School bake off- why do parents do this?

[tangerino]

Argh. There was a baking competition at my daughter's primary school a few days ago- a note came home asking parents only to give minimal supervision and we were even ask to sign a form confirming that this was the case. My daughter worked hard making some cupcakes and icing them- she did it all on her own and was v proud of what she'd done.

Of course when she got to school, she found that other people had brought in incredibly elaborate creations, some featuring spun sugar(!), almost all obviously done by the parents.

One mum has just put a picture of five tier rainbow cake her son took in, with a caption saying "Do I win mummy of the year?" No you do not, you fucking cheat.

Gaaargh, it drives me crazy. It's so unfair on the kids that do follow the rules. And what message does it give the children? What's the point?

Oh needsahalo that made me laugh out loud - because that would be me too .

Why do schools get them to create things that are totally out of their age range anyway? Animal hats aged 4/5, anyone? Thankfully my partner put his hands to that one as I wouldn't have had a clue where to start - let alone DS.

Or maybe it's just we're all cack-handed in our family well me and DS1 anyway.

I always let the DCs do it, with supervision of course mainly because my baking looks a lot shittier and because I turn into miss trunchball otherwise.

It's very competitive OP. DCs school had a baking comp for the Queens Birthday. The theme was 1920s. The cake that won was a three tier thing with a plastic crown on top.
The Mum who'd made an original 1920s cake (even down to sourcing the right flour) was fuming! I mean, who has time for that?

It amuses me more than bothers me. But I can't get mega worked up over it.

Deux that's brilliant!

Oh god this has brought back memories!

When I was about 3 or 4 I entered a colouring competition at playgroup for the end of term show. My mum, desperate for me to win, helped me stick on glitter, sequins and feathers to make it stand out. On the day of the show, my entry won and I proudly got to go on 'stage' to collect my prize, where I told the whole audience of fellow Mums and kids that "Mummy did mine for me" [BLUSH]

Cue my poor old Mum squirming in her seat and lots of angry glares at her from other Mums!

She learnt her lesson after that!

My mum used to be really into flower-arraning competitions and when my friend and I wanted to enter, our parents made us do the entry at the show venue to make sure people didn't think we'd had help. We were not bad at it as we had watched our mums for so long!

My DS has just experienced this "disappointment" by not bothering to decorate a jam jar and fill it with the sweets (which I'd bought - he's only 5) for the school bazaar competition. He went all sad-for-myself pathetic on the day they were judged, at which point I reminded him that he'd told me on 3 occasions he didn't want to do it because other things were more interesting. He got over it in about 20 seconds and hasn't mentioned it since. Somehow I think he will survive...

Argh I hate this, I quite like the idea above about sending a screen shot of that fb post to the school. I'm not really sure what the school could do though as it seems like they've really tried to discourage parents from taking over and it's just been ignored.

I'm sure the teachers will be well aware which are genuine efforts from the children and will reward as such if they have any sense.

This has reminded me though, similar to a PP, I always remember being about 9 and the class assistant telling me she didn't believe my drawing of fox was my own work. It really stuck with me. The teachers always believed my work was my own however and I remember years later my mum mentioning that the same lady always made snide comments about children who got higher grades etc than her daughter so I think she just had jealousy issues.

Just keep breathing. Soon your DC's will start Secondary School and the Competitive Parenting will be a distant nightmare!

You have to be a member of the pta to win at my dcs school. Why bother?

Its unfortunately common my son has sadly learned by age 7 his efforts wont be rewarded because they are not as good as the adults it makes getting him to do craft homework an issue the time when he did do a great job building a castle a jealous child broke some bricks off by "accident"

I absolutely hate these "make something at home and take it in" competitions. One of my worst memories at school is one of these projects.

It was the yeat I had moved cities, and just started at a new primary school. I was an extremely arty child, so when I realised we had a project to build a dinosaur, I was absolutely thrilled. I refused to let my parents anywhere near my model of a dinosaur because I was worried they would mess it up for me. They both had form for ruining my drawings and paintings by mounting them onto card wonky. I was much neater.

I had removed the little pack of lights from a Christmas card, and inserted them into the eyes of the dinosaur, and even used my own pocket money to buy a miniature voice recorder thing that only recorded once, to stick in my dinosaurs mouth. I'd spent hours on it, only to lose out to someone else's dinosaur.

And I knew exactly why. Because when I showed my teacher the light's and sounds on my dinosaur, she said "gosh, is your daddy an engineer?" No. Neither of my parents could so much as draw a stick figure. It was ALL MY WORK.

That poor, unsuspecting teacher never did discover the reason for my everlasting hatred for her.

It's just so sad for the kids. The parents should allow them to do it, have fun and be creative. God, nothing worse than an over bearing parent telling you what to do.

I have a 3 yo DS and learnt this very early on when I caught myself correcting his sticking!! Don't know what possessed me to straighten his sticker.. but he then lost confidence sticking for a while. Anyway lesson learnt thankfully. My son will be the one with the beautiful, gorgeous wonky, messy cupcakes made with love!

In the bake off at my DC school they have to ice buns and finalists have to decorate their cakes live in the school hall which cuts out any parental competitiveness.

*JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff

I was an antisocial, pretentious and book-gobbling small child

You know, in a very real sense, at the age of 37, I still am.*

I was another precocious meticulous child who never won anything like this at school because it was always assumed my parents had helped.

