Aibu to think some parents can't accept their child is a average?!

Isn't that more with private school kids?

*I would say dd1 (12) is capable of say top 5%. She came 9th percentile maths in sats and only about 25th percentile for reading. But she could do all the maths just cant stop making silly mistakes.
At secondary after y7 she is coming out only about top third of the year group. So thats not great. Its partly her (sen) and not working fast enough so not finishing tests.

As a parent its hard to see schools not put the effort to move kids from meeting expectations to exceeding. In primary no effort was made till sats.
But last week y8 dc got 37/60 on a maths test. So its hard to look at the paper and see she could easily have got 57/60. But 6w of no school straight into a test with no revision. So even for 1 dc the gap between achieved and potential was 33% of the marks. And that result would i expect have put her in the top 10% of the year.*

So you are the very embodiment of the deluded parents the op is talking about!! You have,based on God knows what, decided that your pfb is in the top 5% academically, but it is the schools ( both primary and secondary) fault that she is not achieving this.Priceless!!

@Chasingshadowss . I think it's wrong to describe children as 'average' though. In a properly-resourced education system, schools would be helping children to find the thing that they excel at. So there would be no 'average' children - they would all be inspired by and passionate about something.

I don't come across many 'average' people in my day-to-day life tbh. It's not really how I (or I suspect you or most adults) think about people. So I'm not entirely sure why we apply it to children.

How do you measure a person? Maybe parents should be told that it's not that their child is 'average' but that the system assessing them is poorly-designed to take into account their unique characteristics.

Schools are equally to blame with parents here. They create and perpetuate this narrow view of success.

What is "average"? All children have particular strengths and capabilities. The problem with school is that it measures only a certain subset of these.

There is also an unhealthy emphasis on "achieving" and "excelling" in our society. We want our children to be above-average so they excel and achieve. But in too many situations what we end up doing is conditioning them to value themselves based on the external validation they receive from others. You don't have to excel to have a happy life and make a worthwhile contribution to society.

I don't mind whether my children are "average" or not at 5, because I don't see my role as a parent as being to produce a child who excels in the current school system that we have. The task of a parent is much harder imo - it's to expose your children to lots of different experiences and opportunities so they can find out what motivates them and what they are passionate about. And then to support them as far as you can to achieve their aims, whether it's becoming a brain surgeon, training as a plumber or opening their own cafe. And that involves supporting their education of course - many of the skills they learn at school will be necessary or useful for most jobs, businesses or professions. And many career paths will have certain entry requirements. But it doesn't necessarily require our children to be top of the class.

I’ll always remember my maths teacher writing in my year book ‘Talia, keep your sense of humour and you will go far in life. Keep smiling!’ 🥹 I was absolutely terrible at maths and to be honest, never really felt good at anything! Most definitely average in most things, below average in others. But that comment in my year book made me realise that it’s ok not to be a perfect, highly intelligent, good at sport etc person, and helped raise my self esteem and realise what positive things made me who I am. That teachers words has even followed me to parenthood, where I praise my children’s individual traits and good things that make up who they are, encourage them to try their best at everything and that THEIR best is good enough.
That was a long winded way of me saying I agree with you OP! So many parents are entitled and expect their child to flourish at everything from academics to sports, and if their child doesn’t meet their expectations, it’s always someone else’s fault. They can’t accept their child is not top of the class / Olympic gymnast / music prodigy / whatever

I have met mums like this. There is one in particular that puts her daughter in school on Saturday and Sunday - it’s tutoring in a school like environment. They’ve done this every weekend and she is constantly speaking to me about how her child isn’t as bright as the younger sister and how she still wants to move her to a grammar school etc …

Plus her daughter does ballet but isn’t into it and the mum bangs on about extra curriculum stuff her daughter doesn’t care about.

This is one example but I think she should allow her daughter to have some time just playing or being. School is important but so is self esteem.

I live in Wales so we still have the old grading system. When the GCSE results came out this year it was sad to see how many young people (and their parents) were disappointed with an A grade because it wasn’t good enough. How have we got into a position where only am A* is acceptable?

