The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Mini Money Mustaches => Topic started by: waltworks on June 07, 2023, 09:40:48 PM
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Our family is faced with a dilemma regarding school. Essentially, we have (just like everyone else who posts here) very bright kids (6th/4th graders) who are identified as GT and are several grade levels ahead of their peers in basically every subject.
Which is great, and basically expected as my wife and I are both ubernerds who were the same way when we were kids.
We live at a ski resort, because we love to ski and mountain bike and we can live anywhere we want. Problem is, the county has a very crappy school system which is rapidly getting crappier (along with declining enrollment and serious problems retaining/hiring staff). There's basically nothing in terms of after school clubs, advanced courses for middle/high school, etc. The state of Colorado also funds the schools at a really minimal level (CO is ranked 48th in the nation for teacher pay which is just awful) which means there's not much that the district can do to turn things around.
So our kids are pretty bored in their classes and our oldest has zero friends - because there are no other nerdy/smart kids to hang out with, really, and he's not enough of a social butterfly to, say, go befriend some jocks.
We have the opportunity to move back to my old hometown, which has the best public schools in the United States, probably. You can't throw a rock without hitting some dork who got a 1540 on her SAT and has her nose buried in a D&D manual, or someone who's into poetry and juggling and plays in a death metal band with a name that's a science pun, or a gaggle of kids from the chess/debate/science bowl/etc teams. The schools are funded better, and the teachers are all basically giant nerds like my wife and I. We've visited the schools and know some of the teachers personally so we're confident the school system is just as fantastic as it was when I was a kid.
The town itself is far from the ski resort life we're used to, but there are still plenty of fun outdoor activities to do. It's also (by our standards) cheap to live there. We could buy any house in town a couple times over for the cost of our cheapest-in-the-neighborhood ski town place (though we'd probably not sell our ski house, just to leave our options open).
Seems like a no-brainer, right?
The problem is that we already moved the kids once (from another ski town) because of similar school issues. We'd be moving them again, and starting everything over again. We'd be moving to a place with 2-3 months of winter instead of 5-6 (we all love winter). If everyone hated it we'd have to move AGAIN. I feel like at some point the lack of stability is going to cause problems for the kids (it already has, though to only a limited extent). The kids also like skiing and mountain biking and they might be pretty bummed at the much more limited options.
Our kids will be "fine" anywhere. They're not in terrible danger of flunking out of school and living in a van down by the river smoking doobies. Or at least not because of the town. But we'd like them to have friends and thrive socially and academically, which doesn't seem likely to happen here.
We do also have a 3 year old, but she's young enough that I'm not worried about her adjusting to a new town.
What would you do?
-W
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Jobs are not an issue here, we are FI and both only work very part time.
Maybe I should make a poll...
-W
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Definitely move. Intellectually, they’re not in danger of flunking, but if they have no friends and are bullied by their peers and feel like there’s no one around them who are like them and they’re the odd one out, it can EASILY turn to “I’m not like the others. There’s something wrong with me.” Which then turns to anxiety/depression/low self-esteem. You know what the research says about GT kids, right? Higher incidence of depression and more at risk for adjustment problems. Check out Davidson Institute and SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted) for research and resources.
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I think it’s pretty hard to define “great schools”. If you are looking at test scores, that’s pretty much a function of family income, not of the school itself.
I had 3 extremely smart kids who went to just good enough schools, but who certainly did have plenty of friends and activities, many of which I spent time making happen. Schools are happy to offer extracurricular activities if you’re happy to show up and coach them.
What do your kids think about moving?
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I think it’s pretty hard to define “great schools”. If you are looking at test scores, that’s pretty much a function of family income, not of the school itself.
I had 3 extremely smart kids who went to just good enough schools, but who certainly did have plenty of friends and activities, many of which I spent time making happen. Schools are happy to offer extracurricular activities if you’re happy to show up and coach them.
What do your kids think about moving?
This is not purely a test scores thing. As I said, there is a vibrant intellectual atmosphere at the schools with a TON of extracurricular activities and amazing, enthusiastic teachers (as well as involved parents). The school district is also quite diverse with anglo, hispanic, asian/south asian, jewish, and native kids all well represented.
It's hard to get a read on our kids, to be honest. If they were gung ho about one option or another, that would make things much easier.
-W
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Any decent private options available? I'm not thrilled with where we live, and the public schools are not very good. But our kids go to a Catholic School that is really good. Small classes, good teachers, great curriculum and lots of other good kids who are interested in the same things.
I would lean towards moving. Academically your kids will probably be fine wherever they are, but looking at another 6-8 years of always being on the outside looking in because there are no other smart motivated kids they can be friends with will be hard. Also, the friends you have in elementary school as a kid are not necessarily the same ones you will have in middle school and high school. When I was growing up in a small city there were eight elementary schools feeding into two middle schools feeding into one high school. Out of my group of 5-6 close friends in high school only one of those was someone I knew from elementary school. The rest I met in middle school or high school. Before your kids go into middle school or high school is probably the best time to make the change - and it sounds like they're not necessarily going to be leaving behind a large group of close friends.
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I'm a military kid, and a military spouse now so most of my closest friends (with kids) are mil families as well. I think much of this is how you frame it for the kids. For kids who think moving is normal, it just feels like part of life. That said, it is easier on some kids than others. I struggled more than my sister, because she's much more social and extroverted, especially as we got older.
Another thing that seems worth mentioning is that those 1540 dorks might be under incredible pressure. Don't forget to factor that into your decision. Challenging coursework is great. One of our moves landed me in a special school for GATE (or whatever that's called today) kids. Had to IQ test plus have an interview to get in, though it was a public school. (Not the one I was zoned for. Maybe a charter program, if they had such a thing back then? I didn't know the details.) It was an amazing experience and I learned more on those 2 years than any other in phase of my education. So I get needing and wanting to be challenged. But I also see what high school and even junior high/middle school kids are enduring these days, and it is intense and in many cases, soul-crushing. So consider whether the pressure to succeed and excel at the potential new school is healthy, or might be too much. Challenging them academically is great only if it doesn't come with too much pressure and a zero defect mentality WRT grades and academics, IM(non-parent)O.
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The academic pressure thing is a great point. Neither my wife or I care about GPA or taking every possible AP class or playing 3 instruments to make sure your Princeton application looks good, but there are plenty of parents there who do. My instinct is that our kids would enjoy being around other smart kids, but probably wouldn't care about competing to be the best of the best (and to be fair, they'd have no chance even if they did - I went off to a fancy college at age 16 and wasn't considered one of the smarter kids at the school when I was there).
I could see how too much pressure on kids who are high achieving could be bad. My experience was that you could always find someone to hang out with or talk to who had interesting ideas or was building a potato cannon in their yard or was writing their senior paper on their time being an apprentice river guide over the summer, etc. There were also some kids who were desperately polishing their college applications and were probably miserable.
Here there are neither, really. Which sucks.
-W
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Definitely move. Intellectually, they’re not in danger of flunking, but if they have no friends and are bullied by their peers and feel like there’s no one around them who are like them and they’re the odd one out, it can EASILY turn to “I’m not like the others. There’s something wrong with me.” Which then turns to anxiety/depression/low self-esteem. You know what the research says about GT kids, right? Higher incidence of depression and more at risk for adjustment problems. Check out Davidson Institute and SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted) for research and resources.
These were some of the concerns I had about my kids (especially DS) when it was obvious the relatively affordable private school we had them in in Beijing was not meeting their academic needs. We ended up putting them in a more expensive/challenging school that offered the IB, which was much better, but even a few weeks in his teachers were saying they weren't sure how they were going to be able to keep him adequately challenged for 6 years. At roughly $50-60k out of pocket cost --which was pretty much my take home pay at the time -- it didn't seem to be a good investment. DS ended up applying to/getting admitted to the early entrance program at the University of Washington so he and I moved back to Seattle for the "boot camp" year and then the rest of the family followed once he was properly admitted to the undergraduate program. He ended up getting into computer science as he wanted, and is now in a PhD program at Berkeley. DD had a slightly rough transition back to the US but has done well subsequently and is now gearing up to start as an engineering pre-major at the UW herself in the fall. So things ended up working out for our kids, but we did make some pretty major life choices to enable it. Thankfully the sale of our Beijing apartment funded our FIRE, so it was all feasible.
If you look into the Davidson resources think about whether Reno might be an option -- I know housing is much more expensive there now due to Tesla, but that also means there is a big concentration of geeky folk in addition to the ones that were already drawn there by the Davidson programs. If DS hadn't gotten admitted to the UW EEP it was on my radar as a place we might consider moving to.
But do also keep in mind that the situation is not necessarily totally dire. I grew up in an area east of Seattle that used to be primarily logging/farming based -- my parents were on the leading edge of the suburbanization of the area (dad was an engineer at Boeing). I was horribly out of place and eventually transferred to a different suburban district to escape severe bullying and get better academics. That still wasn't enough to scratch my itch, though, so I ended up getting a UWC scholarship and completing the IB/my high school career in the UK. That was sufficiently challenging that undergrad at the UW was ridiculously easy for me.
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I am pro-move. If your kids were already in high school and/or had a core group of friends, I might be more reluctant. But being in elementary & middle school, they will already face the dislocation of a school transition. Might as well make it worth something.
The missed winter could be made up with some focus on weekends and school holidays.
Re: listening to your kids. Yes, you should, although you have said that they aren't pulling either way. I'd make a bet that once you commit, they throw a hissy fit about the change. Our next door neighbors have high school daughters. They moved across town, but different school district, too far to be with old friends regularly, etc. They were so against the move that they stayed behind for two weeks in protest. Now, one year later, they are often in the pool late into the evening with all their news friends.
Kids hardly have any history under their belt. This makes them blow any change, heck any experience, out of proportion. They'll get over it.
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I would frame the question as a matter of school fit, not bad vs good school district. I went to a "good" private school and was friends with those in "great" public districts, and the jocks were still ran those places and nerds were still bullied and othered. My concern would be moving to the new school and finding out that my child is still struggling socially, and it wasn't just about whether there were other nerds at the school. I have a neurodivergent child who is smart and nerdy and still struggles with smart and nerdy friends because they are more skilled at picking up on social cues and situational nuance. I think looking for a better school fit is a good step, but also looking for other reasons why your child may have difficulty making friends is important too.
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He is neurotypical and had friends in our previous failing (but not quite so badly failing) school district. They were the nerdy kids.
So I'm not worried about him making friends. TBH I would not have been friends with any of the 5th grade kids at his school either (and I know the class/school intimately since I taught there almost 50 days this school year). I also taught a decent number of days at the middle school to check it out and was... not impressed.
-W
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That Davidson place in Reno is cool, but we're not city people. Biggest place we've lived is about 20,000 people and we'd like to keep it that way.
I also tend to doubt our kids would get into it (I wouldn't have either), 99.9th percentile minimum cutoff for admission is no joke! They are way ahead at basically everything but they're not geniuses.
Our kids despise all forms of online learning so remote GT stuff is a no-go, but I could see how that place would be an amazing option for a lot of kids.
-W
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Move around Burlington, VT great schools to choose from and skiing.
A plug for all of New England is that we don't have counties. ALL government is administered from the town level with smaller towns combining to form a regional school district. Makes for much more local control in schooling decisions, good and bad haha. Plus town meeting day is always a fun event/spectacle of direct democracy.
Seriously though I would move. Best think money can buy is your kids friends.
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Move.
Not because the old school is overrun with 1540 SATs. Because your kids don't have a peer group where you live now, and because the current school district has no options that will allow them to continue to grow and develop and challenge themselves.
I would divorce the choice of moving from the decision to move back to your own town. IMO, your current situation is not great for your kids. Sure, now, they're fine, and with parents like you, they'd probably get through no problem. But being the odd one out is hard -- particularly being the nerdy odd one out, as those kinds tend to get bullied (AMHIK). And kids who are smart need to be challenged, both to develop their own potential and to keep them from going off the rails. You know the old cartoon saying, "if only he'd used his powers for good"? Yeah. Smart kids are going to find a way to use their smarts, and everyone's a lot happier if that smart kid is given some way to put those smarts to good use.
And it's particularly good when that productive way of using smarts comes from someone other than the parents by the time the kid hits adolescence, because that's the time when parents suddenly become stupid and parental ideas are summarily rejected as stupid and out of touch. It can come from a teacher, from a coach, from a youth group/club leader, or a hundred of other ways; you never know what and who is going to click with your kid until it does. Which goes back to why smart teens typically do best in an environment surrounded by people and options that are good and healthy, vs. negative and destructive. There are no guarantees anywhere; too much pressure can be just as harmful as too little. But when you surround yourself and your kids with their tribe, and give them opportunities to grow, you are giving them their best chance to use their not-inconsiderable powers for good.
IMO, the 1540 SAT thing is infinitely less important than how you've described the people there. Those are your kids' people. The school itself is almost immaterial at that point, as long as it has at least some academic choices that will challenge your kids -- doesn't need to be the best school in the state, doesn't need to have only brilliant kids, just needs to have a path that the smart kids can follow to develop themselves and their interests. IOW, it doesn't need to be a great school, just a good enough one; it's the people in it and around it who matter most.
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As the lone "no" at this point I figured I'd share my perspective. It seems like you're worried about something that hasn't happened yet.
I put a lot of weight on the happiness of the family unit and the individual happiness of the children before considering something so drastic for the children when it may not be needed.
For smart kids, the tell tale signs of being under challenged are anxiety and perfectionism. Are they showing abnormal signs of these two? Are they showing any other behavioral issues? If you are dealing with significant behavioral issues it would certainly push the conversation with more immediacy. Then something like a cross country move to resolve an immediate behavioral issue seems more rational than one that you're worried about manifesting.
Who knows, maybe the stress from a preemptive move to this community opens the door to confidence issues, as in they don't intellectually feel like they fit in. Staying together now may open the door to be a closer knit family in the long run as you may partake in more of their hobbies with them than say another friend group in another town would.
Either way, you asking this question shows you care for the kids and will find a way to support them no matter what shows up. As long as you remember this you won't make a bad choice.
On the pursuit of academic merit... The meritocracy trap is worth a read.
My kids are younger (<6) so take that for what it's worth.
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For smart kids, the tell tale signs of being under challenged are anxiety and perfectionism.
Or depression. Sometimes they just withdraw slowly, over time, and lose interest in things they used to like. And it can be hard to tell the difference between depression and generic teenage sulkiness/changing interests. (again, AMHIK)
The thing that I always worried about is that anxious/depressed kids often self-medicate, and sometimes it can be hard to tell if that's happening even if you're looking for it. The irony is that my bounce-off-the-walls everything-all-the-time ADHD kid, who I worried about every day, sailed through just fine, while my mellow, easygoing, sweet kid fell so far into depression and anxiety that he literally couldn't face going to school and seeing friends/teachers. And to this day I can't tell you if he was self-medicating, because his sweetness makes him a very effective liar. And that scared me more than anything.
