Parental Advice

Parental Advice I have known for some time that my approach to things can be unconventional.  You dont have to look any further than how I parent to really get a good sense of this.  There are some things that are intentional, like eschewing traditional coloring books, when my children were younger,  in favor of blank pages that forced them to create their own images without the constraints of pre-drawn lines to color inside of.  There are other things that draw their inspiration from the ether, like spontaneously reaching for the flip video camera when my son refused to eat his vegetables, and then suggesting that I might send the evidence of his misdeeds to grandma, and a certain jolly old elf that lives at the North Pole.  He always eats his vegetables now. Try as I may, to put my kids on the right path, sometimes things go awry.  I am not perfect and neither are my children, but at the end of the day they are generally heading in the right direction.  Frequently, the hardest thing for me to do is nothing, because I have so much more life experience than my kids have and I can envision the train wreck up ahead.  There are also definitely times when my insight is neither desired nor appreciated, and sometimes even counterproductive. Even though my kids arent always receptive to my counsel, one of the things that I most enjoy about my work in the admissions office is being able to share my perspective.  While I frequently have opportunities to offer guidance, I am sorry to say that I dont always give the best advice. Case in pointthere was a parent of a fourth grader (thats right, elementary school) whose child has known for a couple of years that MIT is their college destination. As such, the parent wanted to know how best to prepare the student for admission to MIT. I will say that I did not provide poor advice, since there are certainly things that are absolutely necessary, like coursework in calculus, physics, biology and chemistry. However, it is also true that some of the characteristics that frequently help us to determine if a student is a good match for MIT like creativity, willingness to take risks and resilience are traits that most parents would find difficult to cultivate in their children. While I did ultimately answer the parents questions, I focused primarily on requirements, and not the fact that the most important thing for a fourth grader to do, is to be a fourth grader. I am reminded of an interview that I heard on public radio with Neil deGrasse Tyson, a noted astrophysicist who essentially said that the best way to raise a scientist is to stay out of the way. Kids are, by and large, naturally curious and creative. Frequently, they have no qualms about trying things, usually because they simply want to know what happens when Obviously, there are some lessons that parents would prefer for kids not to learn on their own, but most parents (myself included) tend to be preoccupied with planning and order. The problem with this is that scientific exploration and life in general are often spontaneous and disorderly, and our parental need for control tends to derail the organic processes of  both scientific and personal discovery.