PSAT Really Stands for Parents Stressed all the Time.

OK, so we have the PSAT study guide. It’s here at home. In a visible, easily accessible location. And I can’t say that my son is poring over it. Three weeks before the test we agreed that ½ hour per night would be a reasonable amount to review. This strategy lasted three, maybe four nights.

Then one night I noticed he didn’t pick up the book. Nor did he pick it up the next night. I made what I thought was a gentle suggestion that perhaps it would be a good thing to have another look or two. And he did. But I suspect he did it more to please me than out of any strong desire to log yet more review time.

He tells me he wants to go to MIT. And the simple fact of the matter is that there are certain benchmarks he has to hit if he’s going to make it there. He knows this. Whether he chooses to review or not to review really should be up to him. All I can do, or rather, all I should do, is to provide the opportunities and the resources. The rest should be up to him. I don’t feel right when I suggest he study—no matter how gentle the request. But I also don’t feel right when I see that he isn’t studying and don’t say anything. Isn’t that doing him a disservice of another type? Reminding him to study makes the assumption that he doesn’t realize that it’s important to study, or that he’s not working hard enough to reach his goal. But isn’t that how we figure out just how badly we want to achieve our goals? And isn’t this for him to figure out, not me? This is hard. I’m glad there’s not a PSAT for parents of high school juniors. That would be one massive study guide.