Not disagreeing with the general concept that things are fine right now for Walt's kids, and they'll probably be fine regardless. It's just that part of my "move now" advice comes from my own experience of not even realizing things had gone off the rails until my kid had been sucked pretty deep. And IME, once you're in the middle of something like that, you can't even think about moving; it's hard enough to find therapists and get the right meds and figure out what the hell you're going to do with school and just love your kid through it all without adding the stress of a move on top of it. So IMO better to have everything set up for success while things are going well, so you're in the best position if things do go into the shitter.
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What do your kids want to do? I'd have really enjoyed living in a ski town & being the smartest kid around, versus moving to a place where everybody is competing to be the smartest. Maybe you could help them learn to socialize a bit better. Pizza & movie night at the Waltworks or something similar?
I always enjoyed hanging out with the "smart kids". They had cool ideas.
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So our kids are pretty bored in their classes and our oldest has zero friends - because there are no other nerdy/smart kids to hang out with, really, and he's not enough of a social butterfly to, say, go befriend some jocks.
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The problem is that we already moved the kids once (from another ski town) because of similar school issues. We'd be moving them again, and starting everything over again.
I'm also a 'no'. You already did a similar move which didn't work out, so to be blunt you don't have a great track record of picking school districts at this point.
And it doesn't sound like you have done much to help your kids find friends outside of school? My three siblings and I were all the 'smart kids' in our very mediocre public school but we all had at least a few good friends in school as well as interests and friendships out of school that were very important to keeping us happy and healthy.
Even if a kid is 'smart and nerdy' that doesn't mean all their friends need to be as well. Aren't there any groups or clubs outside of school, whether outdoors-related or otherwise? Something like Scouts (know that not everyone is a fan) or since you're in a rural area, 4-H? (Not sure what 4-H is like in CO, but in the Midwest it can offer a lot to kids and certainly did to me.)
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For smart kids, the tell tale signs of being under challenged are anxiety and perfectionism.
Or depression. Sometimes they just withdraw slowly, over time, and lose interest in things they used to like. And it can be hard to tell the difference between depression and generic teenage sulkiness/changing interests. (again, AMHIK)
The thing that I always worried about is that anxious/depressed kids often self-medicate, and sometimes it can be hard to tell if that's happening even if you're looking for it. The irony is that my bounce-off-the-walls everything-all-the-time ADHD kid, who I worried about every day, sailed through just fine, while my mellow, easygoing, sweet kid fell so far into depression and anxiety that he literally couldn't face going to school and seeing friends/teachers. And to this day I can't tell you if he was self-medicating, because his sweetness makes him a very effective liar. And that scared me more than anything.
Not disagreeing with the general concept that things are fine right now for Walt's kids, and they'll probably be fine regardless. It's just that part of my "move now" advice comes from my own experience of not even realizing things had gone off the rails until my kid had been sucked pretty deep. And IME, once you're in the middle of something like that, you can't even think about moving; it's hard enough to find therapists and get the right meds and figure out what the hell you're going to do with school and just love your kid through it all without adding the stress of a move on top of it. So IMO better to have everything set up for success while things are going well, so you're in the best position if things do go into the shitter.
You have a lot of good points which is why this is never an easy choice. What ends up being right for one ends up being wrong for another.
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I also lean towards no. As an aside, @lhamo - we must have grown up near each other (small logging town in the PNW).
You've tried a move before, it didn't work. You all love the general area more than the area you'd move to. I'd work harder at integrating my kids into more activities that will help them find their "posse" so to speak, before I'd be willing to move my family. When we moved, it took one of my less social kids close to four years to find a durable friend group.
There's tons of cool enrichment activities that you can choose to add to their education, even if it's informal. We're all biased, so my own disclaimer is that I grew up as the nerdy "most likely to succeed" kid in a school where the graduation rate was not super great, and I was the only person in my graduating class who went out of state for college. College rate was also in the 20%s or whatever. I now work for a FAANG company, make a f*ckton of money, and those years where I was the smartest person in the room, but totally didn't fit in were pretty important in my development. That experience of not fitting in & becoming confident in who you are, even when you're different? All of that has served me incredibly well.
We currently live in the bay area, and my teens go to a top high school. I hate the competitiveness, the absolute obsession with grades & SAT scores, & college prep. They have a fantastic friend group, but we definitely considered moving during COVID, because we are just not a fan of that much very unnecessary intensity on the kids. My kids are also quite smart, but I find that the intense focus has made school more of a turnoff to them.
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The original move was not to try to find a better school district, it was to escape from persecution, essentially. I detailed that at some point on the forum but I'm too lazy to go find it. Long story short my wife was fired without cause because she publicly criticized (via newspaper op-ed) a decision that was made by the school board. I could go on and on about the disfunction (rising to actual criminal levels, including an ongoing investigation by the Federal office of civil rights) but I'll spare everyone.
So our precious decision to move was made quickly in a sort of "house is on fire" mindset. Not the best move, maybe, but we thought at the time that "good enough" schools would be fine for our kids. That has not proven to be the case.
As for outside activities, the kids do club soccer, ski team, rocketry club (organized by my wife), chess club (which I organized), and the mountain bike club/team. We coach or participate in a few of those, and just drop the kids off for others. None of this has resulted in any friendships being formed, though - in fact quite the opposite on the ski and mountain bike teams, where they were (they both quit skiing)/are bullied.
I feel like we've met 90% of the kids their age in the county so I'm not sure how much more exposure to kids activities is going to help.
-W
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Do they play musical instruments? Learning a bit of rock & roll always seemed like a good way for nerds to blossom into cool. Everybody likes music & hanging out with musicians, and all the best parties had bands playing. Do you have room at your place for them to practice? That would let you meet their new friends, and keep an eye on their progress (among other things).
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Oof, tough decision!
Our kids are now 22 and 19, and our position has been that we want them to have friends who work hard at .... something. Almost anything, really. Serious soccer players? Awesome! Top-tier ski racers? Also excellent. Spend every available minute in the robotics lab, building something for competitions? Definitely great. Serious (in this case, prodigy-level) violinist? Also great. Look, just have friends who are also seriously trying hard at SOMETHING, rather than kids who half-ass everything so they don't have to fail (or work).
But, back to the school issue: our observation is that it's pretty important to have an academic peer group, with major bonus points if there are enough kids (or enough "cool" teacher support) that it's not social suicide to actually work hard at your advanced classes. It's not that test scores have to be stratospheric (which, as has been pointed out, is more evidence of parental SES than much else) but the kids should, ideally, be supporting each other in being curious and learning. Double-bonus points if the school can maintain an environment of cooperation, rather than competition. (Negative bonus points if they try the "c'mon, advanced kid, be unpaid teachers helper for these kids who aren't getting it" which is wrong in so very many ways.)
If you feel like you know the kids in your town, and they're not (and couldn't grow into) the kinds of friends who will encourage your kids to be curious, engaged learners, moving seems like a sensible option. You may need to go someplace bigger though -- we're in that "big" front range college town of around 120,000, and there are enough kids with academic parents that there's a cohort.
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Do they play musical instruments? Learning a bit of rock & roll always seemed like a good way for nerds to blossom into cool. Everybody likes music & hanging out with musicians, and all the best parties had bands playing. Do you have room at your place for them to practice? That would let you meet their new friends, and keep an eye on their progress (among other things).
There's band/orchestra at the middle school here, but only every other semester (?!? how do you learn to play an instrument that way?) due to funding/staffing problems. Neither of them thus far has shown any interest in music (they both did a pre-piano lesson 3 year program called "let's play music" when they were younger and neither wanted to continue after that). But if they do you can be sure we'll hook them up with whatever materials/space they need.
-W
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Do they play musical instruments? Learning a bit of rock & roll always seemed like a good way for nerds to blossom into cool. Everybody likes music & hanging out with musicians, and all the best parties had bands playing. Do you have room at your place for them to practice? That would let you meet their new friends, and keep an eye on their progress (among other things).
There's band/orchestra at the middle school here, but only every other semester (?!? how do you learn to play an instrument that way?) due to funding/staffing problems. Neither of them thus far has shown any interest in music (they both did a pre-piano lesson 3 year program called "let's play music" when they were younger and neither wanted to continue after that). But if they do you can be sure we'll hook them up with whatever materials/space they need.
-W
My suggestion was also to join the school band. Does the high school have a band? I didn't notice how old your kids are.
My geeky smart daughter was in the band and she thrived, then moved into the choir and the drama department, too. That was her tribe.
She went to a tiny school on the coast in a seriously dilapidated building, but the school was actually really solid in the support from the teachers, staff, and community.
If your school doesn't support the arts, which is common, then I'd be apt to move. Sports are great and all, but not for everyone.
Her school had an amazing band teacher who had been there for almost thirty years. He started the kids in middle school to get them ready for the high school band which traveled extensively for performances.
It's a four year high school with about 100 students per class; the concert band had 100 kids in it! A quarter of the school was in the band!
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Do they play musical instruments? Learning a bit of rock & roll always seemed like a good way for nerds to blossom into cool. Everybody likes music & hanging out with musicians, and all the best parties had bands playing. Do you have room at your place for them to practice? That would let you meet their new friends, and keep an eye on their progress (among other things).
There's band/orchestra at the middle school here, but only every other semester (?!? how do you learn to play an instrument that way?) due to funding/staffing problems. Neither of them thus far has shown any interest in music (they both did a pre-piano lesson 3 year program called "let's play music" when they were younger and neither wanted to continue after that). But if they do you can be sure we'll hook them up with whatever materials/space they need.
-W
For my $0.02, dude: I moved around quite a bit growing up and hated the moving. But I had stability through middle school and high school at a top-shelf public high school in MA. I made good friends then who are still my friends now. I was also a nerdy kid who went to fancy college, but you knew that already. My better half went to a similar middle and high school back in MA and hated it. She was also a nerd, killer test scores, etc. but was a brooding visual artist type. If there's a takeaway there, I think it's that your social life and happiness depend more on you than your surroundings. You seem to me like a pretty happy dude. I would've guessed that you were the same in high school even if I knew nothing about it, you know? If your kids aren't thriving with this move, I wouldn't consider another move an obvious fix.
Our family has also talked about moving sometimes. We've got aging family back East, getting some of our home equity liquid would put us a lot closer to FI, etc. But I think our kids would miss some of the outdoor and lifestyle opportunities that the ski town life provides.
Our family's love to yours. We've missed seeing you out on the trails this year!
Sent from my Pixel 6a using Tapatalk
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I can relate if they're just not into learning a musical instrument. I didn't want to when I was a kid either.
How about learning to tell jokes or stories? Everybody likes a good joke, and it's a lot easier to learn than a musical instrument. I don't know which comedians are kid-appropriate, but there are a lot of good videos of famous ones on YouTube. Even if your kids never get good at telling jokes it's fun to have in your mental vocabulary, whenever you're bored or see something that reminds you of a joke you've heard.
I've always thought that jokes told by nerds are extra funny, because of the nerdy tone.
Just another .02
I'm sure whatever you end up choosing to do will be fine in the end, because you obviously care about your kids & give them plenty of attention. That's the most important thing about raising good kids.
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If they have all the opportunities available to make friends and it hasn't worked, I'm not sure there's much reason to believe that moving to a different school with smarter/nerdier/more motivated kids is likely to change that.
I'd focus on trying to talk them through how to make friends. I'd try to ascertain whether there might be some social anxieties at play. I'd offer as many opportunities to facilitate friendships (asking if they want to invite a few friends over for a small party, or to go to a movie, or whatever, even if these things means spending money on what feels like frivolities). Also see if there are activities outside of school they might enjoy. Local theater group, a week or two of summer camp for a special interest, art or craft groups or classes, whatever.
It sounds like this isn't a "lack of peers" problem, but a "struggling with the skill of making friends" issue.
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Oof, tough decision!
Our kids are now 22 and 19, and our position has been that we want them to have friends who work hard at .... something. Almost anything, really. Serious soccer players? Awesome! Top-tier ski racers? Also excellent. Spend every available minute in the robotics lab, building something for competitions? Definitely great. Serious (in this case, prodigy-level) violinist? Also great. Look, just have friends who are also seriously trying hard at SOMETHING, rather than kids who half-ass everything so they don't have to fail (or work).
Your metric for your kids' friends was serious/top athlete, spending every available minute in the robotics lab, prodigy level musician, "seriously trying hard" at something? You do know that the majority of good and worthy children in the world wouldn't live up to that standard. And there are not an insignificant number of top athletes/robotics nerds/musicians that wouldn't be great role models? I'm an attorney now, but I wasn't a serious/top athletic, musician, or academic at any point in my life. There is a great wonder of people between that and those who half ass so they don't have to fail or work.
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If they have all the opportunities available to make friends and it hasn't worked, I'm not sure there's much reason to believe that moving to a different school with smarter/nerdier/more motivated kids is likely to change that.
I'd focus on trying to talk them through how to make friends. I'd try to ascertain whether there might be some social anxieties at play. I'd offer as many opportunities to facilitate friendships (asking if they want to invite a few friends over for a small party, or to go to a movie, or whatever, even if these things means spending money on what feels like frivolities). Also see if there are activities outside of school they might enjoy. Local theater group, a week or two of summer camp for a special interest, art or craft groups or classes, whatever.
It sounds like this isn't a "lack of peers" problem, but a "struggling with the skill of making friends" issue.
I would echo this, especially the last point. You mention they're being bullied, and that's a separate issue. If it's bad enough and moving is the only option, by all means, move.
I have no idea of the ins and outs of the specific situation, of course. That being said, I believe it's very rare to have an area where there are truly no "nerdy/smart" kids to hang out with. I've seen certain specific classes where this is the case - for example the class of 2023 for a particular high school was a rougher one or your 5th grade example at an elementary school, but I'm struggling with buying it's a whole area overall. I went to middle of nowhere rural schools with less than 200 in my graduating class, and I still had people I could befriend. I didn't necessarily have people that were nerdy like I was (no one would nerd out with me on Star Trek, for example), but I was able to have people who I enjoyed playing video games with and who challenged me academically and overall in positive ways. I also had friends who weren't typical nerds - people who were in agriculture and horticulture classes and the like. They were almost all nice to me, and although we didn't share as many common interests, I feel having that diversity helped me out in the long run.
