Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Everything taken to the extreme is harmful. We all want our kids to do well, but is the achievement of status, title, and wealth really worth all of this?
To be fair, I don't think this is only a LI problem. I graduated High School in 1992 and have noticed a real uptick in this kind of destructive behavior no matter what part of the country I visit.
i personally think this is more than about parents pushing their kids too hard, it's a sign of the times, with less and less opportunities in society in general, people are pushed to push their kids, i'm pretty sure during the post WWII booming periods like the 50's, this kind of attitude wasn't prevalent
I don't recall it being this bad 20 years ago when I grew up in Western PA. Sure, there was incentive to do well and achieve high standards, but no one was going to slit their wrists if they didn't go to Dartmouth.
There are 2 kinds of "pushes"....
there is the "get a hold of your life and improve to an acceptable minimum GPA" push and then there is the "you better be a 4.0 GPA and top of the class every time else or my peers are going to shun me" kinda push....
Its the responsibility of parents to make sure that they can direct (and push) their kids at such age towards a good future, its just how much push is too much is what is debatable. Personally I think its peer pressure caused due to too much of typecasting.
For example if an asian kid is bad in Maths, then they are going to hear it from the entire world.... and so will their parents, which will result in a push from their parents, but if they excel in say baseball or something, people will be like... who is this weirdo ???
This reminds me of a conversation I recently had with my dentist. Seems the recent generation of parents get quite upset when Junior has a cavity. My dentist recalled a young patient (about 9 yrs old) who developed a cavity. His mother immediately called the father who raced down to the dentist's office. The parents then proceeded to berate their son for being so lax with his brushing to get a cavity. My dentist had to ask them to leave the examing room because they upset their son to the point of tears. He tried to explain that cavities still occur and their son has brought no "shame" to their family.
Being baby-boomers my dentist and I had a good laugh about all the metal in our mouths.
Gpsma
i am laughing at your story. do we push kids too hard?
absolutely. we send them to school at 5 years old and expect them to not act 'childish' anymore. learn how to sit still and do homework. allow psychiatrists tell us how bad tv is and that their brain will fry. smith's son is reading, oh my, bring on the webster dictionary. we're late honey. we're late. buy the 500+ my baby can read. drive the baby nuts memorizing stuff, then take the baby to park and show other moms how my baby can read. moms go home, call their husbands and say I told you my baby can read is the best...SO AND SO'S SON/DAUGHTER IS ALREADY READING. SO OUR CHILD will not get into Harvard. OH my Oh My
Umm..that's not a good thing. Have you heard of the law of diminishing returns? For every success story, you have tons of burned out failures in China and India.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
