To think that there is nothing wrong with being a "pushy" mum

[CliftonGirl]

Just that really. I used to be a "relaxed" mum with DS1 which I regret, but thankfully I switched to a "pushy" mode when he was in year four. As a result he moved from a bottom-middle set to a super selective grammar and doing brilliantly. I am very pushy with the younger DCs.

I've noticed a lot of people on mumsnet think that we are still in the 20th century and you can get to Oxbridge from a mediocre school without much effort. AIBU to think that the world is much more competitive now and there is no choice but to push DC to achieve?

Ps, English is not my first language, so please don't flame me for the spelling mistakes.

my point was that some people expect their kids to achieve top results without much input

But, OP - a lot of kids do achieve top results without much input! To come at this from another perspective, a lot of what is dressed up as 'pushy' parenting is actually rather complacent parenting...

The OP believes that 'pushy' means doing everything possible to steer DCs towards a middle class profession, and academic accomplishments and cultural/sporting pursuits are just a means to an end - she's been quite clear about that. She also believes that this is a 'pushier' message than 'follow your dreams' - which for some reason she seems as complacent - which doesn't really make sense.

To be honest, the standards you are setting for your kids are, in many ways, not that high if you think that they are genuinely gifted. And most pushy parents erroneously believe that their children are gifted. Any very gifted child could easily achieve a crop of As at A-level, and as a gifted young adult, a first at University. Most very gifted kids could jump through the necessary hoops to qualify as an accountant or solicitor without breaking a sweat, to be totally honest. It's not exactly nobel prize winning stuff. The idea that aiming for a safe middle class profession rather than 'following your dream' is a pushy message is a false one. If you really wanted to 'push' your children towards the fullest realisation of their abilities, then you would push them to excel in the field they show talents and skills in - rather than settling for a safe - but not too taxing profession where the bar for accomplishment is clearly set out, not beyond reach for most moderately bright graduates. That kind of attitude holds a lot of truly gifted children back.

Of course, if your children aren't actually gifted, and what you are saying is 'I have some reasonably bright but fairly mediocre kids, who can manage to qualify in a middle class profession - not without effort (because they're not that good) but if I work on them from the age of three and keep at it till they're 23 they might make the grade' - then fair enough. But be honest with yourself about it.

I'd say that you were incredibly lucky then wordfactory. I don't know anyone who had that easy a time, and I certainly don't expect my children will. Nor am I sure it would be terribly good for them if they did. They will get a significant boost up, and then it will be down to them to succeed.

Totally agree Summerblaze. We all have different talents and abilities, as parents we need to nurture and support, and we need to hold up possibilities for our children to aspire to but we also need to be realistic, otherwise we are just setting them up to fail. Children who think that they are failing really really struggle.

headsdown I really think that's rubbish.

For a start really gifted people often have a coach who pushes them on. It's very rare for someone to achieve any exceptional without the constant input of another.

And second, many of us pushy parents do not believe we have exceptional DC (sorry seeker I know you think my DC is exceptional, but he's not!). We believe that talent can be nutured and that the nurturing process requires a fair bit of input which many perceive as pushing.

nooka I was very lucky.

Dont get me wrong, there was grit and grime and graft along the way. And had as far froma charmed childhood as you can imagine. But once I got my degree from Oxbridge (debt free!) I was set.

True enough I've had to work hard since, but I haven't had to struggle IYSWIM.

I feel rather sorry for young epople today .

To be clear, I think that those achievements are exceptional - but they are not major challenges for very gifted young children and adults. In my experience most pushy parents do believe that their children are gifted and exceptional. I know a lot of people who really were exceptionally talented, and achieved a great deal academically and professionally and virtually none of them were 'pushed'.

I do think that you can, sometimes, push kids towards more achievable goals, like school exam results - sometimes successfully, sometimes with catastrophic results, but most of the time without making much difference.

But I think that it is bordering on cruel to set up certain expectations for young children if their abilities do not match up to them. And if their abilities do match up to them, or easily excel them, then encouraging them to settle for a relatively easy path in life, regardless of their talents is not 'pushy'. Quite the opposite.

Life is a mixture of grit and graft and luck and privilege I think. To me that's part of the problem in being too pushy because it can give a message that failure is not acceptable. In life we will all fail at one point or another, the important thing is whether we can get up, dust ourselves down and move on, having learned from our mistakes and grown as a result. This is a self discipline that cannot be pushed onto a child, and requires for them to have the space to fail early when it doesn't really matter.