Hope this doesn't come off as critical, and of course, this is anecdotal from my own experiences. I enjoyed stability in schools, especially once I hit middle school (I doubt leaving before middle school would have been too much of an impact). Admittedly, I only keep in close contact with one couple from high school, but I look back on the overall experience fondly. That being said, as well, my high school experience in no way limited me in developing fun, nerdy friendships, as I was fortunate to be able to do a lot of that in college with a much larger population of peers to befriend from.
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As for outside activities, the kids do club soccer, ski team, rocketry club (organized by my wife), chess club (which I organized), and the mountain bike club/team. We coach or participate in a few of those, and just drop the kids off for others. None of this has resulted in any friendships being formed, though - in fact quite the opposite on the ski and mountain bike teams, where they were (they both quit skiing)/are bullied.
This seems excessive to me. I'd be exhausted just scheduling taking them to these activities.. maybe they're too tired to make friends after all this. Do they have the opportunity to run around the neighborhood and do what they want with the neighborhood kids?
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I vote go somewhere for a semester and see how it is. When my daughter was in 6th grade I had a fellowship overseas for a semester. She attended a private international school where she blossomed. Her home school was a blue ribbon school with a wide range of activities, good teachers, great college admissions, etc. it was much like the schools I had grown up in (in another state) and liked. But my daughter was the only Asian at her home school and upon our return I enrolled her in a diverse private school. She had a great friend group there and a better academic experience…for her. When she was 13 I was offered a great job in a small New England town where I had taught in the summers. I turned it down because I knew that for my child being in a diverse community was important. I was also told, by my summer colleagues, that the high school kids there were either attending the tiny local high schools with limited courses and lots of boredom or attending a great high school 20+ miles away in an Ivy League university town where they were treated like second class citizens. These are tricky decisions because there are so many factors involved. Since you have already lived in two places and neither has worked, it might even be worth having some discussions with a family counselor. Wherever you think would be good, just rent for the fall and see how it feels for everyone. As someone else said, maybe not jump to the idea that your hometown is the solution. Have your kids loved it their on visits? If you move there and it’s not good, it might be a lot more complicated to leave.
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I'm sending a more detailed PM, but I'm chiming in with the obvious answer here: move to a rental in the new place and try it out for a year or two. Then you'll know. (Moving back to the old place is a lot easier than moving to a new one altogether.)
You said you planned to keep the ski-town place, so do that, and meanwhile, try the new place out, since it seems that that's an option for you financially. It's also probably a lot cheaper to do that in order to gather more information and to avoid the costly situation of moving and buying/selling if it turns out to be not as great.
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Oof, tough decision!
Our kids are now 22 and 19, and our position has been that we want them to have friends who work hard at .... something. Almost anything, really. Serious soccer players? Awesome! Top-tier ski racers? Also excellent. Spend every available minute in the robotics lab, building something for competitions? Definitely great. Serious (in this case, prodigy-level) violinist? Also great. Look, just have friends who are also seriously trying hard at SOMETHING, rather than kids who half-ass everything so they don't have to fail (or work).
Your metric for your kids' friends was serious/top athlete, spending every available minute in the robotics lab, prodigy level musician, "seriously trying hard" at something? You do know that the majority of good and worthy children in the world wouldn't live up to that standard. And there are not an insignificant number of top athletes/robotics nerds/musicians that wouldn't be great role models? I'm an attorney now, but I wasn't a serious/top athletic, musician, or academic at any point in my life. There is a great wonder of people between that and those who half ass so they don't have to fail or work.
No, those were my (hastily and poorly chosen) examples. This is a town full of entitled rich kids, so what we wanted was "work hard at something". Not necessarily all your hours (in fact, a number of their friends did a variety of things at a variety of levels: not everyone was a travel athlete, and some of the really good athletes were "OK" students), but not just skipping classes and smoking pot behind the high school while making sarcastic comments about the "try hard" kids. (And even the robotics kids did other stuff sometimes... :^). )
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As for outside activities, the kids do club soccer, ski team, rocketry club (organized by my wife), chess club (which I organized), and the mountain bike club/team. We coach or participate in a few of those, and just drop the kids off for others. None of this has resulted in any friendships being formed, though - in fact quite the opposite on the ski and mountain bike teams, where they were (they both quit skiing)/are bullied.
This seems excessive to me. I'd be exhausted just scheduling taking them to these activities.. maybe they're too tired to make friends after all this. Do they have the opportunity to run around the neighborhood and do what they want with the neighborhood kids?
If his mountain town is anything like my mountain town, the amount of neighborhood kids to run around with is pretty small or nonexistant. Resort towns tend to have a lot of poor 20-somethings and a lot of retired/empty nesters, with middle aged parents with school aged kids sparingly sprinkled around.
Anyways @waltworks, I feel you. I'm in a similar spot, though my kids are a lot younger than yours. I really like the recreational opportunities, but I'm not 100% sure I want to raise my kids here. We found a pretty decent neighborhood where there are more families than the average area, but it feels so...fragile.
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If they have all the opportunities available to make friends and it hasn't worked, I'm not sure there's much reason to believe that moving to a different school with smarter/nerdier/more motivated kids is likely to change that.
I'd focus on trying to talk them through how to make friends. I'd try to ascertain whether there might be some social anxieties at play. I'd offer as many opportunities to facilitate friendships (asking if they want to invite a few friends over for a small party, or to go to a movie, or whatever, even if these things means spending money on what feels like frivolities). Also see if there are activities outside of school they might enjoy. Local theater group, a week or two of summer camp for a special interest, art or craft groups or classes, whatever.
It sounds like this isn't a "lack of peers" problem, but a "struggling with the skill of making friends" issue.
My advice is well intentioned, so I hope it comes off that way, vs judging your kids. When you observe your kids in social settings, how do they do with making friends? Have you spoken to their teachers/coaches/etc about how they integrate into various groups? Like Villanelle noted, if the act of making friends is a challenge, that may be helped somewhat by finding a different peer group, but given how broad of a net you've already cast on type of activities, I'd hate for you to move & then realize that the core issue that needed to be solved was to help them make friends, regardless of area.
Similar to what Wolfpack mentioned, you can find friend groups in widely varied areas, and sometimes it's a really helpful thing to not have the majority of people be like you.
Of course, emotional wellbeing & mental health are critical, so I guess I'd also go by how bothered your kids are by the situation.
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Oh, I agree. My working theory (which is probably obvious, but I'll restate it) is that since the kids had at least a few friends in our old ski town, and all those friends were nerds, the lack of nerds here is the problem, not the kids. DS is pretty shy but does fine interacting in normal ways with his peers at school/activities. He just has no interest in hanging out with those kids as friends. Summer break, which started 2 weeks ago, has really been a problem as now he's lonely/isolated.
DD makes friends easily but has struggled much more here, and based on my experience teaching her class as a substitute, it's also the cohort that's most of the problem.
The unfortunate reality is that DW's experience in our former town was so traumatizing that I don't think we can ever move back. She is still struggling with depression and anxiety (with the help of therapists, before anyone suggests it) from those events 2 years on. If that weren't the case we'd ignore the politics and climate issues (former town is in a very red state) and just move back.
-W
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As for outside activities, the kids do club soccer, ski team, rocketry club (organized by my wife), chess club (which I organized), and the mountain bike club/team. We coach or participate in a few of those, and just drop the kids off for others. None of this has resulted in any friendships being formed, though - in fact quite the opposite on the ski and mountain bike teams, where they were (they both quit skiing)/are bullied.
This seems excessive to me. I'd be exhausted just scheduling taking them to these activities.. maybe they're too tired to make friends after all this. Do they have the opportunity to run around the neighborhood and do what they want with the neighborhood kids?
If his mountain town is anything like my mountain town, the amount of neighborhood kids to run around with is pretty small or nonexistant. Resort towns tend to have a lot of poor 20-somethings and a lot of retired/empty nesters, with middle aged parents with school aged kids sparingly sprinkled around.
Anyways @waltworks, I feel you. I'm in a similar spot, though my kids are a lot younger than yours. I really like the recreational opportunities, but I'm not 100% sure I want to raise my kids here. We found a pretty decent neighborhood where there are more families than the average area, but it feels so...fragile.
If you're looking for a "mountain town" with all the outdoor recreation that goes along with it that's super family friendly and full of high/overachieving kids I'd wholly recommend Bend, OR (where I live). We gave up a combined $350k in salary in super cheap TX and moved here (not so cheap) for one person making $125k and it was 200% worth it. Now we've worked our way back up to $250k combined again but will both be FIREing within the next year or so. You can't throw a rock without hitting kids basically anywhere in the entire town/city.
Both my husband and I are gifted and so are both of our kids and they have tons of like-minded intelligent friends who are into all the same outdoorsy activities and sports. Our daughter is in the TAG class/program that started in Middle School (6th grade) and was able to test out of 6th grade math and into 7th grade before starting this past school year. At the end of the school year, any student that wants to try can take a math bypass test to skip a grade level. So our daughter studied the entire 8th grade curriculum in about 2 weeks and met the required score to basically start taking 9th grade high school math courses this coming Fall when she enters 7th grade. She's extra excited about this because it's being taught at the middle school (grades 6-8) and that means anyone in the 9th grade class will have had to test ahead so it'll most likely be only high achievers like herself.
My son is in elementary but his teachers and school have been super excellent about grouping the kids by ability and giving the more advanced kids higher level work to keep them challenged. One of the high schools has an IB program that could be a great extra challenge if my kids were so inclined in high school (and the district is great about inter-district transfers). Him and his friends formed a Oregon Battle of the Books team this year, which they made it to the final round but lost to older kids and have already read about 80% of the books for next year. They also ski, mountain bike, play basketball, flag football and baseball together so a really well rounded group and they're super polite and respectful. When my son was a finalist (top 4) in the 24 challenge at school (a math competition) as a 3rd grader against 4th and 5th graders, his buddies missed recess to cheer him on in the finals (he came in third). It was awesome how they supported and cheered him on.
All I'm saying is, I would absolutely move my kids if I felt like they had no one to relate to where they are now and I am forever thankful for the place we live and the lifestyle that goes along with it for us and our kids. My husband and I both grew up in places where it was not cool to try or achieve anything so most of our peers took the easiest course of action and we had to really be confident in the choices we were making. I always felt like no one understood me but just had to believe that someday I would move out of my town and find "my people." My husband describes growing up feeling the same way.
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I do love me some Bend!
I haven't been there in quite a while. Back in the day it was dead ender rock climbers (erm, me...) and meth heads. Good to hear it's changed! We'll keep it on the radar!
-W
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I'd move again in a hot second. I have had a similar experience, my oldest 2 kids just finished 8th and 5th grade and we moved them twice. The first time to Idaho for a job and great camping but the second time was back to our hometown. We primarily moved for a job, but the kids have done so much better in school here. It's more academic, higher standards than ID and the kids have done fantastic. They have a lot of extracurriculars that weren't offered at all back where we used to live. Even though our current town isn't exciting, it's a trade off for the fantastic charter jr/sr high. The funding of our former idaho school district was just deplorable. A lot of the academic issues we had there basically just disappeared once we got DD in an appropriate school. Good luck to you and your family. You can always go back if it doesn't work.
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Any updates?
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Homeschool. Sounds like you and your spouse have flexible schedules. Or work from home. Or something. Why not educate them yourself in a few hours a day and carry on with your current lives?
What are they going to miss? Social life? Overrated. Participation in sports? Most avid athletes don't bother with high school competition. Club or travel is the emphasis there. An increasing number of folks in your position are going this exact route -- homeschooling. Heck, many folks with elite athletes do this.
I would never give up what's probably an ideal existence to move back somewhere else just so your kids can take five AP classes. You guys can pull this off and probably end up with better results.
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Homeschool. Sounds like you and your spouse have flexible schedules. Or work from home. Or something. Why not educate them yourself in a few hours a day and carry on with your current lives?
What are they going to miss? Social life? Overrated. Participation in sports? Most avid athletes don't bother with high school competition. Club or travel is the emphasis there. An increasing number of folks in your position are going this exact route -- homeschooling. Heck, many folks with elite athletes do this.
I would never give up what's probably an ideal existence to move back somewhere else just so your kids can take five AP classes. You guys can pull this off and probably end up with better results.
Alternative POV:
- As a younger dad I thought of homeschooling, but knew I could never provide in areas like math
- Just as having multiple teachers teaches you about the personalities of multiple bosses, the same could be said for peers
- Travel teams are mostly not what they are cracked up to be. I never played travel sports, but did get a D-I scholarship out of high school. For striving pros, there are specific teams/leagues that are crucial for the sake of getting exposure, but that's generally not done through the leagues available to the average person
- Agreed about the AP classes. They are overrated, and generally not accepted by colleges. I've been saying (based on real experience as a student, parent and teacher) that AP courses are good for prep, but expect for none of those credits to move from high school to college. If you want your kids to have college credits, they should just take classes at a college, like night, weekend or online courses in a real college classroom; not something in high school
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Homeschool. Sounds like you and your spouse have flexible schedules. Or work from home. Or something. Why not educate them yourself in a few hours a day and carry on with your current lives?
What are they going to miss? Social life? Overrated. Participation in sports? Most avid athletes don't bother with high school competition. Club or travel is the emphasis there. An increasing number of folks in your position are going this exact route -- homeschooling. Heck, many folks with elite athletes do this.
I would never give up what's probably an ideal existence to move back somewhere else just so your kids can take five AP classes. You guys can pull this off and probably end up with better results.
Bwahhahaha!
I mean, we have all the time we need, certainly, since we're FI and really only work pretty minimally on flexible schedules (ie coaching mountain biking type stuff).
We have attempted summer homeschooling and let's just say our parent/kid relationships, while great, do not transfer to teacher/student well.
It's like trying to teach your spouse to ski or something. You're better off hiring a professional and keeping your marriage/family happy.
My hat is off to those folks who make it work, you are rock stars.
-W
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Any updates?
Still paralyzed with indecision.
-W
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- Agreed about the AP classes. They are overrated, and generally not accepted by colleges. I've been saying (based on real experience as a student, parent and teacher) that AP courses are good for prep, but expect for none of those credits to move from high school to college. If you want your kids to have college credits, they should just take classes at a college, like a night, weekend or online courses in a real college classroom; not something in high school
Is this a new thing? All of my APs were accepted by the large state school I went to, but that was 20 years ago.
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When my daughter went to college (2015) the AP credits were accepted by the public/state schools, but not by the small liberal arts colleges she applied to.
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When my daughter went to college (2015) the AP credits were accepted by the public/state schools, but not by the small liberal arts colleges she applied to.