Once I even had to miss a breaktime because a supply teacher had asked us to write a story, and decided that apparently mine was 'copied from a book.' It wasn't, and when I tried to explain I got in trouble for lying!

Sometimes it's hard to tell but in the OP's example, that's clearly not on.

Groovee, I would think that prizes for the 'Best Professional Cake Maker would just make all these dicks compete harder... now if it was for 'Most Ridiculous Attempt to Win a Child's Competition'*, that might do it!

I've had this. I had to let go of my OCD and let Ds1 bake (fine) but decorate? Worst thing you have ever seen so he did chocolate cakes with chocolate icing smeared on top with some smarties for Children in Need.

As every child in his year was doing this, he took in 2 cakes as he wanted to buy 2 cakes himself.

I saw another mother -competitive parent extraordinaire- bring her "daughter's" cakes in in one of those greengrocer boxes, you know the kind that hold 80 apples?

There are 90 children in a year group all of whom may have brought a cake in and she brings in 30 cakes. 30.

It is quite weird behaviour and so obvious.

My DD2 aged 9 made a cake for their school fete baking competition - all the kids were asked what they had made and you could hear parents whispering stuff like "it's a deconstructed cardamom and star anis infused cheesecake" to prompt their poor child who was holding a microphone and didn't have a clue what they had supposedly made. There were props and tiny glasses all over the shop.

DD, when it came to her turn said "it's giant cupcake with our school name on it in marzipan. I made it."

I wanted to cheer

Aw Natalie, how sad for you. And it's not something you can really challenge as a child or parent because that's saying "the thing that won is so rubbish I know mine was better."

If parents are professional at something I'd expect the kids to have had lots of exposure from a young age, and crucially to have top quality ingredients and equipment lying around. I would expect professional-looking output from the kids too.

And that's without counting the kids who huge enthusiasms which are supported by but not shared by the parents. One I know is massively into woodwork, so he goes to a woodwork club and produces amazing stuff. Another it is baking. Another sewing. Loads are into electronics. DS is only slightly interested but as a result of events he's been to we have bits hanging around the house that he could easily cobble into lighting up eyes for a construction or something if he was so inclined.

I think there's a danger of people equating my child couldn't to no child could. I wouldn't assume anything's parent-made unless I've actually seen the kid in action and know they're not capable. And even so I'd be cautious. As a child occasionally I got into something and made a particular effort and produced something way out of my normal range.

Perhaps they should only have competitions for things that are actually done in school. Except they're a bit busy learning aren't they?

Winged - you are aware that OCD is a highly-debilitating mental illness, right?

YANBU

tangerine, the parent who helps takes over is even more pathetic in that she needs to go onto a social network.. post a picture of her five tier rainbow cake and ask 'Do I win mummy of the year'.

Some people never leave school. They are still there - as parents. Still insecure...still desperate for recognition and attention.

There is guiding and helping, and then there's the take-over.
Teachers knows the kind of work each child is capable of - they teach their class Monday to Friday (usually), so how can they not know.
Thing is, this doesn't stop the parents
I put it all down to insecurity issues.

Believe me, we hate this sort of thing and see all kind of hideous behaviour, often from the most well educated parents who for some reason totally lose the plot over the most trivial of school events.
I go out of my way to make sure that the children who genuinely have done something themselves are praised for doing so.
This year's Mary in my class nativity? The lovely little girl who has never been invited to any parties or play dates because her Mum doesn't 'fit' Don't think we don't notice the lonely figures who for whatever reason nobody talks to, sadly they are often the loveliest of parents with delightful children, they certainly never have the time (often money) or inclination to do school projects for their children and then brag about it on facebook!
Sorry, rant over. The op is just so sad to read.

Oh god this thread reminds me of a class competition I entered in when I was ten. Make the house you lived in or something. I had visions of me doing the cardboard box thing, with wool and egg boxes etc but no my dad who fancied himself as a bit good with a scalpel (he used to make his own model railways) completely took over and designed this super dooper hard cardboard house, completely to scale and identical to the house we lived in, even the roof lifted off and even had tiny stairs. I was not allowed to touch it and I was only allowed to colour in its roof. My parents were out raged when it was disqualified and complained to the governers about it in disgust. I've never lived it down and I'm still bitter my parents wouldn't let me just get on with it.

Thing is though I'm not entirely convinced that all teachers wouldnt give the prize to those whose parent s who took over, I know my teacher did but dd1 year 2 teacher awarded first prize to a child whose parent did the easter bonnet, this thing was beautiful but parent admitted afterwards that she did most of the work and she was one of the popular parents so I'm a bit me about it all

I still get cross about a primary school art competition that was won by a schoolmate's dad. We had to paint a picture of a house name sign and I went all over the village looking for an interesting one to use (since our house only had a number rather than a name!) and spent ages working on it and was pretty pleased with the results, even though I was never very gifted at art. Several friends were in the same boat, you could tell they'd all worked hard, but that it was definitely all their own work. Then in comes the girl with the artist father, who had shown zero artistic talent herself in the classroom, with a perfect replica of a house name sign. It was very good, but it wasn't her bloody work! She won the prize. I learnt a lesson that day. My teachers were idiots who were more interested in showing off 'good' art work in the hallways rather than genuine this-was-actually-made-by-an-8-year-old art attempts!

These type of parents are also responsible for the death of the class bear!! We could take no more of pages and pages of glossy staged photos and endless boasting (none of which involved anyone's child!)
The final straw was a parent putting in a request to have 'Dan' on a particular weekend, so they could take him to Paris