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.

Dd probably comes across as confident, no we aren’t posh or white. But she’s been encouraged to order her own food in restaurants from when she could speak (even if we had to interpret) please and thank you to everyone so she’s used to talking to adults politely. I think thats it really.

I agree with PP, I think the difference between a child being seen as confident as opposed to a gobshite can come down to class. I’ve come across quite a few working class white kids who seem to be supremely confident but are probably judged in a different way to children from more salubrious backgrounds.

Cultural capital, academic priorities modelled by parents, paid-for extra-curricular stuff. A feeling that you're entitled to those things and that they are things that are normal for people like you.

I'm a teacher and have taught in a variety of schools and, whilst there are obviously brilliant working class kids whose parents are very invested in their education and in giving them cultural capital, I absolutely agree that middle class kids often dominate in the areas which demand confidence, social skills and 'polish'. A decent school will be working hard to encourage students who don't have such privileged backgrounds to access this stuff.

One thing if I can just add was that when my son was at state boarding school for 18 months ( you pay for the boarding aspect but it's a state school) they did weekly 'moots'

For anyone who hasn't done them they give an opportunity to make arguments/discussions (almost like PMQs) with another team- my quite opinionated son (he's now 26) was exceptionally good at this and although not a particularly confident lad at 13 - this really stretched him and gave him great social confidence as he won an area competition for it. He came on in leaps and bounds in his social skills after that

@MoonshineSon indeed- I will take Jess Phillips confidence over Rees Moggs 'confidence' any day!!

@Jellytotsandwinegums I see this sadly on Twitter- lots of Reform supporters in particular playing the 'itsall right for you, you think you are better than us' kind of inverse snobbery going on -when I've not insinuated any such thing- simply if I say why I don't support Farage. Someone actually said to me 'you like Starmer because he's educated and quick thinking' - well yes I like those qualities in a PM - I did quip back but so is Farage - but I can't stand him.

I grew up on a London council estate with a w/c background. Everyone in my family was from a w/c background - grandparents and their parents etc.

However not many people realised that about me when I was in my late teens because I was well read, had impeccable manners, spoke properly ie didn't drop my letters and had a wide vocabulary and rarely sweared. I think the presentation can be self taught as well as just your upbringing.

I haven't said there isn't class or privilege in the US, just that it isn't something that's imparted to children either consciously or subconsciously. You never hear Americans talking about 'posh' schools or accents or restaurants. Pricey, yes. But the assumption of certain 'classes' living on another plane or belonging to a different, superior species, no.

I see very, very little attention to the kind of markers British children (or at least their parents here on MN) seem to be keenly aware of, and I live in a very leafy suburb. There is little to no attention to appearance or to brands when it comes to clothing. You would not know if children's parents were doctors, plumbers, bus drivers, unemployed, etc, by listening to or looking at them in a school playground. Of course, there are kids with a chip on their shoulder everywhere, hence entitled, rude, or boorish behaviour. Adults can have the same traits, though it's usually seen as narcissism in adults.

This resonates.

I think being encouraged to be curious and to discuss that curiosity pushes children to reach further, and knowing they have support from parents and the adults they meet enables that.

My parents worked their fingers to the bone for us. We were absolutely cherished, without being smothered. We were listened to and pulled up when we went too far.

We were implicitly taught manners and when to listen. My mothers words on the first day of every term "do not make me need to come up to that school" rang in our ears. We could fail, but we had to try our best. We could choose, but as long as we tried our best that was all my parents expected.

We always sat at the table to eat. We didn't always talk about more than the pros of sweetcorn vs peas, but it centred our family day.

I'm not the brainiest person in any room, but I can adapt and achieve because of the grounding my parents gave me and the importance they placed on the value of education giving choices.

@mathanxiety i should have mentioned you in this post. This is just going on my experiences with multiple East Coast cousins

Not RTFT, but I wonder if the 2 things are conflated I.e. you're noticing the confident children as they do visible things, and happen to be middle class, but don't notice all the middle class kids who aren't confident and shy away from the limelight?

I have 2 'middle class' dc - 1 quite confident, one very much not. Personalities are completely different even though I've tried to instill the same values/ experiences etc.

But you're in a leafy suburb. You aren't going to see a difference in the kids you come into contact with - because you're nowhere near the ones who are going to be at the pointy end of life, as their plane of existence (I think you intended plane rather than planet, but the end result is the same, either way) is so, so far away from that of your comfortably wealthy (if not by UK standards, absolutely minted) area that you don't even know they exist - just as you have no interaction with the children of the wealthiest of all.