This was my experience at private liberal arts college in early 2000s. They were listed on my college transcript (for some reason) but 0 credit was assigned to them. And I didn't get out of any core classes. I think we viewed APs as strengthening the value of one's HS gpa, but I really have no idea if they were considered in that way.
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Similar to other posters, APs depend on where you plan to go to school. It's unlikely they will be accepted at most liberal arts schools, and more likely at public universities. It's recommended that kids take them to demonstrate "academic rigor", but my teens are on the fence about even taking the test. You have to pay, study quite a bit, and unclear if they will end up somewhere that accepts them. The high school my kids attend doesn't offer much for grade level classes, it's basically AP or something below grade level. So, they are left with minimal non AP options. Which, is another reason I wasn't super jazzed to have them complete high school in the bay area, but we're approaching the finish line, so here we are.
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My daughter’s high school allowed her to take the AP courses but wait until later in the semester to decide whether or not to take the exams.
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FWIW, I don't give a crap about whether college credit is available for AP classes. I just want opportunity to do challenging stuff/be around kids who are similarly capable.
I could see how that could be a consideration in other scenarios but for us it's just not relevant.
-W
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FWIW, I don't give a crap about whether college credit is available for AP classes. I just want opportunity to do challenging stuff/be around kids who are similarly capable.
I could see how that could be a consideration in other scenarios but for us it's just not relevant.
-W
I support this position! Whatever people think about AP courses, they're more advanced, they move faster, and for better or worse there's less left to the teacher's discretion. (Which might not be a win in the instance that you have a truly awesome teacher, but if your teacher is in the great 70% of "not that bad" to "pretty good" it's good to have a standardized syllabus.)
FWIW, my oldest just finished at a small, highly-selective liberal arts college, and they took some of his AP credits (I think up to a cap of 4 or so, and only when he'd scored a 5? And there were some other limitations: I believe they accepted his Calc BC credits only after he'd passed the next math course in the sequence with a reasonably good grade). I think they took his Spanish AP score in lieu of him having to take a year of a language. (I actually have opinions about the wisdom of that, but ... whatever, man.)
My youngest, at a larger (but still fairly selective) state school, probably got credit for most of the AP courses for which he took tests. He definitely had the option to skip classes he'd already "taken" . (He wisely chose not to do so for one or two classes he needs to know solidly for his major.)
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I would move. Not for the schools, but for the culture. We started out in a touristy resort town, surf and skate scene, similar dynamic to mountain resort towns. It's difficult to understand the dynamic unless one has lived in this type of environment for a while. Expensive with low local wages, which results in socioeconomic bifurcation with almost no middle class and a mix of uber rich vs. impoverished service workers struggling mightily. Lots of DINKs, few families, lots of vacation homes. There's often pressure for kids to excel at the local sports (skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, surfing, etc.), which means less of an emphasis on academics or any other aspect of life. In our former beach/tourist town this included a lot of social pressure to be "cool" by living the surfer/skater lifestyle. It just wasn't a good fit for us even though DW and I grew up there.
Bend, OR was on our short list relocation candidates, but after visiting it was a big nope. Very clearly another version of tourist/resort town. Been there, done that, not interested in that scene again. Especially for our kids. We ended up choosing Boise, in large part, because it's not a tourist destination. We have skiing and outdoor stuff, but it's not the "best" and for us this is a feature not a bug.
IMO, community is the most important thing. Go where your kids can make friends and be who they are. Great schools are an added benefit. Same with lower cost of living. Keep the mountain home as a rental, and a place where you can vacation. But day to day, it's so much better to have neighbors that you enjoy being around and who actually have time to be present.
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- Agreed about the AP classes. They are overrated, and generally not accepted by colleges. I've been saying (based on real experience as a student, parent and teacher) that AP courses are good for prep, but expect for none of those credits to move from high school to college. If you want your kids to have college credits, they should just take classes at a college, like a night, weekend or online courses in a real college classroom; not something in high school
Is this a new thing? All of my APs were accepted by the large state school I went to, but that was 20 years ago.
Perhaps the move into a public school made the difference. I initially went to a Catholic University and the 12 credits equated to 0 upon entering. Other friends had the same experience.
As a result, I encouraged my kids to take trade classes to get additional skills, and to spend a year as an exchange student.
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I should add that the AP classes paid off in a way for my daughter. A year after she finished college she moved back to our home city. She had a day job, but her high school teachers asked if she would take on some tutoring…. For which she was paid $35 an hour, that then went up to $50. It was a great part time gig before she got a better full time job.
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As others have pointed out, I think it's helpful to separate "great schools" from a community culture. The two things are often correlated, but not always. We used to live in a small Southern town where a lack of socioeconomic & ethnic diversity created "great schools" (based on standardized test scores), but aspirations were low and football reigned supreme. There weren't many nerdy, academic, motivated kids (or if there were, they worked hard to keep that under wraps).
We currently live in a coastal retirement community. As has been discussed above, our community population exists at two extremes: wealthy retirees and families who mostly work in service jobs. The schools are mediocre, but the big problem is that education really isn't valued around here. We're homeschooling next year, for this reason.
Last week, my daughter attended a STEM summer camp in a city ~1 hr away (because nothing like that exists in our community). She was blown away by how cool the kids were, how nerdy (in the good way) they all were, how little bullying there was, and how much more background knowledge those kids appeared to have than her. That community has great schools (comparable to the ones in the small town we lived in previously), but it's also a bigger city and one that attracts more professionals.
We're planning to move away from this community soon, but I'm unsure where we'll go next. I've been thinking A LOT about schools and kid community, so this thread has been really good food for thought! The trick is to identify the communities that don't just have good test scores, but ALSO have intellectual curiosity.
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FWIW, I don't give a crap about whether college credit is available for AP classes. I just want opportunity to do challenging stuff/be around kids who are similarly capable.
I could see how that could be a consideration in other scenarios but for us it's just not relevant.
-W
I agree with this. It's great if some credits count for college, but the main benefit is to boost the overall rigor of your kid's transcript.
I started at a state honors college, then transferred to a large state university. My AP courses were treated differently by those two schools, and getting any credit at all was an unexpected perk. I mainly took AP courses to a) avoid boredom, and b) show academic rigor on my transcript. (Apparently it worked, because I was accepted to every college I applied to... including Williams, which was #1 in selectivity for liberal arts schools at the time. Affording those selective schools was another matter entirely, but at least I got in! LOL) Avoiding college coursework was never the goal.
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I agree with this. It's great if some credits count for college, but the main benefit is to boost the overall rigor of your kid's transcript.
Let me be more clear: I do not care about their transcripts or how good they look to the admissions committee at Yale or anything like that. I want the kids to have smart interesting friends. Any halfway decent college has plenty of smart interesting people so they don't need to primp and preen for admissions officers because we don't care about that (and if they care, they can certainly get into any university they want if they work hard). College is just extended high school anyway, grad school is what actually matters.
-W
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I would move. Not for the schools, but for the culture. We started out in a touristy resort town, surf and skate scene, similar dynamic to mountain resort towns. It's difficult to understand the dynamic unless one has lived in this type of environment for a while. Expensive with low local wages, which results in socioeconomic bifurcation with almost no middle class and a mix of uber rich vs. impoverished service workers struggling mightily. Lots of DINKs, few families, lots of vacation homes. There's often pressure for kids to excel at the local sports (skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, surfing, etc.), which means less of an emphasis on academics or any other aspect of life. In our former beach/tourist town this included a lot of social pressure to be "cool" by living the surfer/skater lifestyle. It just wasn't a good fit for us even though DW and I grew up there.
Bend, OR was on our short list relocation candidates, but after visiting it was a big nope. Very clearly another version of tourist/resort town. Been there, done that, not interested in that scene again. Especially for our kids. We ended up choosing Boise, in large part, because it's not a tourist destination. We have skiing and outdoor stuff, but it's not the "best" and for us this is a feature not a bug.
IMO, community is the most important thing. Go where your kids can make friends and be who they are. Great schools are an added benefit. Same with lower cost of living. Keep the mountain home as a rental, and a place where you can vacation. But day to day, it's so much better to have neighbors that you enjoy being around and who actually have time to be present.
Jeez, you’ve really stated clearly what bugs me about Asheville. It’s absofucking beautiful here but I just want to live somewhere “normal”. I three quarters wish we had just kept WNC as our vacation destination.
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@waltworks, care to elaborate on what is hindering you in making a decision about this?
Also, have you considered moving someplace other than your home area? Plenty of access to outdoor pursuits in the Seattle and Portland areas. Housing isn't cheap in Seattle, but the schools are good and lots of smart kids around. If your kids need a real challenge you could look at the early entrance programs at the UW -- our son did the Transition School/EEP and it worked out well for him (now doing a PhD in Computer Science at Berkeley). Daughter did Running Start + some AP classes at one of the less rigorous high schools in Seattle but still had plenty of geeky friends and managed to get into pre-engineering at the UW. Our winters are dark and grey, but you can still bike and hike if you don't mind the damp. Lots of ski areas within a 1-2 hour drive. If you want to be closer to the mountains you could look at places like Issaquah (schools there very good) or the Snoqualmie Valley or Snohomish (not sure).
You'd probably easily sell a ton of bikes here if the HCOL is a concern.
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I would move. Not for the schools, but for the culture. We started out in a touristy resort town, surf and skate scene, similar dynamic to mountain resort towns. It's difficult to understand the dynamic unless one has lived in this type of environment for a while. Expensive with low local wages, which results in socioeconomic bifurcation with almost no middle class and a mix of uber rich vs. impoverished service workers struggling mightily. Lots of DINKs, few families, lots of vacation homes. There's often pressure for kids to excel at the local sports (skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, surfing, etc.), which means less of an emphasis on academics or any other aspect of life. In our former beach/tourist town this included a lot of social pressure to be "cool" by living the surfer/skater lifestyle. It just wasn't a good fit for us even though DW and I grew up there.
Bend, OR was on our short list relocation candidates, but after visiting it was a big nope. Very clearly another version of tourist/resort town. Been there, done that, not interested in that scene again. Especially for our kids. We ended up choosing Boise, in large part, because it's not a tourist destination. We have skiing and outdoor stuff, but it's not the "best" and for us this is a feature not a bug.
IMO, community is the most important thing. Go where your kids can make friends and be who they are. Great schools are an added benefit. Same with lower cost of living. Keep the mountain home as a rental, and a place where you can vacation. But day to day, it's so much better to have neighbors that you enjoy being around and who actually have time to be present.
Jeez, you’ve really stated clearly what bugs me about Asheville. It’s absofucking beautiful here but I just want to live somewhere “normal”. I three quarters wish we had just kept WNC as our vacation destination.
Touristy places are popular for good reasons, so I get why people want to live there. It took us a good 10 years to finally pull the trigger on moving to a "normal" city. For us, we realized we were chasing a feeling, a view, an idea, that wasn't realistic or sustainable. Somewhat analogous to the hedonic treadmill. The view, however beautiful, fades into the background after a year or two.
What I never tire of, and truly desire, is beautiful community. I will never get bored of things like walking across the alleyway to my neighbor's house with a bottle of prosecco to play card games on their porch. And having friends over for dinner. Or my kids wandering on their own with all their neighborhood friends. This past holiday weekend half the city emptied out into McCall (our local resort destination), so the city was super mellow. We rode bikes to a food truck park near the river for dinner and live music with friends. I went mountain biking with a friend. The kids walked to their friends' houses, and then those friends came to our house. We had friends over for BBQ and yard games. We biked to church, then biked to downtown for lunch. Later we left the kids at home and biked to meet friends for afternoon cocktails in the neighborhood. We had an amazing weekend with zero driving. Of course, we still enjoy going other places, and I love me some stunning mountain views (the "mountains" here in Boise are not very impressive), but these are places I'd much rather visit.
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Are you sure your kids will be better off socially at the school where you would be moving? They way you are describing the smart kids sounds very cliche. I live in a major city and the smart, honors kids at my child's school aren't "geeky" at all. They are generally very sporty and involved in leadership roles in their extra-curriculars. I don't know of anyone heavily involved in D&D, board games, chess, etc. There is a robotics and chess club, but these aren't where the top students are hanging out. They all seem to be a little more well-rounded.
I just want to mention this because you may move and your kids may be in the same position socially.
Also, on a personal note, I was a very shy kid. I didn't have a lot of friends growing up, but I made some friends in college and as an adult. Moving wouldn't have made a difference socially for me.
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Well, we have a 6th/3rd/4 year-old set of kids and decided it was best to leave Ecuador for Spain for similar reasons. We wanted a more rigorous school environment, higher quality peers and opportunities, and a more developed country in general. This is all happening this summer. We figured if we waited any longer, friendships would solidify further and make moving even more difficult on the oldest.
Note: Spanish immersion was also paramount.
I say go for it--wherever it might be.
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Where did I say kids weren't well rounded because they like D&D?
In the town in question, if you point randomly at an adult, there's a 50% chance they have a PhD. We are not talking about a normal big city smart kid population at all.
-W
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Where did I say kids weren't well rounded because they like D&D?
In the town in question, if you point randomly at an adult, there's a 50% chance they have a PhD. We are not talking about a normal big city smart kid population at all.
-W
You didn't. I just took your nose buried in a D&D manual and ran with it. At my kid's school, "jocks" are also involved in other things, as well as being AP students. That's all I'm getting at, but it sounds like you know the environment already. I'm surprised when I see my daughter's peers. They just seem a lot more well rounded. Back when I was in school there were more defined cliques (jocks, theater kids, geeks, cheerleaders, etc.). I'm happy to see that kids today are moving away from those divisions and getting involved in a variety of things. The cliques seem so limiting! My smart daughter is really into makeup/fashion designing and skiing right now, but that doesn't mean she won't fit in with the kids in the robotics club (which she plans on joining next year). Back in the day, she probably would have had to conform to some geeky ideal to be accepted by her peers. I'm glad that is changing. That was kind of my tangent. It sounds like there would be more options for your kids in the new place.
I would move in a heartbeat if my kid was unhappy.
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Where did I say kids weren't well rounded because they like D&D?
In the town in question, if you point randomly at an adult, there's a 50% chance they have a PhD. We are not talking about a normal big city smart kid population at all.
-W
You didn't. I just took your nose buried in a D&D manual and ran with it. At my kid's school, "jocks" are also involved in other things, as well as being AP students. That's all I'm getting at, but it sounds like you know the environment already. I'm surprised when I see my daughter's peers. They just seem a lot more well rounded. Back when I was in school there were more defined cliques (jocks, theater kids, geeks, cheerleaders, etc.). I'm happy to see that kids today are moving away from those divisions and getting involved in a variety of things. The cliques seem so limiting! My smart daughter is really into makeup/fashion designing and skiing right now, but that doesn't mean she won't fit in with the kids in the robotics club (which she plans on joining next year). Back in the day, she probably would have had to conform to some geeky ideal to be accepted by her peers. I'm glad that is changing. That was kind of my tangent. It sounds like there would be more options for your kids in the new place.
