to really hate parents describing their kids as "very bright"

[lunaticow]

It really gets on my nerves. I mean, how bright is "very bright" is it in the top half of the class, or the top kid in the class? Just how many kids are so "very bright". My kids are clever enough but I'd never go around posting that they are "very bright".
These parents seem to think it is relevant to everything that their kids are "very bright"?
How smug. Stop boasting and shut up!

Hmmm, in my house the 'average' kids are more confident and generally relaxed than the very bright one, so it balances out!

I agree. I often think my children are bright but before I start to say anything I remind myself that they are my children and of course I think they are very bright. I don't mind when parents say that their children love school or are doing well - it sounds different and it's not focused on their ability but rather their enjoyment.

I also agree with the posters who say it is a double edged sword. DH's best friend is seriously bright and she often says it did her no good being at the top of her year in everything because she never learnt how to work at anything.

it's great that there are kids who really are going to be the next andy murray (but hopefully win). it's utterly amazing that there are beautiful beautiful dancers and musicians and mathematicians and writers and chefs and public speakers, of all ages, young and old. why do we not celebrate it? why on earth if someone says something positive about our child, do we mutter in deprecation, of grinning broadly and saying 'thank you. it is great, isn't it'?

With all due respect, you're missing the point. Yes it is great that there are all sorts of kids who are going to be great in the future but it's not so great to have the parents implicitly telling us they're going to be the next Andy Murray, Einstein etc before they've even turned 12. There's a HUGE difference between both things. If you think I (for example) am objecting to people saying positive things about their children, you've picked it up wrong.

I absolutely celebrate success but success speaks for itself. There's a difference between celebrating success and blowing trumpets. To me, reading through this thread, there is a lot of boasting, either direct or stealth. As someone who has seen a sibling's life go tits up despite plenty of smarts, I know that there's a helluva lot more to achieving a functional contented life than being a mini Einstein or Shakespeare or Andy Murray.

smuggery.

most of the g&t section is parents worried about their kids.
tis smug in the extreme. oh yes.

how can you even be smug when you are surrounded by identikit offerings?
smug when really, tis the only place you can ask a question vaguely realted to being above average academically without being crushed by a htousand posts all yelling 'stealth boast' in your ear? wasn't the board set up because mners were slathering all over parents of bright kids and hounding them out of primary or whatever?

ach. same old same old.

aye, hell. there is. and that's what a lot of the stuff on the g&t board is about. ds's teacher is dmaned sure he's going to drop out at 14. smuggery ain't anywhere near the truth.

x post.

the thing is, any post that mentions how well a kid does something is jumped all over. so whether you intend to be genuinely celebratory of success or not, it really does look like the very mention of it is distasteful in the extreme.

Honestly, reading levels never come up in conversation with my RL friends. Strategies for getting them to do homework, times of day etc, yes, and loads of other stuff. But not anything comparative.

The thing is, for whatever cultural, repressed, psychologically screwed up reasons, people's toes can curl a bit when a parent waxes lyrical about their children's achievements. So whether it's right or wrong, why do it?

well, the hw thing then - so neither you nor one of your friends was ever forced to confess that x does all his homework in 5 minutes flat and then begs for more because it's too easy? and is crying at home because he doesn't want to go to school because it's boring, and all they ever do is play, and he wants to sit in his bedroom and read? or build a radio? none of your friends had a dd that was selected for county gym? no kids came home crying because they couldn't do a cartwheel and x can do somersaults? comparisons are a huge part of life. it's why the entire curriculum in the early years is devoted to celebrating difference.

i had one v keen mum that followed me around the playground to quiz me on reading levels. it was v wearing.

most of the mums on mn seem to want desperately to compare. there's not a day goes by without a reading levels in yr 1 thread. presumably they are fleeing to mn to ask what they want to know because no-one dares ask in rl for fear of social exclusion.

Also I don't think it does children any favours really. A friend of ours who tends to 'big up' his daughter an awful lot, was blowing mucho hot air about how great her A levels were going to be. She came up short and I had sympathy for her having to face the schadenfreude of all the people her dad had 'bigged' her up to, especially cos she's a great person in every way and it wasn't her fault someone else was setting expectations for her.

It's just not that kind of school, honestly. My dd has always been unaware of what reading level she's on. The teachers don't make the level a big deal and i know that it isn't like that in all schools. Have had some talk of gym stuff with a friend, but more in a discussion of fitting stuff in. One of the dads is a bit over focussed on times and levels and competitions but he has at least now got his ds to talk about rather than politics thank goodness! I will always ask people about their children and listen. It's just I prefer qualitative stuff to quantitive. And the one thing my parents did well was to value what my sister and I were and did. So I genuinely have grown up being proud of what she's done and vice versa. We're very, very different. My dad just said and believed we should do what made us happy and earnt enough to support ourselves. Other friends parents made it charmingly clear that academic and financial achievement was where it was at by disparaging pretty much all else. I digress.

