Do you feel sorry for kids whose parents always push them to be the smartest and most perfect person in the world?

But my kid is the smartest and most perfect person in the world.

Well, your kid is pretty close. But she’s not as smart as my kid. And I have, like, 11 of them (including grandkids) so take your pick.

Absolutely. I went to school with plenty of kids whose parents pushed them hard. They needed to be perfect not only in terms of education (grades test scores, participation, extra curricular activities), but they enforced the way that they dressed, their manners, etc. These kids were stressed as hell. While some of them managed to turn the experience into a positive (one such friend is now attending Yale’s school of medicine), others burnt out quite fast and do not have a healthy or stable relationship with their parents or perspective of self-worth.

My parents pushed me, but they learned when not to push me. They would confront me about poor grades, but learned in middle school that telling me that “they know [I’m] smarter than this” is not going to make a change. Instead, they tried to learn why my grades were less stable and give me encouragement and support, while still trying to convey that they know that I’m capable of improving.

I had one student crying in my office on the first day of class. She was terrified of my syllabus and the workload of all of her classes. She was just a freshman, but her parents were pushing her hard to not only take a full load of classes, but to also join a sorority and work part-time. She was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I’m so thankful she took my suggestion to seek therapy on campus, because the pressures she felt from her parents was detrimental to her health.

I want parents who care and want to be involved in the lives of their children, to provide endless encouragement and support. But sometimes the pressure is more than the child feels comfortable revealing.

I think it’s sad. It would be like pushing your kids to get taller. What I think is sad is that some families value intellect so much that it seems love is conditional on whether or not your smart. My father in law shocked me a bit by saying something dismissive about one of his own grandkids. “He’s not too bright” and I’ve noticed he’s a bit cold towards the kid. And he constantly beams about how intelligent my daughter is.

This bothers me. What if she gets the feeling that she’s only loved if she proves herself to be smart?

@keobooks exactly.

I think it takes balance and carefully choosing battles and your wording. Teaching them to strive for perfection and success is okay, but teachig them they’re failures if they don’t achieve perfection and/ or success is not okay.

Yes, especially those kids who just do not have it in them to live up to these expectations.
They eventually break under the pressure, and the parents are to blame.

Wait, no, that is wrong. I hate children, I do not feel sorry for them.

If parents don’t push their kids to excel, then nobody else will. Without that incentive, plenty of kids will sit in front of a TV screen all day.

@josie I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Plenty of teachers will push their students to achieve goals and so can siblings, extended family, or friends. Hell, I pushed myself far harder than my parents pushed me. Though they did push me a good bit!

While parents should be a positive, influential force in the lives of their kids in terms of creating goals, exploring options that are out there, and pushing them when that extra nudge is needed, I do think that how they approach that involvement is important. And it could definitely be beneficial to the child to have other forces pushing them forward as well.

@josie I’m not talking about encouraging (not quite the same a “pushing”) the kids to excel. I’m talking about parents who will refuse to see anything less than stellar intelligence in their child, even if they don’t have it. The slightest sign of normal intelligence is grounds for disappointment.

No.

I’m not really even a big fan of any kids that aren’t my own.

I raise mine and let other parents raise theirs.

More or less what he^^ said, so much so, it’s almost creepy.

Yes, I do feel sorry for us. That said, I disagree that some kids are smarter than others. I follow Jacotot and Ranciere in their arguments that we are all of equal intelligence (or, at least, that this ought to be our beginning presumption) and that the use of our intelligence is precisely a matter of will. But being intensely pressured to use intelligence is not a great way to motivate many people to do so.

I disagree @wildpotato. I could never make the connections that, say, Einstein or Hawkings makes. I know there are people who are smarter than me, and some who just aren’t very smart at all, and that’s just the way they are.

It is better to be pushed in a positive direction than lead down the path of destruction.

Pushing kids is usually not good, but some need it, since they are short of motivation. Encouraging is best.

Do you suggest we settle for mediocrity instead?

I do feel sorry for them, yes. It’s a lot of pressure, for one. It also makes it hard for a kid to be a kid, and later on, a well-rounded adult.

Two of my children were in a gifted and talented program at a magnet elementary school, and I encountered a lot of parents like this there. For us, it was just a matter-of-fact experience, and we didn’t even tell our kids that they were in a program for ‘smart kids’ for quite a while. We appreciated their intelligence of course, but considered it an innate thing. Not something we did. Not something they should get a big head about, and not something they should have to work themselves to death over. No pressure, just do your best.

