’t know about you, but in my experience about 90% of everything worthwhile is accomplished by about 10% of the people. Those 10% (in my experience) are pretty “headstrong” and are not known for following the “rules.” I just don’t read about many well behaved people in history books. I would (and do) choose to work with those headstrong folks whenever possible, even if I happen to be the “authority figure” they are ignoring (or yelling at) at the moment.
If/when my kids end up living/working someplace on the other side of the world in 10 years, I certainly want them to maintain a healthy lack of “respect for authority.” If I have to put up with a little inconvenience now, that’s OK.
I fault colleges and universities for allowing students to join sororities or fraternities as first term freshmen. It used to be the case that students couldn’t join a fraternity or sorority until the sophomore year and only if they maintained a C average or above.
I’ve also found that for many students, taking calculus in high school is more a disadvantage that an advantage. These students often do not get the grounding in algebra and trigonometry that is important in mastering calculus, or, they believe they know the material and don’t study or go to class. In my day, we didn’t take calculus until our sophmore year in college. In the first year, we took college algebra. What is interesting to me is that I find myself now teaching a course called discrete mathematics which includes many of the topics of the old college algebra course. We now teach this course after calculus instead of before calculus.
In my 45 years of teaching college mathematics, statistics, and computer science, I’ve seen many students come to college who should do well and not make it. On the other hand, I’ve had students who came in at-risk because of low SAT scores and high school grades that have been quite successful. I would like to see colleges and universities let students get their feet on the ground before becoming overly involved in extra-curricular activities.
I think that today’s model which says that students need to feel good about themselves in order to be successful has it backward. I believe that a student needs to achieve in order to have the satisfaction of accomplishment and then the student will feel good about himself or herself.
Regarding the math curriculum, I think part of the problem is trying to stuff too much info into a 4 year undergraduate program (at least in engineering). Most schools are still trying to sell a 4 year engineering degree program, but many (if not most) students take 5 years (or at least some summers). At least in engineering programs, you need to teach a reasonable amount of calculus to freshman so they can take basic engineering classes. As it is, the students are almost behind on math “tools” throughout the 4 years. If you are not teaching complex calculus by their junior year, they are not going to be able to do a lot of the required work. When I was an undergrad, we took freshman calculus followed by a lot of “engineering analysis” classes designed specifically to support the engineering curriculum. As a result, I learned lots of “tools” but missed a lot of basic math theory. I really didn’t have my math “catch up” with the engineering theory until grad school. I found classes like statistical thermodynamics pretty challenging without having (what I would consider) a strong math background. I still think about going to grad school to pick up a math degree (and I’m almost 50).
I suspect things are different in a math degree program, where you are trying to teach “real” math, not just problem solving tools. In that case I think you would need to spend a lot of time on fundamentals, assume most of these students are going to enter a graduate math program.
I also think that secondary schools (and university entrance requirements) need to raise the bar on math. Currently my kids’ high school only requires two years of (any) math for graduation. I would like to see university entrance requirements for technical programs require “real” calculus as an entrance requirement, there just isn’t time to teach high school math in a 4 year university program (that’s what community collages are for).
Regarding the students’ social life, I really think that it’s their problem. Give them enough work as freshman that they will only survive if they are serious. If they can’t hack it, they can come back when they get their “stuff” together. I really don’t care where students are living or what they are doing in their “spare time” (they are probably doing just about the same things that students have been doing for several centuries). I don’t much care if they “feel good about themselves,” they can do that when they have time (after they graduate). When I was an undergrad engineering student, about 1/3 of the starting class survived to graduate.
I agree with most of what you are saying. However, I think tht “real” mathematics should involve problem solving tools, and you have to apply the mathematics to problems. I had advanced calculus from “Higher Mathematics for Physicists and Engineers” by E.S. and I.S. Solkonikoff. Having to work the applied (i.e. word) problems really helped me learn the mathematical theory, and this textbook had plenty of these types of problems. My physics courses also helped me understand calculus. The difficult problem is to verbalize the problem, translate it to the mathematical symbols, arrive at the solution,and then translate the problem back to English. Manipulating the mathematical symbols is often the easy part, but unfortunately, the only part that is done in many mathematics courses. The number of word problems in the textbooks used in elementary and high school mathematics textbooks has been greatly reduced in the last 40 years. I think that this is a mistake. I believe that the more one has to apply mathematics, the better one learns mathematics. I didn’t have much time for parties or time to worry about whether or not I felt good about myself. However, when I did solve what I thought was a difficult problem or performed well on a test, I had a feeling of accomplishment.
I agree, the problem solving aspect of math is very important (I’m an engineer, not a mathematician), and I don’t want to minimize it. My book was “Advanced Engineering Mathematics” by Peter O’Neil (about half differentials and about half complex analysis). I definitely needed to learn that stuff, but I always felt it was a little too cookbook and focused only on practical applications (maybe I was just a frustrated math guy doing engineering). For me, math is always easier if it’s tied to a physical problems because I can “see through” the math to the physics. I have a tendency to loose focus on “pure math” problems if I don’t have a deep enough understanding of the underlying math theory, and I don’t have any physics to tie it to. It always amazed me that a fairly small chunk of mathematics could be used to model a huge class of physical problems, however I came away with the feeling that my math knowledge was still pretty limited.
