I have only read the first and last page of this thread so forgive me if I repeat anything already said.
For me a mums or dads or other carers job is to care first and foremost and make a child feel loved, secure and confident of their place in the family, the school, in extra curric activities and in society in general.
A child should realise that their opinion and feelings are as important as anyone elses no matter what that feeling or opinion is.
If you are constantly pushing your child to do better, to work harder, to achieve more, to get better results its too easy to undermine your own child and those other children or other grownups who don't or can't achieve what your child can and does. You give an unnecessary emphasise on final results rather than the actual journey to get their. You can alienate your child from its peers and make social inclusion difficult for your child going forwards. At best you create an overconfident over achiever who at some point will 'burn out' in some dramatic way or an adult or young person with a massive inferiority complex who feels they don't fit in with their 'peers' as they don't achieve enough and doesn't fit in with those who haven't acheived as much.
My DD is in year 4. We have ponies and do the showing scene. She doesn't particularly want to ride in the ring (despite having a top class ridden pony) so shows inhand instead. The amount of ponyclub type mums who berate me for this is staggering. They have children of similar ages on Rescue Remedy and god knows what else just to get them in the ring. They go around in tears. Nothing they do is good enough and even if they win the class they've usually qualified for another big show so no pleasure in winning, just the realisation that even more pressure is coming their way.
My daughter laughs, giggles and jokes around the ring. She cuddles her ponies, has icecreams between classes (the ridden lots jackets cost too much to risk an icecream) and her rossesttes and trophies are treasured memories of happy days. She'll ride in the ring if she wants to. And if she hates it she will go back to in hand classes and have the ball we have whilst the ridden lot either refuse to continue with ponies or start needing prosac to continue. What is really, really sad for me is that most of the ponyclub mums were riders themselves at some point and have now lost their bottle so live their dreams through their unfortunate offspring.
Help your kids achieve their dreams. Support them in their schoolwork and hobbies. Be interested in what they want to do later on in life and the best way for them to get their. But remember they are children for such a short time and a happy childhood is filled with parks, seaside visits, playing with friends, having duvet days cuddled up on the sofa watching disney films with mum and generally having very few pressures other than keeping a relatively tidy bedroom and doing the required amount of homework.
A happy childhood is not spent doing extra schoolwork, learning a complicated musical instrument (unless that is the childs passion) for hours on end and living mums dreams for her. Wait until your children have left home and live your own dreams.