Why are middle & upper class children so confident?

[Staroftheseas]

This is really a sweeping generalisation but the majority of middle & upper class children we know are extremely confident. This has nothing to do with private or state education. In our state school the kids usually chosen for awards or solos are also from middle class backgrounds. They just have an inner confidence & polish that lower middle class & working class kids don't have.

I was the average child who was suddenly thrust amongst middle to upper class children and often wondered this.

As an educator in the private sector myself for over a decade, now I can tell you why! It's not just down to mirroring their parents, though that is a factor.

If you observe them closely for long, most kids – no matter how boisterous – have a vulnerability and insecurity about them. This is because they're still learning how the world works, and they're also used to being told what to do/what not to do generally. Not in an abusive way, but most kids know adults have the final say, and that their needs are secondary to adults' priorities (e.g. on a busy day).

In contrast, many well-off kids' experiences are optional and paid for, so there's a weird power balance reversal where adults have to please the child. Not in a bratty or rude way, but I can see the difference in assumed entitlement and confidence between children who are in expensive programmes I've worked for vs run of the mill programmes I've also worked for.

Whether it's a horse riding class, a bougie art class, a hotel kids' experience, enrichment and tutoring, etc, the adult teachers/trainers/staff are there to serve the kids and keep their parents paying. It's not about the adults grovelling and simpering (though that happens in some programmes) but just showing way more deference and tolerance to each individual child's preferences, plus showing (or faking normally!) lots of appreciation of and interest in each child's opinion/self expression/etc.

It’s no mystery. Their parents will have instilled that polish in them from a young age and they will have been raised in a totally different environment from a working class child. They will have been taught from the outset that they belong in certain settings, universities, highly educated professions etc. Working class kids will have been taught the opposite. Yes some middle class kids might be insecure or anxious but that poise that they have comes from being raised by others who have it too.

But you can't avoid class in the UK it seeps into every element of our culture. It's only been around 100 years that anyone but landed gentry could vote. People were considered so stupid they couldn't choose who was in control of their country. Endless studies has shown that names associated with certain classes have an impact on unconscious biased in job applications. Accents most certainly have an impact on whether we trust people come out where we consider them to be cleverer or more stupid, and a thousand other preconceptions.

My children take the piss out of people that are perceived as "posh" or "scallies" (they are probably lower middle class). Despite me chastising them for it.

My husband and I from different classes (he's from a working class family and mines very middle) our wedding was like a culture clash you could have written the whole comedy about it. Our language is different, our expectations are different, what we do at Christmas and other events is so different and it took us a while to work out that most of these differences or a long class lines not just our families.
Look at our politics. Something ridiculous like 40% of tory MPs have gone to private school and the only 7% of the country does. The entire Reform main party went to privates schools that coat over £30k a year to go to and yet still many working class people believe that they are speaking to them. It's a weird thing that has been going on for generations.

You may imagine the surprise of some when someone whose dad was a binman and whose mother was a hospital cleaner showed up at one of the posher Oxford colleges, and was clever, despite having spent most of my later teens working in pubs and factories/farm every hour I wasn't at school. It was a total mindfuck to discover an oik ran rings around you in a tutorial.

(In fairness, some of them dealt with it perfectly well, and I made good friends. But a few never got over the fact that the girl in the polo shirt who serves you your popcorn and comes in at the end of the film to sweep it up off the floor is capable of writing better essays than an Old Harrovian)

Sorry for all the horrendous errors!

Oh god, I would disagree so much with not being given breaks when it comes to having good manners. It's very selective. Less well-off children, while less explicitly trained in etiquette and less given to restraining their immediate impulses, are more respectfully generally.

Well-off children (and no, not new money, including aristo) know exactly who they can be somewhat arrogant and entitled around. Children are smart and they definitely pick up on things. This applies to even those with very polite, decent parents imo.

Mumsnet reminds me of the old sketch on class. "I look down on him..."

I'm not entirely certain it's a working class/middle class thing but more like a matrix of working/middle class and money/no money. DS has a few friends who are very much working class but certainly I find them to be very confident and capable of talking to me etc. On the other hand, they don' thave the opportunities other children in the group do - one boy for example wants to join the same sports club as some of the other boys, but his parents can't afford it so it doesn't happen.

