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All 8 of my kids are pretty intelligent but my oldest boy is very very intelligent. He was always in a normal class and did very well. Things he was interested in that were not covered in school he just studied himself at home. He was always doing some science experiment or another. When he was in grade two he found a syringe in my tackle box. He steralized it and transfused frog blood into a fish. It died!!! Any way, he's now a medical specialist and at age 35 he is still studying and probably always will. I looked at school more as a place where my kids learned social skills, learned about the importance of friendship and respect for others than a high pressure learning experience.
It's like Wayne Gretzky says about kids and hockey. Just let them have fun doing it and their skills will develop with out a lot of expensive coaching, hockey schools etc.
Have you checked to see what's been happening to the "average" class of people lately...the famous "middle class"? "Getting screwed" would be a correct estimate.
I think the OP tackled a really big, really ugly, horribly complex and horribly deep issue that can only be answered if a huge social panorama lens is used. Your lens, Remember Mee, got closest to catching that big picture.
While there is certainly quite a bit of generational narcissism involved in this "pushing-for-a-superior-child" phenomenon ("hey, check out MY child!!!...ain't I awesome??"), it is - like you said - the current global economic reality that explains most of it.
If you can understand demography, economics and ecology at the global level, you will understand parents' instinct to push for the superior child today. Again:
1. We are currently breathing together with 3 times as many fellow humans on this Earth as our grand-parents and great-grand-parents were doing in the beginning of the 20th century.
2. People breathing along with us on Earth today are not just much more numerous than only 100 years ago, but have also much more voracious consumption appetites.
3. The need for average-skilled human labor has gone down tremendously as machinery/technology replaced much of that. The only type of skill that is truly needed today is the "highly advanced" type which well...comes from "superior" professionals. Hence pushing for the "superior" child.
4. Resources have become so incredibly unequally distributed that you have a tiny-bitty class of shameless MF-ers owning and controlling pretty much all s**t on Earth, while huge masses battle over a few crumbles left from these F-ers feasts.
Once you understand these dynamics, you've got to be a patented idiot to STILL fail to understand why competition among people, in general, has become way more perverse than it used to be in the past (or to deny that!) and why a tacit sense of "cut-throat" reigns supreme among hypocritical smiles and all sorts of "programs" designed to train people and their children to be "civilized, tolerant, respectful of diversity, civil, community leaders, volunteers, brotherly, against bullying, against discrimination, etc".
It is all spectacular BS, of course, and our genes know it even if we don't. At some deep level, we all bully each other nowadays.
While I deeply resent this state of affairs (which in fact, began centuries ago) and while I completely resent having to push for a competitive child, I myself would probably be judged along the lines of the OP's decry if I were to provide details.
I am not exactly a Tiger Mom, but certainly one that "pushes" for a competitive advantage, because I know I have no alternative.
Our children won't inherit anything from us, as there will be hardly anything to inherit. A "competitive advantage" in the market is all we can shoot for, even though ensuring this type of advantage is a nauseating process in and of itself. But we do it anyway. It is like taking a nasty medicine that needs to be taken because you know the alternative would be getting very sick or probably losing your life.
The thought that I had to teach my child to read almost fluently by the time he was 5 yo, long before he even started school - makes me sick to my stomach. At this age, he should have been outside beating the sidewalks and yards in the neighborhood in delirious hours of happy play with neighborhood children; but guess what: that's not what happened.
The occasional play-dates that I can set up for them here and there are a pathetic excuse for a childhood - and yet, everyone else seems AT LEAST as busy as I am during the day, doing...Lord Knows what with the kids.
I guess pushing for a "superior" child, probably even harder than I push.
As a mother of 2 children who GOT TO have hers and did basically nothing to help the cause of population control, I remain sincerely INDEBTED and GRATEFUL to any person who consciously CHOOSES to not reproduce. If you end up in a nursing home, with no one to visit you in those later years, I will teach my children to bring you a flower - simply because they were able to breathe a little bit easier in this world due to you.
You sound absolutely crazy.
I see it all the time - children who are in gifted classes, but should not be there. It's unbelievable how much it can damage them. It's expected that they already possess certain skills, which they don't already have. They should be in the "lower level" classes, learning these skills.
Honestly, the most beneficial thing parents can do is instill curiosity in their children, and make sure they do the required homework. Do you honestly think it makes a difference in the long run if you get an A or B on a test? If the child does the homework and studies a little for the tests, it's most likely they'll get an A in the class anyways.
In the end, most kids with encouraging parents, who make sure their children try their best(With a reasonable amount of time spent studying/working), will be successful.
for example, reading to your child before age 5 is a great bonding experience. it's not about what the statistics say your child will turn into, it simply creates a richer and more vivid life experience for the child.
Ditto on reading to your child, I read to both of mine. And they are both avid readers now who actually request to spend time at the library.
I had a friend growing up who had an academically "pushy" parent, (No Bs allowed) and as a result this girl was a nervous wreck. I guess it is really up to the parent to know their own child and what they are capable of... every child is diffferent!
Ditto on reading to your child, I read to both of mine. And they are both avid readers now who actually request to spend time at the library.
I had a friend growing up who had an academically "pushy" parent, (No Bs allowed) and as a result this girl was a nervous wreck. I guess it is really up to the parent to know their own child and what they are capable of... every child is diffferent!
Even more important is them seeing you read. I read to both of my kids and they were read to in day care. With my oldest, I worked full time and didn't have time to read myself. I worked part time after my youngest was born and took up reading for pleasure again about the time she was 3. While both of my kids are good readers only one is an avid reader. My youngest who grew up watching mom read.
I agree 100% about reading to your children. That is something parents have been doing for years though. I end up reading more with my grandaughter than anything only because she love's it when I read to her. We have parents who go out of their way to make sure their child is "top dog" in every aspect no matter what the cost. I guess I just see family values going out the door and being replaced with the superior child goal.
What is really crazy is to deny the impact of the FACTS I mentioned on the topic raised by the OP. This is a classic case of ostrichism.
As for reading and bonding with your child, do you really believe there is ANY parent left that doesn't already do that?
While reading together and bonding is indeed a fine and pleasent experience, do you really believe that anyone who was just read to and bonded with his/her parents will do well in life purely based on that?
Then we ALL have a much brighter future than so many heavy-weight and respected scientists predict for human kind.
In the meantime, I choose to believe math, physics and reason.
As for reading and bonding with your child, do you really believe there is ANY parent left that doesn't already do that?
While reading together and bonding is indeed a fine and pleasent experience, do you really believe that anyone who was just read to and bonded with his/her parents will do well in life purely based on that?
Yes, there are MANY parents who do not read to their children. You will find them wherever there is poverty. Many of the parents of children in the inner city cannot read at any level of fluency and are embarrassed to read to their kids. Many of the parents in the immigrant neighborhoods not only cannot read English, but cannot speak it. Some of them can't read in their native language either because they never went to school in their home country.
Yes, children of parents who bond well with their parents *will* do well purely based on that. They may or may not be wealthy, but they will do well. Everything depends on your definition of what doing well is.
While reading together and bonding is indeed a fine and pleasent experience, do you really believe that anyone who was just read to and bonded with his/her parents will do well in life purely based on that?
Do you really believe that anyone who learned to read before he entered K will do well in life purely based on that?
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