Quote:
Originally Posted by AnotherTouchofWhimsy
I'm going to guess that this is simply a cultural thing. American parents are typically not worried about where their 5-year-olds rank in comparison to other 5-year-olds. In some other countries, this is not the case.
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Thanks again everyone for the input, especially those who had some concrete suggestions as to how I might be able to frame my question at school.
Regarding the above, with all very much due respect...this was a bit too much to be left unaddressed. Yes, it is a cultural thing - but nowhere close to what you are suggesting. It is, in fact, the opposite.
To say that American parents are "NOT typically worried about how their 5 yo measure up compared to other children"...this is what many outside the borders perceive as a wonderful example of the tremendous amount of hypocrisy cultivated in this culture.
Are you serious?...when this is the land of "my 2 yo taught himself how to read?".
"Mine sat up at 3 months, what about yours?"
Really?
How about "it's all right, it's OK, you're gonna work for us someday"? It is still here that I first heard this stadium chant which I found quite crass and repulsive (the clearly intent humor was lost on me).
How about this title - written by an American living in Switzerland:
Why my child will be your child's boss - CBS News
It's not about the Swiss just allowing kids to be kids.
It's about who's gonna become a leader and who is going to ride whose a**.
America is the most wildly competitive culture I have ever experienced - and I have been personally immersed in many. It is in fact exactly because parents are so incredibly cut-throat competitive and self-centered (child is included in the "self") that this atmosphere of "everyone should mind their own business and should not want to know rankings" was born.
Rankings are kept secret from schools to work places exactly because there is so much unaddressed and unreleased tension.
Yes, where I grew up rankings were out in the open pretty much from pre-school.
Everyone knew who was the best kid in class, then the second, then the third...and at the end of the day, it was absolutely no big deal because it didn't have to be. It had little real meaning.
In fact, parents of the less stellar kids tended to love the kids who ranked best, usually because they were more obedient, nicer, more docile/respectful...things old-fashioned parents liked...so they wanted their own to associate with those "good kids".
There was zero animosity between parents because life had a very weak competitive component at the time. People just focused on raising "good" children as opposed to "winners".
Of course, they had the luxury of not worrying about "winning" as they didn't have to deal with a globalized free market and human labor made obsolete.
The doctor was going to end up very nicely but it's not like the little clerk was going to have a miserable life because of constant economic insecurity.
All parents knew that those first kids in class were going to end up with lots of studies, etc - but that didn't mean their own kids were going to end up "badly", even if they were not going to drown in grad degrees.
Pre-school rankings actually predicted with pretty much 100% accuracy who ended up with better socio-economic position in life. It was exactly those kids who were ahead in preschool, funnily enough.
Despite all these practices of naming names and calling spades a spade...there was no overall sense of competitiveness. People truly went about their lives with ease, they were completely open with others who had kids too and they sure did compare each other's kids without shaking with fear at the thought of theirs turning out below those of others.
Generally, they were too busy with day-to-day work as well as social ties (extended family + friends) to obsess over junior. They just wanted to get a good report card at the end of the term.
Today, in this culture, despite parents being constantly told to focus strictly on their own child and his "best", there is an enormous amount of competitiveness among parents.
When I am around other parents, I must always be very careful to phrase every question or sentence in ways that will not even vaguely hint at anything related to ANY child's performance/achievement/ranking etc. for fear someone might be offended.
Whoever denies this is either completely autistic (unlikely) or a giant hypocrite (likely).
I am not accusing anyone in particular for this state of affairs and I am not pointing fingers to individual "bad, competitive parents", because I find this to be a completely normal symptom of the global socio-economic and demographic changes over the past 20-30 years or so.
That being said, given the realities of our times, I remain interested in knowing how my child (yes, even in 1st grade) will rank in class, in school, nationally and even internationally - though I am aware no one is going to give me stats for the latter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by breakingbad
I think it is perfectly reasonable that OP wants to see how her child stacks up to classmates...my son will be in kindergarten and you bet I will want to compare his learning milestones with the other children. Every parent I know is curious about how their child compares to another. It is human nature, not pressure.
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I agree it is 100% human nature...and now with cherries on top: fear that the global markets will pretty much turn your child into human mush.
To pretend you don't care how your child compares to others today, is, in my opinion, a giant plate of hypocrisy thrown in your face. Or social engineering of the self. Or just being an Ostrich.
It means absolutely squat if your child has certain "life skills" as long as those life skills mean little/nothing relative to the skills others around have .