DD recently got a solo at her school performance. She was brilliant. But the reality is that she's been having musical theatre, dance and singing classes for a year. So yes, she has some natural talent, but she's also had the opportunity to practice and gain confidence in this, putting her ahead of any other child who might have the same level of natural talent.

As a PP upthread said, it's also in the 100000 subtle messages that working class, and even more so, poor children get vis those who aren't. The way they're followed around shops or their parents are spoken to less well when in public. The low level concern / self consciousness about whether their clothes are good enough/on trend /whatever. And absolutely yes to the subtle benefits of having their minds and experience expanded from a young age from additional experiences, travel and just exposure to a wider range of things which makes it easier for them to integrate or to be present where new things are being discussed.

Thats because having manners and being respectful are two different things.
Even though they are often conflated.

Very easy to have ‘manners’ whilst being hypocritical and arrogant all at the same time.

Just to summarise my rambly post above, I don't even think the key thing is different experiences & environments... It's about the child's power dynamic with adults.

Well-off and middle-class children have regular experiences where many adults are literally paid (a lot!) to listen to them, praise them, and let them try certain experiences. Often, they're on an equal to (or higher footing sometimes) than adults.

Doesn't mean they're rude at all, but as an educator I can sense the difference in how they feel around adults. I do think many well-off children genuinely believe adults (ie paid enrichment trainers/staff) are deeply interested in their opinions and well-being!

An average child might be a social butterfly and play really well with same-age peers and well-loved by their parents, but they also know adults are the boss at the end of the day. They still often defer to or can get shy in the presence of adults/authority (and the adults' expectations, e.g. in a theatre audition or programme).

Yes, that was exactly my point – that reciting pleasantries and following table etiquette doesn't equate to manners. That said, I don't think the hypocrisy or arrogance is overt in the least. At first glance it comes across as... Confidence, as per OP's thread topic! Only with prolonged exposure does the almost universal underlying sense of entitlement start becoming apparent.

DD is always picked for everything, she is annoyingly good at most things too. I never, ever put her down. If she finds something difficult we work out why and I support her to overcome it I don't just rescue her, building resilience is important.

I value education and cultural capital massively. I spent a lot of time when she was younger and when I was a single parent on low income that couldn't drive looking into different activities for DD to participate in, most of those were free or low cost. DD is also autistic and despite having fairly low support needs brings it's own challenges. She participated in activities, gained skills, used those transferable skills at school got better etc, tried different activities and it became a cycle.

I choose to have DD, I see my role in her life as giving her as many opportunities as possible to see what she does and doesn't like. I counsel her, I don't yell and shout at her I let her fail and I build her resilience and let natural consequences take place. It's not a class thing it's a parental attitude and priorities thing.

A child's confidence comes from other people's confidence in them. Every day of their lives, come what may, someone there giving them enough time to show them they're worth giving time to, and the belief that they'll be caught if they fall. Metaphorically speaking.

The child needs to be assured of their abilities, their worth, their place in the world, the fact they will be loved even if they fail, that there is always going to people who are close looking out for them/having their back.

Add in confident parents, with enough money to pay for lots of different real life experiences and the time, ability and determination to push and to help with the child's education and you're describing a typical 'middle class' upbringing i guess.

Add in boarding schools and rubbing shoulders with people with ALOT of £££ and the people who can push you up the ladder based on who you are and not what you know and you're describing a typical upper class upbringing.

Not all confident children have the above, and not all children with the above will be confident - but it'll sure tip the balance in most cases.

Things that help with confidence are:

1. Well spoken parents who can present ideas in a convincing way. Children mirror that
2. Exposure to different cultures through travel
3. Access to a variety of clubs and activities
4. Exposure to different people through childcare and clubs. A necessity when both parents work long hours

Most upper class children would have the above

Maybe, but I'd say what formed my confidence as a WC child, with timid, only semi-literate parents (who were frightened of the world because they had no capacity whatsoever to deal with it, and it had only shown them poverty and lack of opportunities) was the knowledge that I only had myself to rely on, parenting my parents when they were afraid of authority figures, and having responsibility for my younger siblings from a very early age. Also working from an age that would be considered really unedifying now.

