How to rein in your child's race to nowhere
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Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews recalls one father's solution to reducing the amount of stress in the life of his overachieving college-bound child:
Parents such as that father I knew could limit the number of advanced courses, impose bedtimes and cure stress and exhaustion all by himself if he made one crucial adjustment.
“It’s what I like to call the Rutgers Solution,” Flanagan wrote. “If you make the decision — and tell your child about it early on — that you totally support her, you’re wildly engaged with her intellectual pursuits, but you will not pay for her to attend any college except Rutgers, everything will fall into place. She’ll take AP calculus if she’s excited by the challenge, max out at trig if not. It doesn’t matter, either way — Hello, New Brunswick!”
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