Mrs M
yoda76Do you know parents who push their child too much to succeed?
November 16th 2006 03:02
Define success. (There's a whole other debate).
Now the article and book referred to British and American families so I'm not quite sure how relevant it is for Australian families which begs the question:- do Australians buck the trend? Is it even in fact as serious in Britain and the United States as the article would have us believe?
For example, it talks about how parents train for the egg and spoon race for the school sports day. The egg and spoon race? C'mon. Really?
I competed in the parents relay race at my daughters athletics carnival this year. We were competitive during the race but nobody had given the race much consideration until 5 minutes before the start when the call out for volunteers to join the race was announced over the loud speaker.
After the race, all the parents shook hands, gave ourselves a pat on the back and generally had a good laugh.
I don't think I have come across any parents who push their kids too far. Just about every parent I know has enrolled their child(ren) into at least one extra curricular activity but nobody seems fussed and obsessed about it - taking evaluative measures week in week out to see how far or how much their child has learnt.
Even when it comes to the academic performance of our children, no parent I know seems obsessed by that either. We all do what we can to help our children get onto the next reading level and the next list of sight words but nobody (that I can see) is setting strict study guidelines and health regimes to ensure their child reads better, faster, harder than the next child.
Do you know anyone that does? Or is this just a another media beat up?
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Comment by katyzzz
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No, I don't think it's a media beat up. I think the pushy parent is alive? and well? and residing in downtown ?????
Remember poor little JonBenet?
We've a gifted children's site right here, which starts out well enough, every child is special, I don't think giftedness is always so easily discernible, while no such child deserves to be hidden in the cupboard, they all deserve complete development as human beings, I think giftedness is often the gleam in a parent's eye, not a real phenomenon.
However at school I think if their work excels past that of others they should be given special programs, as unintrusive as possible, but not pushed ahead of their chronological peers.
Mother of some,
Have you ever seen any that you could actually take to, they all seem like terrible pains in the neck to me.
katyzzz c u soon
Comment by Mrs M
Mum's Word
My husband's nephew (now 17) is gifted. He is the eldest of 8 (soon to be 9) so his parents tried to rein him in without quashing his thirst to learn. I didn't envy him or his parents. There were often times when they would just butt heads.
Maybe I'm naive and just blind and don't see it because I don't want to, but I haven't yet found that competitive parent.
But you are right about Jon Benet. Everytime I think about her I just feel sad. Such a waste.
We'll just have to wait for the next generation to see what the outcome of the pushy parent syndrome is. Maybe the kids will have had enough by 16 and the hippy revolution will be alive again.
Comment by MelissaA
Fun Facts
I do actually know someone like this.
Unfortunately we have to deal with her on a regular basis being that her child is in the same year as mine, but to give you one good example.....
Before the first term of Kindergarten had completed, she discovered that my child was a better reader and on a higher level book than her child.
She went so far as to get my child to read some of a book for her so she could compare, AND had a whinge to the teachers about it, claiming that her child was just as good. I can tell you now that as a parent helper, reading with that entire class, her child was definitely reading at the level she was assigned.
Anyway, by the end of it all, her mother had put her in tutoring. While only in kindergarten!
And have a guess at what the mother's profession was.....?
She was a primary school teacher!
Comment by Mrs M
Mum's Word
Thanks for your comment. It is unbelievable that the mother you are talking about is a teacher herself.
I am astonished. Ever since I wrote this post I've been looking around me a little more. I think I've been blind to the "pushy parent".
Do you say anything to this mother or do you just nod politely? I don't know what I'd do in that situation. I'd probably nod politely at first but if I had to deal with her on a daily basis it would do my head in and I would have to speak out.
Probably not a sensible thing to do if you have to see this person everyday for the next 6 years.
How does the child cope?
Thanks for dropping by MelissaA.
Comment by MelissaA
Fun Facts
Well I can tell you that this woman is a very opinionated person, especially when it comes to her own child and quite often we wish she would just clam up. As such, most of us just nod our heads politely, wait antil she's gone and talk to each other about it.
There have also been 2 occassions where I did have to say something, the first of which she didn't believe, but eventually discovered I hadn't simply had an attack of verbal diahorrhea and actually was correct.
The 2nd, ended very badly with her in a heightened state of denial and refusal to listen to anything else I had to say.
The child is an only child and for the most part has been spoiled. She also seems to think that anything she does is fantastic (her mother thinks the sun shines out of you-know-where on her) and will brag about it to anyone who will listen, so even going to tutoring is currently something for her to brag about because it's something no-one else does in her year.
Let's just see what she thinks after a couple more years of it though.....very likely she'll turn around and resent it by the end.