Why the push for the "superior" child? (colleges, counselor, Associates degree)

[magoomafoo]

As more and more new students come into our school, I'm noticing a parent push for superiority above all other students. Maybe it's just me but it seems alot of parents cannot accept average or even above average children anymore. Our school is very small, 170 students in a K-12. The average class size is 12. Out of the average 12, four are in gifted/talented. I see parents all the time pushing their children to be at the top, above everyone else in the class. It does cause animosity at time's. Not only between other parent's pushing for the same thing but between the student's as well. Of course I want my children to excell at all they do but reality sets in and I accept that they are not going to be #1 100% of the time at 100% of what they do. I feel the parents pushing for this are setting themselves and their children up for disappointment. It's almost like the parent who cannot accept a birth defect or disability in their child.

[gardener34]

Absolutely the trend.
Thus the reason why college entrance is so hyper-competitive these days. Just having a college degree will not guarantee you a job, like back in the day. In some fields, only having a degree from a CERTAIN college with a CERTAIN gpa will guarantee you a six-figure job.
I also have noticed that trend towards parents pushing their kids to athletic superiority, I suspect in hopes they will get an athletic scholarship to pay for their college. I mean really, training camps, conditioning coaches, travelling teams, all year long. I think it is crazy.

[sbullet]

Why not aim high? If you only aim for average, your probably going to end up below average.

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by sbullet

Why not aim high? If you only aim for average, your probably going to end up below average.

It's one thing to offer opportunties. It's another to set expectations too high. I spent most of Wednesday explaining to parents that a B in chemistry IS a decent grade. They want (expect) the A.

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by magoomafoo

As more and more new students come into our school, I'm noticing a parent push for superiority above all other students. Maybe it's just me but it seems alot of parents cannot accept average or even above average children anymore. Our school is very small, 170 students in a K-12. The average class size is 12. Out of the average 12, four are in gifted/talented. I see parents all the time pushing their children to be at the top, above everyone else in the class. It does cause animosity at time's. Not only between other parent's pushing for the same thing but between the student's as well. Of course I want my children to excell at all they do but reality sets in and I accept that they are not going to be #1 100% of the time at 100% of what they do. I feel the parents pushing for this are setting themselves and their children up for disappointment. It's almost like the parent who cannot accept a birth defect or disability in their child.

Parenting is now a competitive sport and the winners are the parents of the children at the top. The losers are the children.

I blame the mommy wars. In order to justify staying home in a day and age when women can have careers, you have to produce something that working moms don't so mom's push. This leaves the working moms pushing too because if they don't, their children will be seen as having an inferior upbringing. Unfortunately, NONE of our kids ever needed to be pushed but they are stuck in the mommy olympics.

I have one normal child and one gifted child. It amazes me how threatened other mothers are by my daughter's abilities. I really don't get it. I don't give a rats arse what your kid does. I worry about mine. I'm kind of old school and think my kids will be what my kids will be. I'm about to the unthinkable for most parents out there. I'm going to let my very gifted 13 year old have her wish of a normal high school experience. She's decided she doesn't want to get her associates degree and high school diploma at the same time and she doesn't want her classmates to know she's smart. She wants regular classes and to just be a regular kid. We're meeting with her counselor on Monday to set her schedule for 9th grade. She'll be taking mostly electives because she's entering high school with 6 credits.

Why are we doing this? Because this isn't about us. It's about her. She wants the experience of being a normal high school kid. I figure that 10 years from now, exactly, no one will care how old she was when she graduated or how many college credits she'd completed before graduation. It's really bugging her dad that we're doing this but it is her life. The year of electives will allow her to drop back into the same classes of the kids in her grade for all of her subjects except math.

Parents really need to get a life. We need to do what is best for our kids not what results in us having bragging rights.

[sbullet]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

It's one thing to offer opportunties. It's another to set expectations too high. I spent most of Wednesday explaining to parents that a B in chemistry IS a decent grade. They want (expect) the A.

a B is alright, but isn't an A better? I don't see where the fault is of a parent wanting their kids to get a slight edge when it comes time to applying for colleges. Besides, its HS. None of the stuff is actually hard. They just need to spend time on doing the work.

[gardener34]

Pushing kids is good, (some kids need pushing!) pushing them to the point where they develop anxieties is not good.

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by sbullet

a B is alright, but isn't an A better? I don't see where the fault is of a parent wanting their kids to get a slight edge when it comes time to applying for colleges. Besides, its HS. None of the stuff is actually hard. They just need to spend time on doing the work.

Let's see, so far this year, we've been briefed on the signs of cutting, anorexia and students who are suicidal. No harm at all

I have students who have more worry lines in their faces than I do and I'm over the hill by two years (according to my daughter ). The stress some of my students feel trying to please parents is insane. The A isn't THAT important.

[RememberMee]

I think status anxiety & uncertainty about the future have to do a lot with preparing kids early for the rat race. It's global market place, parents try to give every advantage to their kids even if that "advantage" robs them of childhood, personality, friends (real ones), etc... Most parent know who's getting rewarded the most by management & owners out there, the hardest workers or the best show offs and schmoozers. There is no double thinking about that one Don't blame parents, they act quite rationally even if they don't realize it, image (deserved or not) is a very important thing for the success in the global market place.

Take "branding" and $5 cup of Starbuck coffee, for example. Do people buy name brands because of their inherent quality or because they make certain identity claims while consuming those products? Same with kids, they got to brand and sell themselves to the highest bidder using same marketing tricks they use to peddle soft drinks and Presidents. A brand of "achiever" and "go getter" will get you to the places no hard work can

[syracusa]

Originally Posted by RememberMee

I think status anxiety & uncertainty about the future have to do a lot with preparing kids early for the rat race.

If it takes a genius, we found one.

Originally Posted by magoomafoo

Maybe it's just me but it seems alot of parents cannot accept average or even above average children anymore.

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.