Anxious about private school admissions

[FHmom]

Thankx Lilycharm!! My husband and I were joking about if this is how stressed we are about elementary school admissions ,what will we do when its time for college applications
I wish you all the best in your school search. BTW public was going to be our plan B if W hadnt worked out, we were considering renting a place in the best public school district (East Cobb) and supplemeting
Good luck

[Lilycharm]

Originally Posted by FHmom

BTW public was going to be our plan B if W hadnt worked out, we were considering renting a place in the best public school district (East Cobb) and supplementing
Good luck

Hi again, FHmom. What kind of supplementing were you thinking of? Sylvan and/or Kumon, or something else?

Thanks!

[FHmom]

Hi
To tell you the thruth I dont know enough about Kumon or Sylvan so would'nt be able to comment on those but we had hired a private tutor for a few months before the observations, so i might have gone that route, or even work with them myself. School box has some pretty great reference material. We figured, despite private tutoring it would be less money than what we are paying now
Not to mention paying for music lessons and private tennis lessons!! ouch

[frances125]

Whoah!

I just let my kids run around outside catching bugs all day when they were little.... and then sent the to the local church preschool so I could get some time off here and there. Now they are in their neighborhood public school, and I don't even help with homework unless they ask or their grades are clearly slipping. Matter of fact, I don't even take them there - they walk or bike themselves. Well, I still do walk the kindergartner.

I keep in touch with teachers, spend a lot of time talking and generally hanging out with my kids, volunteer for PTA, etc., but I mostly stay out of their school business unless there's a good reason to be in it.

I've never really put that much thought into all this stuff.

Strings like this give me pangs of worry.

[RainyRainyDay]

Originally Posted by frances125

Whoah!

I just let my kids run around outside catching bugs all day when they were little.... and then sent the to the local church preschool so I could get some time off here and there. Now they are in their neighborhood public school, and I don't even help with homework unless they ask or their grades are clearly slipping. Matter of fact, I don't even take them there - they walk or bike themselves. Well, I still do walk the kindergartner.

I keep in touch with teachers, spend a lot of time talking and generally hanging out with my kids, volunteer for PTA, etc., but I mostly stay out of their school business unless there's a good reason to be in it.

I've never really put that much thought into all this stuff.

Strings like this give me pangs of worry.

Frances, private school parents regularly (and reasonably) complain that they feel attacked when their threads about the private school admission process, choice of which school to attend, etc., attract posts that critique their choice of private schools. So, this isn't really the place for this discussion.

Since you mention worry, however, I'll try to cheer you up. It's all a matter of different strokes for different folks, I believe. I personally have one very bright child whom I treated just like you've been treating yours. Mine even started school in a very disadvantaged community, where we were living due to my husband's job at the time. She didn't even start learning to read until first grade. Nowadays, despite my reckless non-interference, she's at the very top of her class in a very competitive East Cobb high school.

So, if you think your kids are thriving under your low-key, low-interference public school regimen, they probably are. However, plenty of other parents take a very different approach. This may well be because their kids are very different people, with very different needs from our kids. I believe the right thing is for each of us to do what we think is best for our family, and while we can get useful ideas from other parents, we should try hard to be neither intimidated nor judgmental when we observe others taking a path very different from our choice.

[SleeplessnATL]

Originally Posted by RainyRainyDay

Frances, private school parents regularly (and reasonably) complain that they feel attacked when their threads about the private school admission process, choice of which school to attend, etc., attract posts that critique their choice of private schools. So, this isn't really the place for this discussion.

Since you mention worry, however, I'll try to cheer you up. It's all a matter of different strokes for different folks, I believe. I personally have one very bright child whom I treated just like you've been treating yours. Mine even started school in a very disadvantaged community, where we were living due to my husband's job at the time. She didn't even start learning to read until first grade. Nowadays, despite my reckless non-interference, she's at the very top of her class in a very competitive East Cobb high school.

So, if you think your kids are thriving under your low-key, low-interference public school regimen, they probably are. However, plenty of other parents take a very different approach. This may well be because their kids are very different people, with very different needs from our kids. I believe the right thing is for each of us to do what we think is best for our family, and while we can get useful ideas from other parents, we should try hard to be neither intimidated nor judgmental when we observe others taking a path very different from our choice.

Great words!

[Dadof2Angels]

Agreed!