Totally relate to that post molehill.
My folks were too concerned with comparisons though, and as a consequence of that, I am entirely and completely unbothered how my children compare to anyone else. They are who they are.

that academic and financial achievement was where it was at

There's still an awful lot of that about.

Funnily enough, one of the daughters of the worst offenders is the person who immediately referred to how the nursery had said how bright her dd was....the dd was two!!!!

There is quite a crowd in my kids school that do the whole reading level comparison thing and I very deliverately keeo well out of it. I never ask anyone anything and I would never answer if anyone asked me. I prefer it that way.

I was annoyde when my son's reading book and record was put in another child's book bag and it was, of course, the book bag of the child with the mothert that is the WORST for comparing and competing. She never said anything to me but I do always wonder whether she has mentioned anything to anyone else.

The reading level thing is a total red herring anyway. It really doesn't tell you anything about over all intelligence but it seems to be treated as the marker by many parents.

Sorry, think that is a bit of a side-track.

I do feel for parents of exceptionally bright children if they feel they can't talk about their concerns to others. I guess there must be a feeling of "they are super bright, what more do you want" in the same way that someone with lots of money often doesn't have problems taken very seriously because they have no money worries so how bad can things be (not sure if that makes sense)

I apologise for using the words "tennis coach" if it helps its a normal after school club.

I apologise for claiming my child is "good at tennis" even though I said it on an internet forum of people who don't know me and haven't mentioned it to a single parent at the school (even close friends).

I apologise for "bigging up" my son as I can see that this will do him no favours, though I haven't actually mentioned it to him other than what he heard the coach random person who happens to teach tennis to very young children say to me.

I will of course never refer to the shamefulness again on MN. I swear from now on to only mention things my DS is not very good at. He's truly rubbish at singing, verging on tone deaf; he has minor speech delay still at 6; he struggles to find his feet in groups. As far as I know he cannot play the piano nor football (or not very well).

I find it fasinating that in the UK if someone pays your child a compliment you are programmed to say something negative about them:

'ohh is she a sweetie'..
'you wouldnt think so at 4am'

and if you should big your own child up you are a terrible show off.

Totally the opposite of the US.

Yes, DH and I both grew up in the US and it was a huge culture shock coming over here. We're tempted to move back sometimes - it would be nice for the kids to have their achievements celebrated rather than mocked.

I just don't think that's the case. If someone pays one of my children or indeed me, a compliment I accept graciously with "thank you, that's really nice of you to say so". It has taken me ages to learn but not accepting is basically saying to the giver that they're talking rubbish. That's so different from basing a conversation around your children's achievements. I am also a giver of compliments and try to say nice things about people's children. We all want to hear that. But I just never solicit them from others.

I think the US goes overboard on this stuff. Everything a child does is not reason for blanket praise and validation.

bumbley if your kids' achievements are being mocked here (by whom? other adults, other kids?), you must be hanging around with the wrong people.

I can take a compliment, even though I cringe a bit, and I can also give a compliment. I'm better at the latter.

The other thing is, kids often strongly object to being 'bigged up'. My DS is a case in point. I can be at all his little events etc but heaven forbid I say anything positive about him afterwards to anyone other than family, he is not up for it. I remember as far back as when he was 5, showing his dad a nice picture he did and hugging him at the same time, and he said 'Mum stop being so proud of me'. I still laugh at that!

Guess I shouldn't hang around MN then Hellototheno

I have no idea if my kids are bright or not, tbh.

LeQueen I have thought about that a lot because he is a little like me in some ways. But he's always seen me complimenting and praising people, including his friends and of course him (in private).
I'd say it's more that it makes him feel a certain amount of pressure, and I'm a bit like that too about stuff, like if I get too much validation, it'll jinx my performance. Shrink time?

But I'm loyal to him in that way and would feel bad going against his wishes, even on forum of strangers!

I just don't say anything about my dcs abilities. I say they're doing ok. That's enough. I can't imagine anyone outside of my family or their teachers being interested anyway.

I mean, there are lots of people who so go on and on about how very clever their dcs are which is dull in the same way as going on and on about their problems.

I think the the thing that concerns me is that if the kid turns out to be actually not very bright as the parent claims, then will the parent express disappointment to that child because they've broadcast high IQs to the neighbourhood?

Well maybe if you didn't bother discussing it, your dds wouldn't even notice and their individual strengths would progress without feeling the need for labels?