raising overachievers

…but all four of them?!

I don’t know exactly when it happened or how it happened, but somewhere along the way, we accidentally raised four overachievers. And now we are tired. Like…deeply tired. Exhausted is a good word for it.

Not, “I stayed up too late binging Netflix” tired. More like, “We have an NJHS induction ceremony for two kids, two track meets, and four flag football games, three practices, prom, and someone has to make this senior night poster before next week,” tired.

(un)Fortunately, no one in this house is mediocre. Seriously. No one. Not even one of them. Not even one child decided to do anything half-ass and give us a break (I’m mostly joking). We have no ‘let me just try my best and see how it goes,’ kids. Nope. Not the Raiford kids. We have four “That sounds awesome, let me see how I can make myself really good at everything I try,” kids. For fun.

For FUN.

There is always something. A banquet. An award ceremony. A game. Practice. Some kind of night or evening or celebration or recognition or whatever. There is always something. Always.

At this point in our lives, I feel like a free evening on the calendar is less of a good thing and more like an, “OH MY GOD did I forget to write something on the calendar?” kind of situation. But…while I do make jokes about the chaos (did I mention I’m exhausted? Did I say that already?), the truth is, we knew are not upset about raising overachievers.

We hoped we would. We knew going into parenting that our goal was to raise good kids with high standards who succeed. We are often asked how we do it. Honestly, we just do. But I’ve been thinking about that, and I think that I might have it figured out.

We set expectations…and mean them.

We don’t expect perfection because perfection does not exist. We don’t even expect our kids to be the best. But we do expect them to do their best. Effort is non-negotiable.

• If you sign up, you show up.
• If you start it, you finish it.
• If you can do better, do better.

We stay close.

We are at every game, every field trip, every award ceremony. We sit at the dinner table with the kids. We talk to them in the car on the way to and from school and practices. We spend time playing games and hanging out. We stay close. We know their grades and we know their teachers and their coaches and we talk…a lot.

Our kids know they can tell us anything and we listen without judgment. They know we are in their corner, and their success is the most important to us.

We give them our time.

Whether it’s late nights or early mornings or all weekend, these kids get our time. It’s exceptionally important to both of us that we are there for everything. There’s no one of us is at the game or one of us is at the award ceremony. We are both present at every single thing. And it makes a difference. The only time one of us is at a game without the other is because one of the other kids has a sporting event on the same evening. That’s when we divide and conquer. But if we don’t have to divide and conquer, we don’t.

We taught them to be responsible.

Let me rephrase that. We taught them responsibility. If they make a mistake, own it, learn from it, move on from it, do better. But the most important thing we’ve taught them is just own it. Acknowledge your mistakes immediately, apologize if necessary, and learn from it. No one is mad at our kids for making mistakes. They aren’t grounded or in trouble if they make a bad grade on a test. We simply ask if they did their best. As long as they can honestly say that they did their best or acknowledge that they did not do their best and then figure out a way to make sure they do their best next time, we’re good.

They’re not perfect. They’re never going to be perfect. But they’re really good, and we aren’t punishing our kids for being imperfect.

Family is the center of our world.

Before anyone played sports or made straight A’s or joined all the teams, there was us. We are a family of six, and that’s not really a small thing. It’s actually a big thing (see what I did there?). But our ‘little’ family is the center of our world.

We eat dinner together. We make fun of each other. We hang out together. We travel together. We laugh together. We play games together. We encourage each other and give each other hell in the best way, and we enjoy one another. We taught our kids since birth that the six of us are a team…always.

And so they push themselves. At school. On the golf course. On the tennis court. The football field. The cheer sidelines. The track. At school and in dual enrollment and in their clubs and organizations. They know they have a safe place to land if they fail. Because while we expect our kids to perform their best and do so with a great attitude, we make it very clear to them that perfection is not something they can achieve. We make it clear they will be the best at many things, but they will not be the best at everything. And that’s okay.

You can’t judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree or whatever that saying is.

Our kids know that we expect them to put forth their best effort in everything they do even if their best effort doesn’t always make them the best on the team or in the class. They know that we want them to feel good about their own performance…and to know that they did their best every single time. The outcome is a lot less important to us than the effort and the attitude that’s put into it.

And that is how we have four overachievers.

So, yeah. We are tired.

Exhausted, even.

It’s a lot of calendar reminders, moments of overwhelm, and totally forgetting what we even like to cook and eat at home (because when the hell even was the last time we did that), and did I mention we feel as if we live in our cars? But we are incredibly proud. Because we didn’t raise kids who feel the need to be the best. We raised kids who want to give their best.

And that’s the most important lesson (even if it means we have no free time).