I would move in a heartbeat if my kid was unhappy.
The cliques you describe were more defined in our previous beach town, whereas here in Boise (city proper near downtown, no idea about the burbs) the kids seem way more well rounded. I think there's a lot of regional variation. And maybe that's the point, and the reason walt is contemplating a move.
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The cliques you describe were more defined in our previous beach town, whereas here in Boise (city proper near downtown, no idea about the burbs) the kids seem way more well rounded. I think there's a lot of regional variation. And maybe that's the point, and the reason walt is contemplating a move.
You're probably right. I grew up in a small town and high school was similar to the typical 80s movie, lol.
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You all have ruined my mountain resort town FI/best-life dream...
Thanks and no thanks. (Ha!)
Seriously: that's helpful perspective. We weren't seriously considering it, but now I won't even get a bit wistful thinking about it, in light of our kids. That's one of the largest concerns we would have had with a leap like that anyway.
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You all have ruined my mountain resort town FI/best-life dream...
Thanks and no thanks. (Ha!)
Seriously: that's helpful perspective. We weren't seriously considering it, but now I won't even get a bit wistful thinking about it, in light of our kids. That's one of the largest concerns we would have had with a leap like that anyway.
It would be great without kids. With kids, I'm not sure there's a mountain town that I can recommend, and I've spent significant time in most of them at this point.
-W
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We lived in an NC college mountain town, Boone, which has ski slopes nearby. It was good for us. Good schools, plenty of high achieving students, since many had professors for parents. There’s just one high school in the county, which is actually a good thing, because there’s not a good vs bad school scenario. It’s also a blue county.
Being on the East Coast we weren’t as isolated as I think most of the Western ski areas probably are. We were two hours from an international airport and a 5 hour drive to a beach.
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We lived in an NC college mountain town, Boone, which has ski slopes nearby. It was good for us. Good schools, plenty of high achieving students, since many had professors for parents. There’s just one high school in the county, which is actually a good thing, because there’s not a good vs bad school scenario. It’s also a blue county.
Being on the East Coast we weren’t as isolated as I think most of the Western ski areas probably are. We were two hours from an international airport and a 5 hour drive to a beach.
I've often wondered what it would be like to live in Boone with a family. We spent a fair bit of time on daytrips to that area while living in NC (we were in Hickory and then closer to Charlotte) and loved it. We're currently looking at Greensboro, but I'll keep Boone in mind!
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I'll clarify - there are probably some fine mountain towns out there (which would include the one we're potentially moving to).
There are not, in my experience, good *resort* towns for kids. At least not smart ones.
-W
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@waltworks Are you familiar with Raj Chetty's work on the relationship between geography and opportunity? Fascinating stuff: https://opportunityinsights.org
If Chetty is right, putting your kids in an environment with good role models and peers is Parenting Job #4 or 5.
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My understanding is that Chetty's work is focused on how social networks can pull people out of poverty. To be clear, I'm not concerned about my kids making *money* particularly. I'm interested in them achieving interesting things that they want to achieve. If they don't make much money doing that it's ok, the family has plenty of money and nobody is going to starve.
-W
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My understanding is that Chetty's work is focused on how social networks can pull people out of poverty. To be clear, I'm not concerned about my kids making *money* particularly. I'm interested in them achieving interesting things that they want to achieve. If they don't make much money doing that it's ok, the family has plenty of money and nobody is going to starve.
-W
His early work was largely about rising out of poverty, but some of his more recent work has considered how kids end up on different life paths.
For example, one of his papers examines how and why kids who become inventors and file for patents tend to cluster in specific neighborhoods: https://www.nber.org/papers/w24062
From the abstract:
Children who grow up in a neighborhood or family with a high innovation rate in a specific technology class are more likely to patent in exactly the same class. Girls are more likely to invent in a particular class if they grow up in an area with more women (but not men) who invent in that class. These gender- and technology class-specific exposure effects are more likely to be driven by narrow mechanisms such as role model or network effects than factors that only affect general human capital accumulation, such as the quality of schools.
If pursuing a career that involves invention is not only an economic good but a matter of self-fulfillment, then role models and networks really matter for kids growing into their best selves, especially for people who have daughters.
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Well, @waltworks, it'll be the ocean for me, then. I always joke that if things get too stressful, I'm taking my business, "BUSINESS," and creating "Ocean BUSINESS" over by the ocean. Sometimes we kid about it.
I don't like the cold that much anyway.
Fascinating information, @caleb! Especially the bit about innovation.
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So our kids are pretty bored in their classes and our oldest has zero friends - because there are no other nerdy/smart kids to hang out with, really, and he's not enough of a social butterfly to, say, go befriend some jocks.
<snip>
The problem is that we already moved the kids once (from another ski town) because of similar school issues. We'd be moving them again, and starting everything over again.
I'm also a 'no'. You already did a similar move which didn't work out, so to be blunt you don't have a great track record of picking school districts at this point.
And it doesn't sound like you have done much to help your kids find friends outside of school? My three siblings and I were all the 'smart kids' in our very mediocre public school but we all had at least a few good friends in school as well as interests and friendships out of school that were very important to keeping us happy and healthy.
Even if a kid is 'smart and nerdy' that doesn't mean all their friends need to be as well. Aren't there any groups or clubs outside of school, whether outdoors-related or otherwise? Something like Scouts (know that not everyone is a fan) or since you're in a rural area, 4-H? (Not sure what 4-H is like in CO, but in the Midwest it can offer a lot to kids and certainly did to me.)
To be fair though, sounds like OP was picking areas based on what the adults liked not what the kids needed. Which is harsh, but they moved from one ski town to another ski town. And let's be honest: ski towns are going to share certain traits. This was foreseeable.
Pick a place based on what kind of environment will be best for the kids first, then what the parents want and they'll probably have better luck.
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The initial pick was actually based on 2010 (this was back in 2012) census data that included educational outcomes/achievement, health/obesity/etc. Skiing was not part of the equation at the time.
As I explained, the school district/board were taken over by sociopaths. If that had not happened, we'd still be there.
-W
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Have you ever read the book 5 levels of gifted? It really helped me out with deciding what to do with schooling. But no matter what you end up doing, you end up second guessing yourself as a parent anyways. We all just do our best. Our son was a level 3 gifted, and we did end up moving cities to the highest rated school district in our area. He's now 13. Public school is pretty tough, there's a lot of rough teenage stuff going on, bullying, everyone losing social skills because of covid, etc. I'm happy we made our move when we did (kindergarden), and I think our son has solid friendships from being here so long. But to move to this good school district we had to half size our house, since the cost per square foot doubled from where we left. It was still worth it to us, but more because we actually love our new neighbors.
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I have not read that book, but thanks for the recommendation.
My DS and DD are not geniuses. But they are the only/almost only bright kids (moreso DS) in their cohorts here. DS in particular only gets along with smart/nerdy kids so he's left adrift.
I am less concerned with academic achievement in isolation than operating with a good/achievement oriented peer group.
-W
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I have not read that book, but thanks for the recommendation.
My DS and DD are not geniuses. But they are the only/almost only bright kids (moreso DS) in their cohorts here. DS in particular only gets along with smart/nerdy kids so he's left adrift.
I am less concerned with academic achievement in isolation than operating with a good/achievement oriented peer group.
-W
I think this is an important perspective -- perhaps even more so for your DD, because if it's important for your daughter to grow into a confident, thinking person, she needs to have friends and a cohort that values that (rather than mocking it).
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Anyways @waltworks, I feel you. I'm in a similar spot, though my kids are a lot younger than yours. I really like the recreational opportunities, but I'm not 100% sure I want to raise my kids here. We found a pretty decent neighborhood where there are more families than the average area, but it feels so...fragile.
We did the majority of our child-rearing on a neighborhood house in an early 1990s subdivision that we loved. It fit our budget. But, almost no kids in that neighborhood. Mostly empty nesters, one helicopter family who would barely let their kids out of the house that we knew, and a couple of other families whose kids were ??? We knew kids lived there at least part time, seldom saw them.
A half-mile up the road was a newer neighborhood and every house seemed to have kids. Most of those houses were of a certain style and all built just before we moved into the older neighborhood. All the parents seemed to be educated professionals like us and either had more money or perhaps more debt. Parents who had their kids in all the activities. When our kids wanted to trick-or-treat that's where we went b/c the neighborhood would be swarming with kids in costumes.
I often wondered if things might have been if we would have moved into that neighborhood. Would have certainly put a huge pinch in our budget b/c this was pre-MMM for us.
Lots of ways we could have handled this besides buying a house there. We have friends in that neighborhood and have attended BBQs there. All these kids attend the same school. We just didn't have the shiny newer house, shiny new cars, or their mortgages and car payments.
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@waltworks, any decision on whether you are staying or going?
FWIW we made the decision to put our house on the market now rather than wait until spring -- we are downsizing and decided it was best to unload it while inventory is still low and there was lots of demand. Found a rental, moved, got it fixed/cleaned up and staged and had an above-list cash offer in hand all in less than 3 weeks. I am exhausted (was averaging over 20k steps/day during the peak of the move/listing prep process) but also relieved.
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Due to a complete and total shitstorm here (tenants moved out of our rental in our old town and the market there is so dead that even at 20% lower rent we haven't found another, DW's mental health is very bad, etc) we are still in our current shitty-school town.
We may be forced to move back to our original location since we can't seem to rent the house and we also, according to our realtor, probably can't really sell it right now.
Ugh.
-W
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A quick update - we're still stuck in ski town, but have made offers on some houses in smartie-ville. Unfortunately our ski town housing market is terrible (for sellers) and the opposite is the case for smartie-ville. So we've been unable to compete for houses due to the craziness of the market.
In the meantime the current school district's only idea for our kids is to have them start skipping grades in order to be around kids who are closer to functioning at their level so we have to figure out whether to do that or not. It's disruptive and annoying, and they'd probably need to go back to their original grade in the new school system anyway. But if they stay in their current grades they're effectively falling behind their peers in the new school system just because this one is so bad.
Anyway, I'm fighting being depressed about the situation at this point. I despise where we live but we seem to be stuck at least for the time being.
-W
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So sorry to hear that. Do you have any other options, like renting your current place? Seems like a ski town may have a decent short-term rental market, particularly over the coming few months.
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A quick update - we're still stuck in ski town, but have made offers on some houses in smartie-ville. Unfortunately our ski town housing market is terrible (for sellers) and the opposite is the case for smartie-ville. So we've been unable to compete for houses due to the craziness of the market.
In the meantime the current school district's only idea for our kids is to have them start skipping grades in order to be around kids who are closer to functioning at their level so we have to figure out whether to do that or not. It's disruptive and annoying, and they'd probably need to go back to their original grade in the new school system anyway. But if they stay in their current grades they're effectively falling behind their peers in the new school system just because this one is so bad.
Anyway, I'm fighting being depressed about the situation at this point. I despise where we live but we seem to be stuck at least for the time being.
-W
Sorry to hear the woes continue.
You've shown that it's impossible to immediately change your circumstances given your limitations and priorities. You now have the chance to either reevaluate those priorities or start identifying new options while you ameliorate your current life with the accomodations the school district can offer.
What are some other solutions? Virtual school? Selling below market value? What are you willing to trade to change your environment now that it's become hard? I can't remember if you are FI, but will you work to eat a big loss on real estate
Our DD is on grade acceleration and the only complication is that due to her young age she doesn't click as well with the students. She gets along better with the kids her age. She's still at or above benchmark for all academic subjects but is happy.
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Our DD is on grade acceleration and the only complication is that due to her young age she doesn't click as well with the students. She gets along better with the kids her age. She's still at or above benchmark for all academic subjects but is happy.
This worry has kept us from seriously considering grade acceleration. DS has a big noggin, but then we see some behavior, and we look at each other and say, "....aaaaaaand....he's eight."
Walt, is there any chance for tutoring for your kids in town? If not from some organized place, then maybe from a teacher after hours? I would imagine a bright student might as much make a teacher's day, as the other way around--if they had some way to carve out an appropriate amount of time, and get the right materials to engage them. Even though our public schools are some of the best around, it's not uncommon for GT students to take after school tutoring, not to catch up but to work ahead on their best subject without affecting their whole school experience. It might also be an appropriate holding action until the move makes sense.
I also thought about the other way around. You said there weren't other needs, but your kids probably know who else is designated GT. Would you have any interest in starting a peer tutoring program in school? Being the need is hard, but helping other students out could be a good position from which to start some friendships.
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Have you considered homeschool? You might find that there are some local homeschool groups or co-ops that may have kids that your children would connect with. Worst case scenario is you can at least challenge them academically for the rest of the year until you can move. If they don't really have friends at school now then they probably won't miss that as much.
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Have you considered homeschool? You might find that there are some local homeschool groups or co-ops that may have kids that your children would connect with. Worst case scenario is you can at least challenge them academically for the rest of the year until you can move. If they don't really have friends at school now then they probably won't miss that as much.
Homeschooling is 100% out of the question, none of the kids do well with us as teachers or with remote/device learning. It sounds great in theory but when we have attempted it is has been a disaster.
Our main concern is having them around a cohort of other 2+ standard deviation above average kids, really. Homeschooling in our area won't provide that any better than public school.
But man I wish we could pull it off. The schedule flexibility would be awesome. I don't love getting up at 6am to get the middle schooler out the door.
-W
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Our DD is on grade acceleration and the only complication is that due to her young age she doesn't click as well with the students. She gets along better with the kids her age. She's still at or above benchmark for all academic subjects but is happy.
This worry has kept us from seriously considering grade acceleration. DS has a big noggin, but then we see some behavior, and we look at each other and say, "....aaaaaaand....he's eight."
Walt, is there any chance for tutoring for your kids in town? If not from some organized place, then maybe from a teacher after hours? I would imagine a bright student might as much make a teacher's day, as the other way around--if they had some way to carve out an appropriate amount of time, and get the right materials to engage them. Even though our public schools are some of the best around, it's not uncommon for GT students to take after school tutoring, not to catch up but to work ahead on their best subject without affecting their whole school experience. It might also be an appropriate holding action until the move makes sense.
I also thought about the other way around. You said there weren't other needs, but your kids probably know who else is designated GT. Would you have any interest in starting a peer tutoring program in school? Being the need is hard, but helping other students out could be a good position from which to start some friendships.
