This is amazing. Beyond intelligence, artistic ability, sports prowess, or many other valuable traits, I hope my children have this ability as they grow up. Being your own person, and standing up to peers who act like asshats is an incredible character trait. Congratulations!
Now how did you instill/support this - I want tips!
My 18-month-old loves to be outside and explore. When we get home in the evening, the first thing he does is scoot out of his carseat and take off into the parking lot (holding my hand), then down the stairs to the little garden, then up to the second parking lot, through the grass to see the building being built next to us, past the hyacinths (which got a pat for being so lovely) and up the hill toward the bike path behind our apartment complex. If a bird cries, he whips his head around, if water drips from a tree, he gets real still to listen. It’s amazing how IN the world he is. It’s no wonder he doesn’t want to come inside!
Thank you for starting this thread, Cartooniverse! My older daughter has been accepted into a neuroscience PhD program, she starts in July, and I’ve been dying to brag! Her younger sister, who some of you might remember from anguished posts about a teenager who would not do her homework, is now a sophomore in her university honors program on a full-ride academic scholarship. And both of them speak Japanese.
Me? Proud? Yup!
Our firstborn was offered scholarships at over a dozen schools, and chose UGA because of his friendship base and a short supply chain back to home (55 minutes) He is finishing his first year at UGA on the Dean’s list. This while marching in the Redcoat Band (1,000 audition, 400 get in) and all the practice hours that entails, tutoring other kids in math, and not getting arrested like his idiot buddies do.
He called from his first party on a Saturday night at 11:00pm whispering “there’s alcohol here! What do I do?”.:eek:
When a boy down his hall brought some drunk girls in from USC to stay the weekend, he puked his own room up bad, so he brought the girls to my son’s room to stay. He kicked the kid out, let the girls stay in his room, and worked with the 2 girls to keep the third from going down the hall to fuck some kid she didn’t know.:dubious:
He let the girls sleep in the beds and futon while he slept on the floor. He called a girl he knows to come check on them and help them a couple of times thru the night. He took them all to breakfast, lectured them on the evils of underage drinking, and made sure they were good to drive before letting them hit the road.
My boy is an honorable, disciplined young man of 19, and I’m afraid he’ll never get laid at this rate!
My 15yo daughter is beligerent, contrary, and of course knows more than all of us combined.
There will be blood.
Golly, that is heartening. My children have had strict rules about alcohol and they naturally resent it. I’m not so silly as to think they avoid it totally because they do not, but they at least understand boundaries and that their parents worry about them.
Its a difficult balance to strike between restrictive rules and doing what their peers want. There are no perfect answers.
Daughter’s only 10. Consistent honors, can write a-b-c poems beginning when she was 8.
My son is 23, and in this economy-of-suckage has just accepted a full-time job. He starts in a few weeks, and we’re really excited. He even has a cool office with a nice view (his window is on the right). Here’s his chair.
May daughter is about to graduate high-school, with top ten (not percent, the top ten) honors, National Honor Society, etc. And has a great scholarship (including room and board) to the college she’s chosen.
Son is 23. he cares a lot and has appalling taste in girlfriends which leads him to make seriously dumb decisions. As such, I’m subsidising him and his latest GF by giving them rent free accommodation, food, internet and pay TV until he gets his act together. I just hope like hell he grows up faster than his mother.
On the other hand, my daughter was a bitch child who would argue with me from age 3. Strong willed stubborn little bitch, unfortunately just like her dad. After a falling out she moved in with her mum when she was 14. At 17, she asked if she could come home and 4 years later is still here.
She finished high school and did a traineeship at a special school for seriously disabled kids. Didn’t have her licence when she started so it was a 2 hour trek each way via public transport, which she did each day. She finished the traineeship and they offered her a job but she declined as she wanted to broaden her experiences. So for the last 18 months she’s working as a disability support worker going to people’s homes and helping them out.
Cases vary from some TAC bludger who she does housework for, to people with MS who she may have to shower, hoist out of bed and onto the toilet, people with brain injuries and everything else you can think of. She’s not qualified for a lot of the assignments she gets but she’s a fast learner and the clients all love her.
best part is, from an uncommunicative little biatch who moved out, she now comes home from work and tells me all about it, uses me as her shrieking tree to vent, and I love it.
I was never so proud as when she described how she got a kid at the special school to respond to her when the other staff considered the kid a vege unable to respond. She would say that these kids only have a short time on this earth, they all die young, if she can do something that touches part of their soul, makes them happy for even that brief moment - it’s worth everything to see that smile.
I got a good one there. (still hope for the boy)
Miss DrumBum is almost done with year one at university, has a stellar GPA, and has not yet run out of money. She has won several ribbons in equestrian events against other universities. Most impressive to me is that despite being some 11,000 km away from Mom and Dad, she still checks in via FaceTime or Skype once a week and signs off with an “I love you guys.”
Good on you - and your boy.
Just a couple of reference points from my parental blundering. My eldest was very disapproving of alcohol and drugs while in college. At age 25, she has said she regrets the social price she paid as a result. I don’t know why I was ineffective in helping my kid figure out that she needn’t partake herself, but could derive some benefit from not broadcasting her disapproval.
And I remember my son talking about how he wasn’t interested in just hooking up with a girl he didn’t really feel something special for. As a dad, I appreciated hearing that. But as a guy, I wanted to shout, “Dude, it is NEVER going to be as easy to get laid as when you are in college!” 