So how would you feel if your DC wasn't in the A team? And what's wrong with having a tutor? We've used one before to help our child in maths; now they're enjoying it much more at school 🤷‍♀️.

but on the flip side in an idea world, it should be a good example that others can aspire to

One of mine won the Dux medal at school here in Scotland. That's the highest academic achiever in the year.
I've never been pestered and stalked online so much as then. Dozens of parents asking who my son's tutor(s) were and what I could do to help thier son or daughter, who were all universally expected to get into St Andrews, Oxford, Cambridge or MIT etc.

I was ambushed at the award ceremony, met at the supermarket, or was messaged online by some really unpleasant people, all of whom to a person were wrapped up in 'hot housing' some young person into exam results above average and a career that they had no interest in. Apparently my son was 'spectacular' and I had a 'secret' I should tell them so that thier 'wonder child' could be the next top one....

I really felt for the young people.

Best bit was that my son has no tutor ever.
And the icing on the cake was that he chose a year traveling, walking long distance paths, riding his bike, paid for by his own earnings waiting on at the local hotel bar, where I'm sure he served many of the pushy parents while thier kids attended the tutoring company next door...

What about those children who are above average, but with disengaged parents? For every child with pushy parents, there are probably 3 with parents who have no idea that they could be doing better or don't care.

DS2 spent most of the junior years looking "average". He isn't. It turns out he's very dyslexic, has some great strengths and that masks the extent of his difficulties. His dyslexia assessment revealed a very spikey profile. By wrongly assuming that he was average, he wasn't getting the targeted support that he needed.

DS is lucky, I've been a teacher, I work with young people, his sibling already had diagnoses and we were in a position for me to realise that something wasn't quite right and to afford an assessment and targeted tutoring to fill the gaps in his knowledge and skills.

Many children don't have those advantages and are limited to what their teachers can identify and schools can provide which is often very limited.

If DS was genuinely average, that would be fine. He is average at some non-academic things. I don't need him to be the best at everything. But he can only do his best when where he actually is is recognised.

Being a teacher is an eye opener !!! My son who is 5 told me that you. . . I can’t believe the intelligent humans who just take their child’s word as gospel.
One child told their mother I broke their ruler by smashing it over their head ….. the mother a Dentist demanded I was sacked …she was mortified when she listened to her son retell the actual tale.

Constant messages to ask why I told
their child off! I’d love to say - because your child is bloody rude. But I’d lose my job.
The amount of parents who undermine us. It’s mad. Scary. But reflects society.

So many children are average but so many parents think their child is a brain box , the next David Beckham. My favourite parent - the- we rent this Range/Aldi on finance- I am really important and my child and me are better than you - are generally my favourite. Your child is wonderful and lovely but no better then any other !!!!

I will stop now !

Try being a teacher ! Hilarious.

My favourite is when I read posts
on here about ‘DDs nasty teacher who is always picking on her and made her take her beautiful new shoes off when she has no right to !

When in reality DD had actually been rude all
lesson and I had no choice but to keep her in for 5 mins at break to ask if she was okay and explain she was disrupting the lesson and we shouldn’t be swearing in class and please
your trainers off as the rules are we aren’t allowed them on ( and I don’t want you to get told off by the Head Teacher who will go mad if you walk into assembly with trainers on !!)
But apparently I’m just an awful human !

I agree. Learning and exploring should always start and be fostered at home.

There are many and it's such a shame.
The impact of this lack of stimulation must be so frustrating for the kids as well.

@Chasingshadowss Well that’s wonderful. No issues and above ‘average’ if sometimes in the A team, happy smiling child. Seriously, I understand what you mean but you e no idea what’s really going on with anyone else’s child. Live and let live and be grateful you have a happy, successful child.

I don’t think anyone is average - everyone is good at something, or has the potential to be, if they have the right opportunities, and are given a good start and good values in life.

True, some people are average at reading and writing and the things that are quite central at primary school. But they might have the potential to be really good at swimming, art, music, making people laugh, carpentry, encouraging others to learn or climbing mountains. Parents and teachers are all part of giving kids the chance to explore the things they are better than average at.

This, also deciding a child's abilities based on parents 'social' status/earning/ educational level.
eg. child of consultant surgeon V child of warehouse worker.