It would be an interesting idea to hire someone to do some tutoring. But then they'd also be even more bored in their normal classes during the day, which seems counterproductive.
The older one (6th) we will probably just accelerate, he has no friends in his current cohort anyway.
The younger (4th) is a trickier question as she does have friends in her grade. I substitute taught her class for a couple days to see how it was going (this is my usual procedure, I've done it with our older kids classes too) and most of the kids seem to think she's some kind of alien. She spends a lot of her time in the hallway doing her own work. Not great.
If you're curious, there's a resource I stumbled on about grade acceleration that we found helpful:
https://www.accelerationinstitute.org/Nation_Deceived/ND_v2.pdf
Ignore the bizarre title, it's worth a read.
-W
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So sorry to hear that. Do you have any other options, like renting your current place? Seems like a ski town may have a decent short-term rental market, particularly over the coming few months.
We have rented our place (in ski town 1, we live in a rental in ski town 2) but until we have that income on our taxes next year, we can't get a mortgage based on that income, so in hindsight perhaps we should have just sold it. I had forgotten about that rule.
Short term rentals are illegal in our neighborhood regardless.
So we have pretty limited ability to get mortgages right now due to neither of us working much which has complicated things a lot. My wife won't be happy in another rental, so we basically need to buy a place to really make it work.
-W
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What about combining the two ideas and hiring someone (like a retired teacher) to homeschool your kids?
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Is it more about the social connections with like-minded "2 standard deviation" kids, or is it more about wanting challenging school work? If you could increase the intellectual challenge but the social situations (them not having friends and peers with whom they really connect) would stay more or less the same, would that mostly scratch the itch? I can't tell if you mostly want your kids to be around those kids because you think they will flourish more on a social level if they are with smart, motivated peers, or if you want their education to be at the level of super smart kids. There may be some possibilities, but it depends on what is the primary thing you are trying to accomplish.
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We want them around other smart kids. The older one has shown he will not make friends with any other kind of kid. The younger one seems to be heading down the same path.
The academic side of things is somewhat less important, but we do also care about that.
-W
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So sorry to hear that. Do you have any other options, like renting your current place? Seems like a ski town may have a decent short-term rental market, particularly over the coming few months.
We have rented our place (in ski town 1, we live in a rental in ski town 2) but until we have that income on our taxes next year, we can't get a mortgage based on that income, so in hindsight perhaps we should have just sold it. I had forgotten about that rule.
Short term rentals are illegal in our neighborhood regardless.
So we have pretty limited ability to get mortgages right now due to neither of us working much which has complicated things a lot. My wife won't be happy in another rental, so we basically need to buy a place to really make it work.
-W
Seriously? She wouldn't be willing to rent in your desired town for 6-12 months in order for you to get your kids into a schooling situation that works for them?
We made a snap decision to sell our house this past summer and moved into a rental. It's not perfect, but it is working. If my kids' mental health/well being were on the line I would be more than happy to put up with the limitations of a rental for a bit.
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We want them around other smart kids. The older one has shown he will not make friends with any other kind of kid. The younger one seems to be heading down the same path.
The academic side of things is somewhat less important, but we do also care about that.
-W
I'd strongly suggest that you perhaps work with them (or give them books and research if they prefer that) on making friends, dealing with people not like them, etc. Their world as they grow up will not me insular. Teaching them to find the good and interesting bits of people seemingly unlike them is a gift. These don't have to be their forever BFFs.
As an adult who has moved a lot, I've been grateful to form friendships with people not only vastly different from me, but even those who I know will be friends for a season, rather than a lifetime. They aren't the deepest friendships (for either of us), but they are valuable (to both of us).
This is not a definitive solution but seems like it would be deeply valuable anyway.
Also, it surprises me that your wife isn't willing to rent to address a problem that seems to be very deeply affecting everyone's mental health (including her). Or that you aren't willing to sell for a loss and buy at a premium (or a house with deep compromises). This seems like a situation one wold want to throw money at.
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We want them around other smart kids. The older one has shown he will not make friends with any other kind of kid. The younger one seems to be heading down the same path.
The academic side of things is somewhat less important, but we do also care about that.
-W
I'd strongly suggest that you perhaps work with them (or give them books and research if they prefer that) on making friends, dealing with people not like them, etc. Their world as they grow up will not me insular. Teaching them to find the good and interesting bits of people seemingly unlike them is a gift. These don't have to be their forever BFFs.
As an adult who has moved a lot, I've been grateful to form friendships with people not only vastly different from me, but even those who I know will be friends for a season, rather than a lifetime. They aren't the deepest friendships (for either of us), but they are valuable (to both of us).
This is not a definitive solution but seems like it would be deeply valuable anyway.
Also, it surprises me that your wife isn't willing to rent to address a problem that seems to be very deeply affecting everyone's mental health (including her). Or that you aren't willing to sell for a loss and buy at a premium (or a house with deep compromises). This seems like a situation one wold want to throw money at.
I agree.
I'm curious whether you and Mrs. Walt have many friends. I'd assume you do, and if so, don't they have children that yours would enjoy playing with? Getting together with other families seems like a good way for parents to demonstrate how to be friends with a variety of people, regardless of their individual interests. Have you tried encouraging friendships at the family level? That might help fill the social gaps they have at school somewhat.
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In our current environment, I have zero friends. Mrs. Walt has a few through school. I appreciate the ideas, however. We have spent a lot of time trying to make family-level friends through soccer, basketball, skiing, mountain biking, school, etc. None of that has really worked out, I think we're too nerdy and weird.
Agreed that we should be throwing money at this (we are nominally FI, though we both still work to varying degrees), and that we should be ok with renting. The reality is, however, that our current rental has worked out so badly (this is our first time ever renting a home) that we're hesitant to go down that road again. Finding a rental large enough for our family is also a challenge. Nevertheless I am pushing to GTFO at the holiday break. Mrs. Walt has committed to a variety of things at school (mathematics lead teacher, robotics coach, etc) that she would feel bad about dropping so that's probably the biggest hangup at this point.
I think we've decided that ski towns are not a fit for us, so IMO we need to cut bait and leave ASAP. Inertia is a bitch, though.
-W
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"Finding a rental large enough for our family is also a challenge."
Doesn't your family have 2 adults and 2 kids?
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This is a very interesting thread to me, with some responses that are about geographic areas that are local to us. We're in the more unusual position of having FIREd and then having a child. Currently discussing whether a second is in the cards.
We live in the Wilmington, NC area now and I'd echo the sentiments others have expressed about touristy economies. Wilmington is a decent sized city with a state college so it's not a complete bifurcation of classes but it's still not an area you move to without a job. It's also not an area I'd want our daughter to be in as a young adult due to more limited opportunities. Our local school district is one of the best in the metro area but it's very suburban/white flight. I'd like her to experience more diversity.
Travel is a really strong pull for us, and we are mountain people living at the beach so we've contemplated moving closer to what we love doing one day. However, I wonder whether those environments will be best for our daughter. We have plenty of time to figure this out since she's not 2 years old yet.
I had hoped to home school her early, for numerous reasons, chief among them that it frees us from being geographically tethered. We'd really like to be able to continue to roam as long as possible. Walt's comment about his kids not responding to their teaching though was kind of eye opening to me. Maybe this isn't such a big deal when they're young. I'm not sure that I'd be comfortable homeschooling beyond early middle school anyway.
There's a lot of food for thought in this thread and I'm thankful for the discussion!
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We did home schooling for a year during the pandemic with mix success. I think a lot of it comes down to the personality of the kid. Our oldest did NOT want to receive instruction from us, is extrinsically motivated, and strongly introverted. We had difficulty getting her to participate in social activities. Our youngest is highly intrinsically motivated and extroverted. She did great with home school but it was clear that she desperately needed more social interaction. It was great that we could individually tailor their instruction and fill in learning gaps (their previous public school left some pretty enormous holes). And the freedom to travel and do our own thing was wonderful. But in the end it made more sense to enroll them in our local schools (new location, new and better schools).
As for mountains and mountain towns: I've become a fan of medium to large cities near enough to mountains for hobbies, but where tourism isn't the main draw. Real cities with normal people working regular jobs. Cities with 100k+ population, within an hour or so of mountain stuff. Places like Portland, Seattle, Spokane, Boise, Salt Lake City, Denver, Ft Collins. Ideally, older neighborhoods laid out on a grid, within walking distance of school and shopping. Plenty of people for community, but close enough to the outdoors. The biggest issue with these places are how busy activities can be within 2 hrs of the city, but this usually isn't an issue for those who are FIRE and can get out mid-week.
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"Finding a rental large enough for our family is also a challenge."
Doesn't your family have 2 adults and 2 kids?
Yes. I'm confused by this answer as well. Finding a 2 bedroom apartment, or similar, is a challenge? It's starting to seem like the answer to the title of the thread is "not very much". Which is a perfectly fine, respectable answer, but then the challenge is working on being okay with that answer and that ranking of priorities (or adjusting the current reality so that in its confines, things improve a bit), or changing the answer if OP isn't okay with his (and his spouse's) current answer of 'not willing to give up very much'.
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"Finding a rental large enough for our family is also a challenge."
Doesn't your family have 2 adults and 2 kids?
I think OP has three kids. Two school-aged kids and a 3-year-old.
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Our entire family is unable to sleep (except for my wife and I) in close proximity to any other member of the family. We have tried and tried but the kids simply can't share bedrooms.
So we need 4 bedrooms. We're currently in 3 and the 4 year old sleeps with my wife and I. Not a great setup.
-W
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Our entire family is unable to sleep (except for my wife and I) in close proximity to any other member of the family. We have tried and tried but the kids simply can't share bedrooms.
So we need 4 bedrooms. We're currently in 3 and the 4 year old sleeps with my wife and I. Not a great setup.
-W
Huh, expanding your space footprint is also a priority.
What does your family think about this? How have those conversations gone?
You don't have to do anything formal, especially with the kids. When you are getting in quality time doing whatever it is you do, pop a question like "what do you think about moving somewhere where there's more people interested in things that you like?" Leave it open ended on purpose without chasing a yes or a no.
If there's a strong reaction to it, chances are there are some strong feelings about something with the current situation.
If there is a desire to move, that is when you can broach sacrifices like needing to downsize or share a room. If you're unhappy and you have to share, that just makes it worse. But if the pain is in the name of greater gain, maybe the two older can share a room while you and DW finally [nominally] sleep with the 4yo in another room in a 3br.
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If the older kids don't want to share because the 4 y/o might get into their things, you might compromise by letting them store their things in your room so the 4 y/o can sleep in theirs. That worked with my 2 boys when we had a 2 br.
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We have tried every combination of sleeping arrangement, trust me. The 11 year old wakes up the 9 year old wakes up the 4 year old and vise versa all the way back up the chain.
There's not an issue with toys or possessions, they don't have much in the way of stuff outside of sports gear (which isn't stored in their rooms anyway). It's simply that every single one seems to be an active/loud and simultaneously easily awakened sleeper. We've spent a fortune on white noise setups, blackout blinds, eyemasks, weighted blankets, and the list goes on and on. We've tried all sorts of bedtime routines, and even changes to their diets. No dice. They have to have separate rooms (this also makes staying in hotels next to impossible, and it caused us to sell our #vanlife van a few years back after only owning it for 6 months!)
If we owned the place we're in now I might try adding a wall to split a bedroom into two tiny ones. We tried hanging blankets to split it up but that failed.
-W
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We have tried every combination of sleeping arrangement, trust me. The 11 year old wakes up the 9 year old wakes up the 4 year old and vise versa all the way back up the chain.
There's not an issue with toys or possessions, they don't have much in the way of stuff outside of sports gear (which isn't stored in their rooms anyway). It's simply that every single one seems to be an active/loud and simultaneously easily awakened sleeper. We've spent a fortune on white noise setups, blackout blinds, eyemasks, weighted blankets, and the list goes on and on. We've tried all sorts of bedtime routines, and even changes to their diets. No dice. They have to have separate rooms (this also makes staying in hotels next to impossible, and it caused us to sell our #vanlife van a few years back after only owning it for 6 months!)
If we owned the place we're in now I might try adding a wall to split a bedroom into two tiny ones. We tried hanging blankets to split it up but that failed.
-W
I just want to say I really feel this post! We tested my kids sharing a room for a few months as we were gearing up for a move, hoping it would mean we could downsize for a few years.
It was great to test it out, but it was a nightmare. No one was getting sleep and everyone was a cranky mess all of the time.
Our kids weren't great sleepers to begin with and had just settled them into decent sleep, getting up only once or twice a night, and then we ruined it by making them share a room (they were around 5 and 3) and we had another year of bad sleep for our youngest as we undid the damage.
Now that they are older (12, 10) they have totally different needs when falling asleep- one likes a little light, complete silence, and a closed door, the other one wants lots of white noise, an open door, and a warmer room.
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Can you imagine life back when families lived in one-room cabins? They were used to it and it worked because it had.
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Can you imagine life back when families lived in one-room cabins? They were used to it and it worked because it had.
I mean, we tried it. For months and months. Nobody got used to it.
We'd make shitty pioneers, I agree.
-W
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Can you imagine life back when families lived in one-room cabins? They were used to it and it worked because it had.
I mean, we tried it. For months and months. Nobody got used to it.
We'd make shitty pioneers, I agree.
-W
Sub 20f nights sure trained our dogs how to behave indoors. Turning the thermostat down 10-15 degrees in the Winter might do the trick. lol
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Sub 20f nights sure trained our dogs how to behave indoors. Turning the thermostat down 10-15 degrees in the Winter might do the trick. lol
Our lease doesn't allow us to turn the heat down below 60 (which is where we leave it), but it's at least 5 degrees colder in the bedrooms than by the thermostat in the living area, so it's not super hot or anything.
Like I said, we've tried it all (they definitely don't sleep if it's hot, of course).
-W
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I didn’t read the whole thread, but I want to respond to the main question of moving for schools. Yes, I think it’s worth it.
We lived in two different scenic vacation towns, but ultimately moved last year to a suburban area in another state for the excellent schools. Very similar to the OP’s story! Both scenic towns were wonderful times in our lives, and it was very hard to leave… I still miss them both. Now I see that it was definitely the right decision!!
Things our new elementary has that our last 2 schools did not:
- elementary school gifted program for math and language arts
- elementary band and orchestra
- elementary Spanish and mandarin programs
- amazing teachers are the norm
- elementary before and after school TEACHER LED clubs
- parent involvement in the classrooms
- excellent programs for IEP and special needs
My kids are very smart so I often thought they were doing fine regardless of the school, but now they are getting cool opportunities and being pushed from other adults, not just their parents. For example, I used to encourage my daughter to read, but now she is in a before school book club and reads constantly without me mentioning it. I don’t have to do any extra school!