You can't be a shrinking violet when you're basically parenting four younger children and two parents who needed a lot of help with stuff like paying bills, dealing with forms etc. I was babysitting for money from 11, working in pubs from 13, and as a relief milker from 14, also stints in lots of other kinds of jobs -- gutting fish, shops, factories, agricultural work.

I was very surprised at Oxford to discover so many of the MC and UC people seemed to me to have led very confined and infantilising lives till then. They felt a lot younger than me.

From the private secondary school I went to for 3 years, basically the ones whose parents have money, they exude a certain confidence because they either have extra curricular lessons, activities, are taken out to lots of places or money is thrown at them to overcompensate for their parents not wanting them around. One friend of mine had her own living room at home (she was not happy though). Another friend of mine regularly went to stay in Paris at holidays with friends (she wasn't French), anything she wanted paid for.

There were a few girls though, whose parents owned restaurants and sometimes they had to waitress there or help out, or in one memorable scenario, an Anglo Chinese girl complained that her grandma (an inlaw) was horrible to her and her DM, presumably father's mother. Didn't stop them from buying designer clothes though and she wore them top to toe plus Gucci bag on a 'wear your own clothes/mufty day to school' when the rest of us were in our usual casual home clothes!

actually, I agree with that as well. My parents were very WC. I was the first person in my family to get a degree, and I am very confident. I moved to UK to come to university and settled here. My own child is privately educated and has had the benefit of all the privileges I never had. He's not naturally confident, but he's good at faking it. Maybe that is what a private education does to you :-)

I think you’re right there, my 3 are confident and when we were young parents both me and my partner were too

I would be interested to know if genetics plays a part. I used to believe nurture had a bigger role than nature, but since having my kids I think to a certain extent they come out fully formed and you've just got to roll with it! Historically the classes wouldn't have mixed much. Arguably still don't. So personality traits might become more prevalent. No idea if there's a scientific basis for this musing!

It’s only a tiny thing but my DS1 had a very wealthy girlfriend whereas DS2’s gf is from a single parent family and lives in a nice but tiny house. DS2’s gf is very shy when she comes to the house. Within 5 minutes of meeting DS1’s gf she helped herself to a glass of water from the tap and had her feet up on the sofa. I thought that was quite interesting.

It’s just this.

But you're reading her actions as 'confident due to wealth' rather than 'poor manners'...?

I'm not sure I'd agree with better manners - at least these days and I know DH in HE says some of the middle class students have awful attitude,manners and seem very young the working class kids often come across much better with manners and politeness.

DH and I are both working class who got to Uni further education and professional careers - we both got told to lower or aspirations by various teachers/careers advisors/other people - also had to deal with people being taken back that working class kids can do extremely well - they usually get over it or cover fast but when our backgrounds come up in workplaces- it's there. So I think over time that knocks you back.

More money and contacts do bring more diverse experiences as well which helps give polish - though we are in a working class area and some parents even with free educational trips won't sign forms - our kids show interest and we pay and get them places if we can.

One of mine just experienced being ostracised from one friendship group because they said she revised too much for actual GCSE exams- she had siblings and us to sort her thinking out there but could have derailed her and has knocked her confidence a bit and she received message she shouldn't want more than they do from life and careers.

I think there's a lot of subtle messaging and I've been told by some posters on MN that never happens often because they don't see it because they've come from more privileged backgrounds -sometimes only slightly more - and others like to believe it's either innate superiority or superior parenting.

I disagree.

Confidence is, to me, negatively associated with intelligence. Intelligent people know what they don’t know, and therefore while they’re capable in their own areas, as a person they’re less self assured.

People who are less intelligent don’t know what they don’t know, and often assume they know everything. Take the Jeremy Kyle show (when it was on), how many contestants sat and listened to Jeremy saying ‘yeah, you’re right actually, maybe I have been a total twat’

In all honesty I think you are right. There were other things too, for example I cooked for her and she didn’t really acknowledge it with a thanks. Turned out she treated DS badly too which made him end it and somehow he feels guilty.