To hate competitive parents!

[muddyduck]

We have one mum in particular who is driving me crazy with it. Her child is obviously very academic which is lovely but Mum is so competitive about it. She always wants to know what level dd is at with reading, gymnastics or swimming or whatever so she can tell me her child is higher. She always grills her child about their spelling test result as soon as the child comes out of school just so we can all hear it's full marks again. She keeps records of how many school awards other children have got and them complains if her child hasn't won anything in a while. She always judges other mums for not putting jn enough effort into their child's homework projects. It's not a competition, every parent and child is individual and we're all doing our best. I shouldn't let it get to me I know!

At least I know I'm not alone!!! I'm useless at craft projects, I'm much better helping with maths homework so I do take sometimes take a shortcut or two to make life easier and make it doable for dd. I would just get stressed making things from scratch and having projects dragging out for days but I find myself afraid to admit this to this mum because I know she'll make judgy comments! Pathetic I know!

you are silly, I would boast about getting everything ready made from the shop, and smirk at the ones with no life and too much time on their hand doing craft at home.

If you enter the competition with that woman, play to win, it's much more funny.

I remember in reception ds had to make a model house. His was out of a cardboard box, roof paint running down the walls, four square-ish windows in not the right places and so on.
One mum came in with a perfect house, a conservatory on the side and a white picket fence. I’m sure she enjoyed making that all weekend whilst telling her dd to keep her hands off!!

I'd definitely stop giving her information about how your child is doing but in the grand scheme of things she's damaging her child more than anybody else. The poor child must be mortified.

I think the problem with ubermums and dads is that many are downloading their needs onto their children. Eg, professional parent knowing how hard it is and wanting their children to supersucceed. Or parent who is good at something wanting their children to be likewise. Or parent wanting their child to succeed at something they didn't. And it just spirals as they compete and make everyone else anxious.

Whatever you do, don't do your child's homework for them. Or make things for them. How are they going to learn? If you're great at math or whatever, you can just encourage them naturally.

And as someone upthread said, academic success is no guarantee of happiness, emotional stability, job satisfaction or riches.

I think you're right. Secure people wouldn't feel the need to do it.

Ha ha my DS had his first parents evening last term and I do remember one very 'keen' parent asking how it went and after hearing all about how wonderfully their child was doing with reading, writing etc... asking how mine was just replying that I was so proud of how he enjoyed going every day and made some lovely new friends. He was 4. If he can sit nicely on the carpet, write his name and get a few stickers during reception I'll be happy 😊

At Christmas there was also a Christmas craft thing where children were asked to decorated a thing to donate and then at the fair others won them as prizes. I left it until the night before had to be in, gave DS a pile of crafty bits & festive stickers from back of the cupboard, glue, Sellotape and the thing to decorate and left him to it while I cooked tea. Once he said he was done I put the 'thing' on radiator for the copious amounts of glue to dry and merrily sent it in the next morning glad I didn't need to display it in our house .... Only then once I saw the others did I realised it was actually a parental craft competition on disguise... Oh my goodness. If the 4-5 year olds did some of them then they really are child genius!!!

My kids have their strengths but just generally not in the academic dept. So it's always embarrassed me when these competitive twats do this.

I've rarely been able to boast about my kids even if I'd wanted to. But I've been honest about what they struggle with and how we try to combat it and I knew who to share the little triumphs with.

I've told my girls to work hard, as hard as they can, but that not everybody's life achievements come down to what they left school with. Don't get me wrong, I'd love for my girls to be smarter. But my eldest is hopefully going to receive the support she needs to realise her dream future, and my youngest gets awards for trying so hard, and she's really picking up ballet.

The never get top grades, they'll always be average at best. But hopefully they won't grow up neurotic about their attainment levels like my family all have.

My DD's too old now, but there used to be a couple of mums on the playground who were like this. I always used to massively downplay DD's abilities, and gave the impression she was behind where she actually was because I wanted them to go away and leave me alone (which worked - they didn't think she/I were worth bothering with). It was a great relief.

More recently, I've run activity events where children come with their parent and do things like decorate a box or make a photo frame. Week after week would end up with the poor kid sitting watching while the parent did EVERYTHING... all the colouring, all the stickering, etc. All for some worthless piece of tat the parent would bin 30 seconds after getting home.
I used to pull funny faces at the kids who were sitting around, bored, waiting for their parent to finish.

Wearywithteens that's not a chip on your shoulder you seem to have, it's the whole family-size pack!

If she asks you what reading level /test result etc your DC got just do a head tilt and say "Why would you care about my child's levels? How odd!" And then little tinkly laugh.

I promise she'll never ask again.

My own DC have had it occasionally where parents of their friends have questioned them about how much extra work I make them do

The joy of being a teacher's child! I recall at the meeting before our daughter started school, the same school where OH taught, being told by one parent Oh she'll be all right, lots of extra help! During Year 1 she would read to the cat, OH couldn't be bothered to listen to her, It's what I do all day.
Why are parents making their child's projects? It's the child's work, do they think that teachers are fooled by perfection?