Another big benefit are the people. The people are more educated and similar to my friends group from college or work. I have more friends here which is so nice. My kids have more friends too!
Much more group sports and community activities. I think the lack of scenic makes people really into soccer, 😂
More interest in music and foreign languages. Both my husband and I started playing instruments again! It’s our hobby now. Two of the kids play instruments. One kid studies a foreign language.
We are happy we moved. Sure, we miss the scenic beauty, but I also like getting into music and having friends that are similar to us. I miss the quiet, because it’s definitely more urban here. Yes, I would say we moved here for the schools - but it’s also a nice place to hang out for a few years. It feels like home.
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2024 update - I think I've finally convinced DW that we cannot continue to live in ski resort towns with kids. Which sucks because she has a really good group of friends here now, and the opportunity to buy a deed restricted house for basically nothing. It just isn't healthy for the kids long term, though.
Both school age kids have now been accelerated by a grade but the reality is that's a bandaid. We do plan to finish out the school year for the sake of stability, however, unless a house we like falls in our lap. We've actually made offers on a couple but not gotten them, so who knows. Target town has a typical RE selling season in the spring, so even if we got an offer accepted in April or May we'd probably not move the kids until the end of school. Seems pointless to move kids with a few weeks/month of school left.
-W
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Have you considered a place like Bellingham Washington? It is not a mountain town, but it is near-ish to a ski mountain. Robust mountain biking community as well, and lots of nearby outdoor opportunities.
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Have you considered a place like Bellingham Washington? It is not a mountain town, but it is near-ish to a ski mountain. Robust mountain biking community as well, and lots of nearby outdoor opportunities.
Been burned twice now, so we're going for a place we know (I grew up there, we visit regularly) to have a ton of nerds and excellent schools. A quick google says the 'Ham is much too big for us, appears to have mediocre public schools, and also is not much cheaper than our ski resort digs. But I'd love to visit sometime, I hear the mountain biking is awesome.
-W
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Makes sense to go for a place you know. I'd say Bellingham is also different from most mountain towns in that it's also a college town, which definitely flips the dynamic a bit for having post-college students, professors, etc.
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Good luck with your move. Sorry you have to deal with all this.
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I thought a lot about this thread over Christmas. I meant to post but things have been crazy.
I've posted about living in Asheville--the slacker "cool guy" attitude that pervades is irritating as hell. I'm from Central Maryland, roughly halfway between DC and Baltimore, in a place known for excellent schools. I had my pick of APs and I went into college as a sophomore because all of the AP credits I had. I went back home for Christmas though, and man, the hustle culture is stifling too. Lots of smart people, lots of pressure to perform. I make less in Asheville than I would in Maryland, and the majority of my family just thinks I'm an idiot for not working where the money is.
Finding the balance is a tricky thing.
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Our entire family is unable to sleep (except for my wife and I) in close proximity to any other member of the family. We have tried and tried but the kids simply can't share bedrooms.
So we need 4 bedrooms. We're currently in 3 and the 4 year old sleeps with my wife and I. Not a great setup.
-W
I feel you. Sleep doesn't seem that vital...until it's missing. Then it's everything.
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I actually have an update! We formally pulled the plug (resigned our teaching gigs effective at the end of the school year) and will be giving nerdville a test run starting in July, because we are under contract on a house, finally.
The market in my old hometown is totally insane (as in, we made a 10% over asking offer on another place recently with all contingencies waived and weren't even in the running) but we found an off market home that actually belongs to the son of my childhood piano teacher. and were able to leverage that old connection.
It's beat to hell and needs a ton of work and thanks to the crazy market we had to basically buy it as-is for a fairly outrageous price (for there, at least). I have been squirreling away excess money in Ibonds and other boring safe stuff to pay for it since we can only qualify for a hilariously tiny mortgage so we also probably lost $100k in missed investment earnings or something terrible.
So financially not a great move but not super relevant in the grand scheme of our finances. If we hate it and move away and take a bath on the house it won't really change our lives meaningfully, and as someone posted earlier we have a problem that is worth throwing money at.
It's got 5 bedrooms (one with a separate entrance and bathroom) so we can hopefully either bring granny to live with us (something that is in the cards in the near future probably regardless of where we live) or have some rental income if we throw a tiny Ikea kitchen in it or something like that.
I have to say, though, I'm not as relieved as I thought I'd be. I tear up when I think about saying goodbye to all the kids I teach, and our kids do love to play in the snow and never experience temps over 75 degrees or so. I'll sure miss 100k worth of amazing nordic skiing right out the door. But as a family we spend most of our waking hours at school so I'm hopeful it will be great. If not, we'll just move back having learned a lesson about what we really value, I suppose.
-W
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If not, we'll just move back having learned a lesson about what we really value, I suppose.
The hardest school is the school of life. Congratulations on finding an answer, and good luck on the adventure!
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WOW -- what an update! Congratulations on making the leap!! Here's hoping it works out for you and the kids. I suspect if your kids are happy, you will be much happier overall, but that doesn't mean you won't miss the good things that you're giving up.
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Congratulations on the move! And thanks for the update, always nice to hear what actually happens on threads like this.
If you're anything like me you'll go through waves of buyer's remorse and doubts about the move. The actual move will be exciting at first, but around 3-6 months you'll hit a low point of missing your old home while your new home doesn't quite feel like home yet. It doesn't help that this low point will probably coincide with winter. Get a light box, take vitamin D supplements, and hang in there. A new normal will start to take root at around 1 year, and by year 2 you'll feel fully established. This is where it's invaluable to be clear on values and motivations to get you through the low points.
I'll also suggest that the first year in a new place is a great opportunity to establish yearly traditions. Make a list of seasonal activities, events ,sports, clubs, etc. that you want to do. Put these on the calendar and do them.
The yearly rhythm of activities can also include visits to your current resort town. Do the stuff you love, but keep in mind that these places are often better to visit than live full time, and you moved for good reasons.
Best wishes with everything, looking forward to future updates.
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Congratulations on the move! And thanks for the update, always nice to hear what actually happens on threads like this.
+1! Appreciate the update and happy to hear you are able to try somewhere that hopefully will work better for your family. If you can come back to this thread and post an update occasionally post-move that would be very interesting to hear as well.
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Congrats on reaching a decision & having a plan! Wishing you all the best of luck, and like other PPs, would love an update at some point.
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this low point will probably coincide with winter.
Thanks for the kind words... but maybe you should read more carefully. We live at 10,000 feet in CO right now, it's been winter (which we love) since early/mid November. It's snowing right now, actually, and I'm headed out to ski.
That is frankly the biggest concern - only having a couple months of winter rather than 6. We'll see how it goes!
-W
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this low point will probably coincide with winter.
Thanks for the kind words... but maybe you should read more carefully. We live at 10,000 feet in CO right now, it's been winter (which we love) since early/mid November. It's snowing right now, actually, and I'm headed out to ski.
That is frankly the biggest concern - only having a couple months of winter rather than 6. We'll see how it goes!
-W
Good point. This old man is getting forgetful. Though I think the issue with winter in most places is lack of sun, not the snow or cold. Not sure if Nerdville has more or less sunlight than CO.
Oh, and I'm also going skiing today, though probably the last day of the season for me. Happy trails!
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Your post about algebra made me revisit this one, which I thought I had posted in. Congrats on the move! We moved for similar reasons, though not involving schools, about 10 years ago and although we took a financial hit, the social/community dividends have been just what we hoped.
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Another update! We've been here a month. Daughters have both already made friends with other super smart kids on our street/in our neighborhood. Son who is a super introvert will hopefully meet some kids once school starts in 2 weeks.
So far the heat (it gets to high 80s here sometimes) hasn't been bad. Mountain biking is a big step down from what we're used to but there are some trails to ride.
So far so good. We'll see for sure when school gets going.
However I wasn't super happy to read about this (paywall): https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/17/health/moving-childhood-depression.html
-W
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Thanks for the update. Glad your daughters are doing well, hopeful for your son in the coming weeks.
I wouldn't read too much into that study. While it seems sound (to be clear I only did a quick review), the way journalists report on these is problematic. There's a tendency to jump to conclusions in an effort to make these applicable and actionable for readers. Problem is, correlation does not imply causation. There are almost certainly confounding factors explaining the correlation, but it doesn't look like they did regression analysts to isolate variables. Families that move often are more likely to have unstable home environments due to frequent job changes, relational issues (e.g. frequent changing partners), and so on. In other words, it's quite possible (likely even?) that an unstable home environment cause people to move, not the other way around.
It would be interesting to see if they differentiate between the effects of local vs. long-distance moves. The former should mean no/minimal changes to one's social network, whereas the latter would be by definition more disruptive. If they found that local moves produced the same results this would strongly suggest some other unidentified factor is at play. The fact that this study was limited to Denmark, a very small country seems to indicate they are mostly looking at mostly local moves.
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4 month update. TL;DR - some good, some bad
We've been here for about 4 months now and I can't honestly say so far so good, but so far, so ok, maybe.
We like the schools a lot. There are 30 or so 7th graders in algebra instead of 2. Gifted kids get 3-4 hours a week of dedicated instruction time with a GT teacher, rather than... nothing. Kindergarten has 2 adults in the classroom at all times so the kids can actually learn. Kids overall are super, super capable and there are virtually no behavior problems. Teachers also generally great.
So all good on that front.
The outdoors is mixed. I enjoy the mountain biking a lot but the rest of the family has effectively quit riding because the trails are very, very difficult - basically black/double black for everything. So that's a bit of a bummer for me since I don't get to go riding with my family anymore.
Skiing, which just got started, is a similar story. Just much less available and what's here isn't as appealing. We'll see what happens but it's looking like the kids have all effectively quit skiing now as well.
All of that is ok for our daughters who prefer swimming/soccer/gymnastics/etc anyway and were never that into mountain biking or skiing.
But our son. Oh, jeez, our son.
He's getting straight A's in the most advanced classes offered and has earned himself some sort of professional CAD certification in OnShape, which is great, but he has zero friends and refuses to even interact with other children in any setting. He has quit mountain biking (there is a mountain bike club here that he refused to join) and skiing (ditto) both of which he at least grudgingly participated in back in Breckenridge. So his days are pretty boring and depressing as far as I can tell and he spends most of his time basically moping or drawing things that look to me like melted Romulan warships in CAD and muttering to himself. I'm not sure how much longer he can go on like this before he has some kind of full blown mental breakdown.
Super frustratingly, he actually made a good friend in Breck... 2 weeks before we moved away (much too late to change anything). So I think he is mourning that loss.
There's not much here in terms of healthcare and especially mental health care, and he's been in numerous forms of therapy which did nothing useful. So I'm not sure what to do but so far the move has been an absolute disaster for him. I worry that it's the kind of turning point which ruins a kids life. He's approaching the age where I'm worried about drugs and/or suicide.
So anyway, not sure whether to call this a failure or a success thus far. It's mostly everything we hoped but at this point I'm pretty sure every move we've made was the wrong one. Maybe more time will sort things out for our son. Hopefully. The lesson might be that it *isn't* worth giving up any of the things that make you (or at least family members) happy in exchange for great schools, I guess.
-W
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So sorry to hear about your son's struggles. I have two pieces of advice that contradict each other: (1) a lot of this is normal; and (2) keep paying close attention and talking, because you're right that there's a very real risk here.
On 1: we noticed with DS that when he hit the teen years, he sort of slowly withdrew from a bunch of things he used to enjoy. Some of it was situational (e.g., the MS had IM basketball and rec leagues, none of that existed at the HS levels); some was world events (his freshman year was the Covid year). But I think in retrospect that a lot of it was developmental. DS is like me in that he spends a lot of time living in his head, and he likes to work things out in his own mind before he is willing to talk about it -- plus he's Mr. Silent-But-Deadly, who figured out at a very early age that if he smiled and was nice to everyone, he could basically do whatever he wanted (until he was busted). There's a reason we have the tropes about sullen teenages who lock themselves in their rooms with big "Keep Out" signs on the doors. And as parents, we need to give kids that age the space and privacy they need to handle all of the big physical and emotional and social changes they're dealing with -- and we need to support them in ways that show we understand that they are not the same kid they were at 5 or 8.
On 2: unfortunately, those same things that can be completely normal can also be a signal that something is seriously wrong. And it's really, really freaking hard to tell the difference. My own DS had a major breakdown sophomore year, I think largely from the whiplash of "normal to 18 months of Covid to normal," and particularly adjusting from freshman year no-expectations-minimal-academics to "ok, now here's all your AP classes." And despite all of my efforts, I could not tell the difference between "lazy and not wanting to do schoolwork" and "major depression" until he literally posted a note on his door that he could not face going to school.
I think all you can do is to work really hard to keep communicating, keep some sort of routines of things you guys do together, keep working to find things that interest him -- but, of course, do all that while giving him space and not pushing him to do things he doesn't want to do. I do love that fact that he is so into CAD; really, for kids that age, the most important thing is that they're really into something, and what that "something" is almost doesn't count (as long as it's not destructive). Is there some way you can build on that to open the communication doors more? That would show him that you see him for who he is, and gives him a chance to show off to you something that he's really good at. If you can meet him where he is, he might be a little more willing to do something like go on periodic dad-son hikes or whatever.
And if you figure out the magic balance, please let all of the rest of us know. . . .
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@waltworks - I'm so sorry about the stress you're feeling for your son. This may be controversial, but have you thought of requiring a sport or outside club? My parents required one sport per season throughout my life, and we did the same with our kids. I have a son in college, and the expectation we gave (he's a total introvert, and would game all day if we let him) was that he needed to 1) join at least one club 2) participate in at least one physical activity. It doesn't come naturally to him at all, but as a result of our requirements, he played club soccer for 11 years & met a ton of people that way. In college, he's joined the kendo & ski club. If we didn't really push, I think he'd wind up doing nothing. He's 18, and we debated back & forth whether it was appropriate for us to have a say at this point, but we're paying for college, and our goals are well intentioned: have him stay healthy & meet people. He's at an age now where we can clearly communicate that we aren't looking to control him, but are looking to set him up for success.
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If he is really into CAD, and not just doodling, is there a makerspace he could join?
I came from a small town. I had friends, and we got along. I am still in touch with my best friend from those days. But going to college was a breath of fresh air, because I found so many people that liked *so much* of what I liked. Anything that popped into my head was going on in several of theirs, too.
Your son might just need to find his tribe.