But for many other parents, it was a huge deal. They did flashcards with their kids every night and drilled them on the info constantly, made sure their science fair project looked professionally produced rather than the work of a 7 year old, and would got pissed if their child missed one word on a spelling test (and actually punish the kid for it!) I even knew a couple of parents who purposely held their kids back a year in school, just so they could test into the program. It was all very ‘stage mom/soccer dad’, and it was sad.

How do I explain this….OK, so I have a co-worker who mentioned every chance she got that she was in “AP” classes in High School. AP=Advanced Placement. If they’d had such classes when I was in HS, I probably would have been assigned to them.
She would go out of her way to point out how stupid other people were. It was all about how smart she felt she was.

Well, then she had a baby about 3 years ago, and it’s post after post about how advanced he is, more advanced than than average, I mean, from the day he was born. He’s not, though! He’s an average 3 year old, doing what average 3 year olds do! So what’s going to happen when he goes to school with all this pressure to “be advanced,” when he really isn’t?

I will grant, for those who that is very important to, they tend to create situations that will encourage that, which is good…unless the kid doesn’t WANT to take piano lessons or whatever.

@Dutchess_III . . . You do understand that the only way that this can bother you is because you care, right?

@augustlan I just read your post. You managed to succinctly sum up my thoughts. My daughter did a science fair project on finger printing when she was in 4th grade. I “helped,” but the work was all hers.
The kid that won…well, it was SO obvious his parents had done it all, from beginning to end.
Same kind of parent that comes unglued at a little league game when the ump calls foul on their kid.

It’s a known fact that children treated with high expectations succeed better than children who are treated as just average

@Blondesjon No, this is something I’ve wondered about for a long, long time. My sister is that way. Since she was small, SHE had to be perfect, in every way. To the point she would lie about something that happened that might make her look bad. To the point where she had to have the perfect body….to her that meant wearing a size 4 on a 5’10” frame.
She pushed that ideal of perfection on her kids. On one of the rare occasions that both families were together, my daughter took a walk with her daughter (they were about 17 at the time,) and her daughter said, “Do you have any idea how HARD it is to be PERFECT all the time?” She was almost crying.

@YARNLADY Within reason, I agree. My kids are all intelligent, and we attended science fairs and math fairs (my son excelled at math) and gymnastics and swimming..whatever THEY wanted to delve into, but they didn’t have to be be the MOST intelligent kid in the room.

I was one of those kids who’s parents thought that anything less than nigh perfection was unacceptable. I now have BPD. Let’s just say it often does more harm than good.

@Dutchess_III . . . Will “figuring” it out change anything about your sister’s behavior or the behavior of any other person your description fits?

What @Blondesjon? If I understand your question, the answer is, “Of course not.” What does that have to do with anything? I’m not trying to change anything.

It just seems to be something that irritates you. Your posts, to me and i’ve been wrong before have a kinda ‘chip on the shoulder’ competitive feel to them. I mean, on one hand you are belittling a parent for the way they are raising their children and on the other making sure to point out your own accomplishments and your children’s accomplishments as well.

I don’t mean this as a personal attack either. Just trying to understand.

Confirmation bias.

I don’t have a problem with anyone posting their children’s accomplishments. But to pretend like their accomplishments are earth shattering, like, no other child in the world can do what MY kid has done is…I don’t know what it is! It just seems like a lot of unnecessary pressure on the the kid.
I guess I’m trying to understand you too @Blondesjon. Maybe an example of where I posted one of my kid’s accomplishments (and I’m sure there are a few) would help.

Naw. I don’t really think it would help at all. :)

@YARNLADY “It’s a known fact that children treated with high expectations succeed”

If you’re not already familiar, you might enjoy reading about the findings of psychologist Robert Rosenthal. Rosenthal’s hypothesis is that reality is strongly influenced by the expectations of others; we absorb and internalize our labels and the way we’re treated. People who are called “gifted,” and treated accordingly, will succeed (the Pygmalion effect). By contrast, low regard leads to failure (the Golem effect). Decades of double-blind social experiments support the hypothesis, and often in surprising ways.

Doesn’t this also help explain why racial and ethnic stereotypes exist and prevail? If society expects tall, dashing, white men to excel and lead, the deck is stacked in their favor. If minorities are expected to be stupid and lazy and end up in prison, well…

No

Somewhat relevant.

Yes, I feel very sorry for them, because of their falling victim to the so-called illusory superiority, a widespread cognitive error, where almost everyone is above average, which is a mathematical nonsense.