I am very proud of both of my children who are now grown adults. My son is the nerd I always wanted to be. He works from home and you would think his bosses were standing right over him as he never lets up unless he takes a lunch break. He got his masters in business and science and is now working on his Doctorate.
My daughter dropped out of college after getting her associates degree and went into real estate. Several years ago I read an article in Forbes or fortune 500 that she was in the top 100 realators in the country, every year she has moved up on the list and last year she was in the top 20. She has spent a good part of this year traveling so I suspect she won’t be appaearing on the list.
I couldn’t have asked for better kids.
'scuse me, I do seem to have something in my eyes. 
How completely inspiring that child is.
My son is 4, and has a talent for charming the pants off of everyone he meets. A couple of weeks ago, we went Best Buy and bought a few things. At the checkout my wife picked up a bag of individually wrapped York patties for him as a treat. We’re checking out and he demands we open it up right there at the register… so he could give one to the cashier. She smiled wide enough that I think he really made her day.
He has friends at all the stores we shop at, they call out his name when he goes through the door.
He also was able to name every state by its shape at the age of 3. Current favorite state, Louisiana.
My 15 year old daughter just graduated homeschool and has a meeting Thursday to try and convince the college to let her attend. She needs their approval because she is under 16. We just got back her scores from the 12 grade standardized test and she is still testing above 90th percentile for practically everything. She has minor dyscalculia so her math computation score is a little lower. She still tested out of basic math for the college and will go right in to Statistics instead of taking first year math.
So there’s that.
She has been involved in theater both as a technician and actor since she was 10. She interned as Assistant Stage Manager for the first time at 13. She has had lead in about 4 youth productions and a role of some sort in three professional productions.
Earlier this year she was doing her first stint as full blown Stage Manager for a local theater doing Midsummer Nights Dream and doing a great job. On the first weekend of the run the person playing Aegis got sick. There are no understudies so my daughter put on drag and played the part. On the last weekend of the run their Helena got seriously ill and couldn’t go on. My girl was “on book” for most of the rehearsal and so was at least familiar with the part. We got a call Thursday night that there might be a problem and then Friday morning got the call that she would be going on that night.
In cases like this the part is usually read by a stand-in so the play can go on, or at best the stand in has someone available to throw them lines and the other actors do a “push through” for the blocking.
My kid learned the part, and the blocking, and did the full performance without support. She ended up doing the whole weekend, so three performances. Not only that but everyone from her fellow actors to directors of other theaters, who happened to be in attendance, told her that if they hadn’t been told that she was a stand in that they never would have known. A director in attendance took her aside and told her that in 25 years of theater experience he had never seen anyone, of any age, do what she did. Her own director told her that she was better than some of the other actors who had been in rehearsal for 2 months.
This summer she has a role in Merchant of Venice and is in the chorus of her first opera, Marriage of Figaro. She also will have her first paid internship assisting the director of a local kids theater camp.
Things will get much easier in our household next spring when she turns 16 and can get her drivers license.
Forget the driver’s license- work on her AFTRA and IATSE card !!!
Fantastic stuff! Watch out for college level stats class. It can really bite back! IMNAAHO most math and science classes are very poorly taught. First year stat tends to be like that. My son did pretty well in HS math, and did very badly in stat last semester in college. YMMV, but be wary! </hijack>
My ten year old is in the gifted and talented program for math and reading. You have to be admitted to each one separately. We had a very intelligent conversation last night about the differences between Louisa May Alcott’s works and those of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
The little one turned two the other day. She likes to find the highest slide she can and slide it down it gigglling madly or grab her father’s ipad and find the app with the alphabet.
My grandson (the Greatest Guy in the World) is now 11. When he was 6 he attended his first RenFair. Someone was selling toy wooden swords. Many of the kids had toy wooden swords. I bought him a toy wooden sword. He had (and has) many toy swords at home, and they remain his favorite toys. (Just yesterday he obliterated a whole platoon of Minecraft Creepers out of our backyard with his gladius.) Anyway, there was a hill, and on the hill were several boys with toy wooden swords, so he climbs up to duel the other kids. As he climbed, he noticed that one boy had not only been defeated, but was knocked down by a bigger boy who was hitting him with the toy wooden sword. My grandson has been raised to respect the Rules of Engagement, which include you do not strike an unarmed foe, or one who has fallen. He sprang to the boy’s defense. The other boy, who was a year-or-two older than my grandson, sneered loudly and attacked. Bad idea. In a few short moments my grandson had him backing up, and he eventually ran. To get his even bigger brother. And the two of them attacked. Well, did I mention he’s been practicing since he was 3? After a momentary charge on their part, they found themselves bewildered and then running away, as he systematically beat down their defenses and conquered. A young girl, about 3 years old, watched, and as the other boys ran away, she dramatically clasped her hands to her chest and cried “My hero!”.
My son managed to pee into the toilet all by himself, including flushing and washing his hands afterward. He’s three.
Thanks UC, and I wish I had the perfect answer for you. I’ll try not to hijack this thread by trying to keep it short, but like I mentioned up thread, I think the most important thing is to treat them like adults.
Don’t be afraid to broach any subject or topic. Let them know that you’re willing to not only listen, but to have discussions with them. Take them out to dinner or lunch one on one, just to talk. Value their opinion. Keep your promises. Discipline firmly, but love unconditionally. Tell 'em you love 'em all the time, and hug 'em often (even when their friends are looking - they say they hate it, but they really don’t). Don’t get me wrong, both of my daughters can really try our patience, but they both seem to have their heads on straight for the time being. Check back with me in a couple of years!