Our local Y has a mobile makerspace to get into neighborhoods that might not have reliable transportation. This includes a lot of programmable robot toys and Snap Circuits, but also several small 3D printers.
And, for sure, keep an eye on him and keep talking with him, in case it's more than just adjustment to the new situation.
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@waltworks - I'm so sorry about the stress you're feeling for your son. This may be controversial, but have you thought of requiring a sport or outside club?
Thanks for the thought. We tried this and there is so far no bribe ($2000 3d printer!) or threat (we're taking away X,Y,Z if you don't!) that has been sufficient to get it to work. There is literally nothing he wants (or fears losing) enough to get him to do any of the clubs or activities (and there are a TON!) that are available.
We started from gentle encouragement and escalated to bribery (we haven't actually threatened him with anything since that has backfired in the past) and so far no dice.
We're talking about a kid who doesn't ask (this has been the case his whole life) for Xmas or birthday presents and has, as far as I can tell, zero interest in physical possessions whatsoever.
-W
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Your son might just need to find his tribe.
They're here. There's a maker space type club (I think he's a bit beyond most of the kids but whatever), robotics, mathcounts, D&D, and the list goes on and on. There are athletic nerds, there are nerdy nerds, there are artsy kids, there are awkward smart kids, there are mountain bikers and rock climbers and skiers (and those cross over with all the other categories) - they're definitely his people. But he won't even talk to them (I mean this literally, I have witnessed kids saying hello to him and him completely ignoring them and walking away).
Our hope was that finding his people would solve some of this problem. What we didn't realize is that he'd rather stew in his own misery than talk to new people even in a controlled setting.
-W
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So….. therapy? Social skills classes at school? I hope you are looking into these things for your son.
Two of my kids did classes and worked with a great therapist (one in the school and one privately) in elementary school. Putting in the work, spending some time framing how to make friends as a skill, and developing a social toolbox were invaluable. Both kids now have excellent friend groups.
I’m sorry to hear things are tough.
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Oof. That's tough. I haven't been in a situation where our kids have outright refused to follow our family guidelines (although, homework has certainly crept to the top, at times). When it does, following through on taking all electronics away for a period of time absolutely gets people on track.
I'd be pretty concerned about the way he flat out ignores those trying to be friendly, and his lack of desire/inability to talk to the other kids, even in a space he's interested in. I second the recommendation for therapy, although I think you've said you've tried that before. Have you asked for recommendations locally for someone who might be a good fit for your kid? If you are worried about the future potential for suicide or drugs, and don't see progress being made socially, I'd absolutely be intervening.
Can I ask what helped him make the friend right before you move? Was it exposure (e.g. he just saw the kid so many times over a year that he eventually caved & was friendly?) Or, was there something else that you think helped in that particular case that maybe you can replicate?
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He's been in therapy continuously for 3 years to absolutely no effect. But we will be trying again, I guess.
A brief history, if it helps anyone. It helps me to just write it out I think.
-Prior to the end of 4th grade, he had friends. Not lots of friends but good ones who he liked spending time with.
-At the end of 4th grade he did something dumb on his school issued computer and got suspended for 2 days/in lots of trouble. This coincided with DW being blacklisted by the school district because of a newspaper editorial.
-We moved away from that town and in Breckenridge he struggled to make any friends. We attributed this mostly to the kids being not very nerdy/not his kind of kids in 5th grade and figured he'd have a bigger pool of potential friends in middle school/6th grade.
-6th grade rolled around and he again made no friends, but he did participate in some sports teams (soccer, briefly, and mountain biking/skiing).
-He refused to even *tour* the private school where there were more nerdy/smart kids, and even went so far as to refuse to attend even when DW was offered a job teaching science there. At that point we pulled the plug on Breckenridge and made plans for our move to our current location (which as discussed upthread is very nerdy/smart and in theory a good fit for him/the whole family).
-In June, literally 2 weeks before we moved, he decided to finally befriend a kid down the street who we had been trying to get him to hang out with for the last 2 years. They built potato cannons together and treehouses and generally had a great time being junior engineers/trying to blow themselves up. But by that point there was no turning back, we had already bought a house and our lease was ending.
-In our new town he has ... just faded away. He has basically stopped all fun activities, refused to interact with any other children, and done his best to make our lives hell. Yesterday he took the dinner I had made and threw it straight into the trash in front of me. He refuses to put his dirty clothes into a basket so they can be washed so we told him he can do his own laundry - and he has called that bluff by simply never changing his clothes. He literally wears the same dirty clothing (including to bed) for weeks at a time.
We just have no leverage with him whatsoever it seems.
Therapy hasn't worked. A variety of anti anxiety meds haven't worked. I have no clue what to do but I am so tired of this.
-W
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This sounds so challenging. Sending virtual internet good thoughts that things improve.
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Has the kid had a full medical workup lately?
I ask because some friends had a child with what looked like oppositional disorder and suicidal ideation (I mean, the suicidal ideation part was pretty clear) and what they thought were severe migraines. Turns out the kid had a years-long severe sinus infection, and was in significant pain ALL THE TIME. When that was treated, everything got substantially better. (Not perfect, she's a teen, but much, much better.)
I agree that things sound pretty dire, and send all the best wishes. I wonder if you, your DW, and the kid can meet with a therapist to get the kid's opinion about what's wrong?
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He's had his usual checkups and there is nothing physically wrong that we know of. I would love it if there was some physical problem that could be solved!
We have done family therapy with him and he fully refuses to engage. He will stick to his guns on refusing to answer questions indefinitely. Like, as in *years* of sitting in silence or at best saying "I don't know" in answer to any question. So that was a failure. He has likewise refused to really engage with therapists one on one so nobody ever gets anywhere with him. He will not give us any insight into what he wants (or doesn't want), full stop. The combination of intelligence (super high) and stubbornness (ditto) is not my favorite thing at this point.
Annoyingly enough, that stubbornness does not translate into trying hard at things that are difficult for him. He flips out and quits when things get hard.
I'm so, so tired of him ruining things for the whole family. I feel bad saying that but at this point I just feel hopeless about the situation. I've started to disengage from him a bit just so I can spend a reasonable amount of time with the girls, who have been ignored a lot over the last few years as this drama consumes all of our mental resources.
-W
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Walt, if you'll pardon the armchair psychology:
The part that seems incongruous to me is that he's getting all A's. Stubborn behavior is common with gifted kids, but troubles typically also lead to greatly reduced school performance. And, I can't see him getting those grades while exhibiting the same disengagement with the class.
Have you talked with his teachers, to compare notes? Maybe there is something there to work with.
You have a really difficult problem on your hands. We will do anything for our kids. But, I totally agree with your rational thought that the girls need attention, too. You don't want to accidentally teach them that only problems bring attention.
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Agreed, it's weird. His teachers generally report that he is very quiet but will talk if called on. He participates in group work when necessary but not enthusiastically.
7th grade is not very hard for him, so it might just be that even minimal effort is enough. Academic standards here are very, very high but he was on track to skip a few grades in our old school district so it might just be really easy. He IS doing all his work, though, and you'd think that would be the obvious thing to stop doing as part of his defiance/burn it all down thing.
If he'd just tell us what's bugging him we might be able to do something.
-W
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Might there be some way to direct your son's existing interests into a larger project that would naturally involve collaboration with other people? I have seen you mention building treehouses, potato guns, AutoCAD. Maybe he would be interested in doing design/build of a more advanced structure than he's done in the past, or a robot or something, that would benefit from and/or require the assistance of another person (maybe you but not necessarily so).
I see you mentioned your son gives up when faced with challenges, but is also an extremely gifted child. That's a tough combo! I could see him flatly refusing to engage with or follow through on any idea you present to him unless he fully embraces it as his own - and if he is resistant to stepping outside of his current comfort zone it can be awfully hard to break out. Best of luck!
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That sounds really rough Walt. It's clear from your posts that you love your son and would go to great lengths to support him.
I'm going to give a slightly different take from other comments above, based not on any experience parenting teens (mine is still much younger) but on my memories of what it was like to be one.
Is it possible that years of therapy and great effort from you and his mother to engage him in social activities has him feeling like a 'problem to be solved' and there is a lot of internal resistance to following through with anything his perceives as your suggestion or goal for him?
What would happen if you reframed this as normal teen behaviour? You have a son who is kicking ass at school, has a personal passion (CAD), prefers his own company, and is having an understandable slump adjusting to a new environment. He isn't doing drugs or becoming an Andrew Tate disciple (that you know of). Plenty of kids aren't into sports.
Could you take the focus off any kind of 'improvement' for a while, tell your son he is doing amazing just the way he is, that moving to a new place is rough for a lot of people and he can come to you if there is something he wants to talk about or wants help with? Without pressure from parents to rebel against, might he start to want some of these things for himself?
It sounds like you need to take some time to focus on your girls (and maybe on settling yourself in too!) anyway, so it might be a good time for trying a different approach with your son.
(This is not to downplay the seriousness of your concerns. I think Laura's post is spot on in that regard).
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Well the good grades mystery is solved, he's suddenly failing 3 of his classes. :(
It's looking like he'll get booted from his advanced math class potentially as well as his shop/engineering class, which are the only things he actually likes. So we're in full crisis mode here now, not sure what's going to happen.
-W
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Hi, waltworks.
Sorry things with your son have been so rough. Reading through your posts, I wonder if he has a PDA (pathological demand avoidance) profile:
https://www.pdasociety.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Pathological-Demand-Avoidance-Keys-to-Care3.pdf
https://www.pdasociety.org.uk/i-am-a-parent-carer/resources/helpful-approaches-for-children/
Also, sounds like what happened to him and your wife his 4th grade year was really traumatizing for him and the entire family, so much so that you had to move. Was that also during the pandemic? Seems your son may have not recovered from that, and he hasn't been able to talk about it, to you or in therapy.
I have a neurodivergent 9yo child with a diagnosis of autism and a PDA profile. He is smart-normal, though, not off-the-charts smart like your son. Going to school every day is difficult for my kid, even though he's among the top in his class academically. So I keep things pretty low-demand for him at home. We went through a period where my husband kept triggering him, and every day my husband came home, my son would start screaming and hitting him. We worked through that with a PDA-friendly child therapist and a lot of work on our own.
My kid is currently doing really well. My definition of really well is, he's able to go to school on most days, he's happy most of the time, he has friends and good relationships with both parents, he has interests, he's sleeping well and going to the playground a few times a week, he leaves the house at least once a day, if only to walk down the street to get halal cart. For my kid, doing well doesn't necessarily mean joining clubs or organized sports. I've signed him up for plenty of those in the past, and they didn't go well.
My kid has also lived most of his life in sweats due to sensory issues, and he takes one shower a week because he doesn't like the feel of the falling water against his skin. We've been trying to increase the showers to 2-3 a week, since he'll be hitting puberty in a few years, and one project we need to work on is to try different shower heads to see if they make a difference.
Another resource I recommend is the book The Explosive Child by Ross Greene. His message is that behavior is communication, and kids do well when they can. He recommends a collaborative problem-solving approach. Why did your son scrape his dinner into the trash?
It's particularly difficult with your son because he hasn't opened up to anyone. As a parent, you can only do your best to give him a supportive environment, provide the accomodations he needs, and approach him with curiosity and non-judgement; the door is left open for him to open up if / when he's ready, but he has to feel safe to do so.
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Wow, the PDA stuff is something I'd never heard of, and it does seem to fit in many ways (ie he will refuse to eat if we ask him to, but if there's food lying around he'll start snacking on it). We will have to ask someone more qualified about that. That's assuming we can find anyone to see him at all, of course (we live in a bit of a healthcare desert).
You guys are the best. Thanks so much for all your advice and thoughts.
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Hi, waltworks.
Sorry things with your son have been so rough. Reading through your posts, I wonder if he has a PDA (pathological demand avoidance) profile:
https://www.pdasociety.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Pathological-Demand-Avoidance-Keys-to-Care3.pdf
https://www.pdasociety.org.uk/i-am-a-parent-carer/resources/helpful-approaches-for-children/
Also, sounds like what happened to him and your wife his 4th grade year was really traumatizing for him and the entire family, so much so that you had to move. Was that also during the pandemic? Seems your son may have not recovered from that, and he hasn't been able to talk about it, to you or in therapy.
I have a neurodivergent 9yo child with a diagnosis of autism and a PDA profile. He is smart-normal, though, not off-the-charts smart like your son. Going to school every day is difficult for my kid, even though he's among the top in his class academically. So I keep things pretty low-demand for him at home.
So glad you chimed in! I was debating whether or not I should suggest going low-demand for a while!
Waltworks, related to low-demand, but less PDA/ASD specific is the work of Ross Greene. You might be interested in checking it out.
ETA - woops, Of course Mariposa already suggested Explosive Child! Well, consider this post a second to everything Mariposa has said :)
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No advice, just sympathy and best wishes in case that helps.
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No advice, just sympathy and best wishes in case that helps.
Same here. Thoughts and best wishes on the way.
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Hi, waltworks.
Sorry things with your son have been so rough. Reading through your posts, I wonder if he has a PDA (pathological demand avoidance) profile:
https://www.pdasociety.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Pathological-Demand-Avoidance-Keys-to-Care3.pdf
https://www.pdasociety.org.uk/i-am-a-parent-carer/resources/helpful-approaches-for-children/
Also, sounds like what happened to him and your wife his 4th grade year was really traumatizing for him and the entire family, so much so that you had to move. Was that also during the pandemic? Seems your son may have not recovered from that, and he hasn't been able to talk about it, to you or in therapy.
I have a neurodivergent 9yo child with a diagnosis of autism and a PDA profile. He is smart-normal, though, not off-the-charts smart like your son. Going to school every day is difficult for my kid, even though he's among the top in his class academically. So I keep things pretty low-demand for him at home.
So glad you chimed in! I was debating whether or not I should suggest going low-demand for a while!
Waltworks, related to low-demand, but less PDA/ASD specific is the work of Ross Greene. You might be interested in checking it out.
ETA - woops, Of course Mariposa already suggested Explosive Child! Well, consider this post a second to everything Mariposa has said :)
Ha, I was actually thinking of bat-signaling you to this thread to pick your brain for further thoughts. I know you've worked through a lot too.
Another consideration is being in a family with a mix of neurodivergent and neurotypical kids. I only have one kid; I have no idea what parenting a neurotypical kid is like. I met a parent recently whose younger son has a profile similar to mine, but her older son she describes as a "normie." It sounds like the older son has felt really resentful towards their hyper-parenting of his brother, and the relationship between the brothers is not good. Both parents are non-normie themselves, so in that family, the normie kid is the odd person out.