There is some good evidence that being encouraged to work as hard as you can as opposed to achieve set standards leads to better long run success. I know plenty of people who deliberately don't try their hardest because then if you don't do that well you can always think 'I could have done better' which is a much more comforting thought than 'I'm not good enough'. It is self sabotaging though.

No, my kids are not gifted, except the oldest (possibly) in music.

As far as I can see you occasionally get a lucky blip where, for instance, by accident of birth year people benefit from defined pensions because life expectancy increases beyond initial predictions or you might get on the housing ladder at the right time.

However I can think of far, far worse times to be young. The fear of not being able to get a mortgage or not get a job on the milk round is really not something that should blight or limit your life.

Very good point about failing nooka.

I think everyone would agree that the extreme version of pushiness can be damaging. Forcing a child to stay at the piano for hours, without a break, until she learns a particular piece (a la Amy Chua) is sheer madness. OTOH, insisting a child completes her homework and piano practice every day just seems like ordinary parent/child interaction.

When I think of pushy parents, I tend to imagine the sort who populate the dance world. These parents (usually although not exclusively mothers) can be overly invested in their children's success. They are also the ones who proclaim loudly that their child loves to dance, just loves it, can't get enough of it, etc. when it seems patently obvious to observers that the parents are driving that particular train.

Maybe not merry- but not being able to rent a home, not being able to afford a family, not being able to retire...

And I completely agree with the failing thing. But I see the fear of failure most often among those parents who are allergic to competition! They are so protectionist.

"To me that's part of the problem in being too pushy because it can give a message that failure is not acceptable"

This.

In terms of academics, I do think that having high expectations is crucial. I would submit that can be done without hothousing or Tiger Mother extremes. I don't think it does children any favors to accept they are "not academic" at a young age.

I recently watched a documentary about a prep school which is a feeder to the top public schools. The little boys all seemed very sweet and bright, but no brighter than an average crop of children in any primary school. The difference in outcomes has much less to do with inate ability than with circumstances and expectations.

In my own case, my father was an academic. Our house was full of books. Reading, writing, and researching were our family's main leisure activities. It is perhaps unsurprising that I also pursued an academic career (in one of those useless humanities subjects!). My parents had a generally hands-off approach to childrearing, perhaps too much so in some respects. But I love my work and I think in part I owe that to an early exposure to the joy of learning.

Amazingly plenty of people are able to put roofs over their heads without even going to a Russell group university.

Agree re expectations Paper. I am surprised how many people claim that their kids are not academic. One of my friends says her dd is not academic, and she is not even 3 yet.

PaperSeagull, I agree with everything you say.

Firstly, I think you need to define failure.

Not completing homework is as much failing as is getting below a pass mark in an exam.
I don't think we should tell our dc its acceptable to fail, unless of course its something out of their control. I feel the same way about quitting, unless it would benefit the person to do so.
I don't think it is necessarily a bad attitude as long as you give dc plenty of encouragement and tell them you are proud of their achievements. Failing is not something ever mentioned with my dc.

www.creativitypost.com/psychology/famous_failures

I think we are talking about these kind of failures. It's difficult to succeed if you aren't prepared to risk failure.

You Do know that Einstein not talking till age of four is a myth?

I am sceptical about a lot of the pegs that have been hung on Einstein. That was just the first famous failures article I found.

It may just be me but I don't believe people do fail, so I don't talk about my dc being failures. I think psychologically it is the worst thing you can say to a child, and serves no person but to tell them they are no good. I prefer to look at what the process has taught them and whilst you have learned something, how could you have failed?
I prefer to keep it positive and allow dc to move on knowing they have achieved something, even if it is the knowledge that a certain thing isn't for them. Far better than labelling them as failure, then having to spend ages building confidence again.
The alternative is to let them be a failure, but tell them it doesn't matter or isn't important. Not sure how this would work.

Would you be more comfortable encouraging them to try hard and take risks that may or may not work out? It comes down to the same thing. Whether or not you are comfortable with the word failure is semantics.

Exactly. Sometimes things don't go to plan. Sometimes something we thought would be great is not. Taking a chance is a very important part of life (I am a risk manager, so it's a very important part of my professional life too). If your driver is 'I must always be successful' then it is very hard to take a chance, but it is a crucial part of being creative and entrepreneurial. Talking about how to manage failing is very important. It is unrealistic to always think our children will succeed at everything all the time.

As long as you know that - however much you push - then if your children aren't especially talented then they are always going to be outperformed by someone more talented, at some stage in their lives. And probably by someone who didn't require pushing in the first place.