I agree that current elementary/high school mathematics is pretty light on applications (word problems). My high school daughter is pretty competent at the mechanics of algebra problems, but has significant problems “translating” from english into math. I guess it’s a lot easier to teach the mechanics of manipulating equations than the “critical thinking” skills. I’m currently spending a small fortune on tutors to try to fix that shortcoming.
Age is irrelevant. Mom owns the car, and is generous enough to provide it to him, she sets the rules. He violates the rules, he suffers the consequences.
When he buys his own car he can make his own rules.
I’ve been through this with my kids. Fortunately, they complied with the rules…or destroyed the evidence! Actually, both of my kids (both grown and on their own now) are vehemently against drinking and driving. My daughter hates alcohol, my son only has an occasional Sam Adams…only when he’s not driving.
That’s true, if the mom actually owns the car (holds the title) she can do whatever she wants with it. I have to wonder why a 19 year old can’t buy his own car. By the time I was that age, I had bought a couple of cars and a motorcycle for myself.
I do think the mom’s stunt of making it public will backfire, but that’s her problem.
I’m certainly not in favor of drinking and driving, I just don’t like how the mom handled it.
I think the mum either needs validation or wants the attention on herself.
This is a 19 year young adult old not a 16 year old child. If she has the title fine sell it but why humiliate a child publicly? Personally I think a very poor parenting choice putting that ad out. I guess some parents can’t let go.
Sometimes with teen-agers you have to fight fire with fire. I sent my son to a military academy for high school. When he graduated and was home for the summer, he announced at the dinner table that he was going to let his hair grow real long–he was required to have short hair in the military school. I must have made a face, because my wife kicked me under the table. After my son had excused himself from the table, my wife told me that the hair was not a big deal and that she didn’t want an argument to ruin our great relationship. I told her to watch me handle the situation. A couple of days later, I announced at dinner that I was going to shave my head. I said that the shaved head gave Lt. Kojac respect on the street and that the shaved head would give me respect in the classroom. My son knew that I really liked the Kojac police show and he threw a fit. He told me on no uncertain terms that I would look just awful, and he probably wouldn’t even come home from college on breaks to see me. Finaly, my wife looked at him and said, “Isn’t your Dad allowed to do his own thing?” We didn’t think our son would ever stop laughing at himself, but his initial reaction was interesting when I put the shoe on the other foot.
That is funny, but I don’t really understand why either of you care what the other does with his hair. My kids would have just let me shave my head and continuously laughed their asses off until it grew back. As it is, they call me “Gandalf the Gray” (I’ve had a gray pony tail and beard for as long as they can remember).
You should have seen my daughter’s blue hair a couple of years ago. We didn’t say a word; then the blue hair became black, then blond, then very short, then back to it’s natural color. When she asked about it, I simply said, “It’s your hair.” Now that she’s 16 (and past that silly little phase), she looks “normal” again. Some stuff just isn’t worth “fighting” about, it just takes care of itself. If she thinks that is going to “shock” us, she has a long way to go (she should check with her grandma and find out what I was up to at her age).
Personally, I save the “fighting” for the non-trivial stuff.
I didn’t, and still don’t, care what he did with his hair. He was just trying to get a rise out of me. That is why it was so much fun to turn the tables on him. What was interesting is that he didn’t want his parents telling him what to do, but he wanted to tell us what we could do.
Yup, they’ll do that. I usually use the opposite approach and refuse to react to anything, regardless of how outrageous. It’s fun to watch them escalate to try to get a reaction. My oldest daughter used to try to shock me by telling me the details of exactly what type of sex all her middle school/high school friends were having (on and off school property). I would just tell her that it was their business and I didn’t really care (the scary part is that 13 year olds can accurately describe stuff that I probably didn’t learn about until I was 25). Eventually she gave up with me, but it still seems to work better with my wife (if even a few of those stories were true, middle school has change quite a bit in the last 30 years). My younger daughter is very quiet, she’s the one I really have to watch.
My kids don’t try to tell us what to do, they just try to keep us out of sight when their friends are around, LOL.
“If you think that ignoring advice from a parent is mature…then good luck raising your kids…You’re going to need it.”
They’re doing OK, thanks. My oldest is 16, so I’m really done “raising” her (she gets advice when she asks for it). My youngest is 12 (going on 30) and doing just fine. As I said, I’m not trying to “raise kids,” I’m trying to raise future adults who can think for themselves.
My first day on the board. Probably my last. Love Tom and Ray, but if this is social networking, I’m opting out. In parting, Craig, get a life. Go have a catch with that 12 year old of yours.