This feels like a no-brainer. It's the parents. Confident, articulate and well mannered adults breed the same in their children.

That feels a bit eugenics-y

Our youngest child is the most confident out of our children, I think it's because even though we've always been comfortable financially the last 10 years DH business has given us a really high standard of living. Therefore he is the only one of our children who has only known big holidays, health club membership, high end restaurants from birth. Whereas I was still feeling not quite good enough for those places until probably my late 20s early 30s

@Lassi well not really. Children are a product of their parents. The 6 year old that tells his classmates to fuck off has a parent that tells people to fuck off and thinks that's normal behaviour. A child who observes good manners and respect for others will most likely adopt the same behaviours.

Well it is really @Heatherbell1978 because using your logic all children are identical to their parents. Don’t you understand that people like you would write off children from homes you don’t approve of when in reality those children could have vastly different personalities and outcomes. Quite scary that you believe this rubbish to be honest.

The old-fashioned way, in my family's case. We're working class but raised with high expectations. Taught what you might call posture and deportment from as soon as we could walk ... and often hit for slouching, 'lurking', mumbling or being 'rude'. Rudeness included child-like errors such as commenting on someone's appearance, asking intrusive questions or taking food when not invited to help ourselves.

We had perfect table manners. Parents often took us to restaurants; other diners would compliment them on our fabulous behaviour. We had dinner round the table every evening. Conversation was mandatory and would cover everything from "How was your day" to "What do you think about Premier Khrushchev's promises on nuclear de-escalation?"

When we didn't know something, we were required to look it up - at the library if no suitable source was available at home, though it usually was. We all joined debating clubs (schools used to do it as a matter of course).

We travelled around Europe every summer in a camper van. We learned something of the languages as we went. Weekends were forced marches over all the mountains of England and Wales, often with actual rock climbing. We learned to identify plants, wildlife, basic tracking, etc. We learned to swim very young.

I often say I wasn't brought up, I was trained! Much of the way my Dad did this was brutal. We are not without emotional scars, very deep in my case. BUT they did a fantastic job of giving us an all-round education, social & physical as well as academic.

Pretty sure this can be achieved without the rages, beatings and insults.

@BloodyHellKenAgain , do you mean buttons to be pressed or the penile type of knob?

Some children are born with inner confidence. I was. I was a happy and content child, my mum says. Both my ds's are. Am I supposed to apologise for this?

I don’t think anyone would want you to apologise for your contentment @Oblomov24 It’s interesting though because I think all the insecurity I have has actually been beneficial in the long run as it’s driven me on. I think the same applies to my DH.

@TeenLifeMum :

"I’m a middle class child (now adult) and I think most people are hugely insecure but some cover it better than others."

Nope. I disagree. This is just one persons neurosis and lack of self esteem. Just because you are severely lacking, but cover well, as some do, you can't assume that most are insecure. Sure, on mn it encourages those who are lacking to post. But I'm still not sure that this represents the masses.

@Oblomov24 I’ve seen insecurity present in very different ways:
class clown/over confident ones
the nasty/bitchy ones
the loud brash ones
the quiet ones
the openly nervous ones

I’m not saying everyone is insecure all the time but, out of our comfort zone, surely most of us have moments of insecurity?

No, you implied that.

It's very leafy but also very diverse in terms of race, ethnic origin, and income level. There are large homes and a sizeable cohort of Tesla and Land Rover drivers, but at least one third of the homes are apartments, and a large proportion (probably two thirds) of the children in local schools live either in apartments or small 'starter homes'.

About 3-5% of students in local elementary schools come from families who moved from the city next door when the pointy end of life became just a bit too sharp. Many of these kids come from families that don't own a book, and they leave behind them neighbourhoods that are plagued by violence, drug use and sales, and open-air vice. They bring with them a lot of trauma and are usually well behind where they should be in terms of academic attainment, because the city schools suck and because chronic stress interferes with learning and the development of executive function.

A quarter of the students in the local high school receive free school meals, with a higher proportion of students in elementary and middle school receiving free school meals. My own DCs received free school meals too for a few years after I divorced. We also had medical coverage via Medicaid.

The next suburb over has a higher average income, not as many children in receipt of free school meals by a long shot, and has some seriously wealthy residents.

I do know several families who are among the exceptionally wealthy. My exH came from one such family, and his family's social circle and extended family were all in the same exclusive tax bracket (CEOs, bank presidents, managing partners of large law firms, consultants, etc). ExMIL and her sisters and friends bought their children's clothes in Kmart and JC Penneys all the same.

I don't think it's anything to do with class. It's often just luck, a given, nature rather than nurture. Why within families does one child have it and another doesn't?