To ask what’s the most toe curling OTT boast/showing off you’ve heard from a parent about their child?

[Rainbowb]

Just seen a FB post from a mum friend boasting about her 9yo daughter doing online dance and gym sessions via zoom and practising for her 11 plus complete with picture of said child sat at her desk and smiling for the camera. Hope the child gets time to chill out now and then! Mum obviously needs us all to believe her daughter is a high achiever! It was so cringy though and I wondered if anyone else out there was biting their lip at stuff like this?!

Boy in my DS class few years ago got top marks in everything (as told by his mother on FB). He was THE cleverest child in school. All left school and boy didn’t get in to town’s most prestigious school for which they require you have high grades. My DS and 3 others got in. Everyone else keep asking me “how did your DS get in to the school and not clever boy?”

@juniperandrage - thanks for the recommendation. I am going to look it up immediately. He was only recently diagnosed and guess what? So was I!!! (48 years old, and explains a lot!) Poor kid’s dad works in professional sport and he feels like such a failure!!!

A parent of a classmate of my younger daughter once wrote on FB 'It is official, X is outstanding' and attached X's school report for us all to read.

A mum from school posted on Facebook that her 3 year old (who had speech delay which she absolutely recognised) said out of the blue 'mummy even when it feels like all around us is darkness there are always glints of light'

@GlummyMcGlummerson
With regard to this particular girl, apparently every teacher she had ever had said she was top of the class in every subect. The mum used to WhatsApp the other parents to check their results against her dd's! Nobody would send their child's results because we all knew what she was doing. She once asked for a spelling test to be marked again because she only got 14 out of 20! Batshit crazy

I agree too. That’s not a brag, you’re proud! Totally different situation!

@chooseyourlamename The above was in response to your comment. 🤦🏻‍♀️🤪 I quoted it but it hasn’t added it in.

@GlummyMcGlummerson

I've seen a few "my child is top of the class" on here and SM.

Now I'm a teacher and I have never pegged someone as "top of the class", much less actually expressed it to anyone. There is no top of the class, it's impossible to measure because there's so many aspects to every child. Someone children very much struggle academically but are the kindest most thoughtful children going. Whereas the ones with the best exam results can have terrible attitudes. Who is telling you your children are "top of the class" - and were they the exact words used?

A couple of years ago under a different user name I started a thread asking how people knew their child was top of the class because I’d seen it said so much on here. I got a lot of “because the teacher told me lol” and and “I’m sorry your child isn’t doing well at school” replies.

I asked because in my experience teachers never talk about a child’s performance in relation to other children in their class. It’s only even either in relation to their own previous performance, or nationally set levels. I’d go as far as to say it’s pretty unprofessional, especially at primary level where the classes aren’t streamed and the parents see each other regularly, to say to a parent that little Johnny is doing so much better than the rest of the class.

@OrigamiPenguinArmy and @olbndanszombie - in short, unless there's very bad teachers these people are either
A. Lying, or
B. Wilfully or unconsciously misinterpreting the teacher's words.

It's a very bad teacher indeed who openly compares children to other children in the class to parents

@OrigamiPenguinArmy you could do what my DM did. Knowing parents embellish & lie she just used to check the book bags of any little visitors from school to gage how everyone was actually doing and how I was doing against them. I was when I found out years later but I'm sure she's not alone in it!

I was enjoying this thread before it went down hill! I agree with the ridiculous bragging. However I did want to say that I think some of the comments about awards and parents evening/reports are very cynical. I think that schools have become much better at looking at children holistically, rather than focusing on pure academic achievement and this is a good thing. So yes, all children in the class will get star of the week at some point but I don't think it's done in alphabetical order, the teachers look for a child who is trying hard or behaving better than usual that week. And for kids who aren't academic, awards that recognise other positive qualities are really important, and we'll deserved in the case of resilience etc. Those qualities may well be a better indicator than academic success of how well children do in life. My own children struggle academically and it's lovely that the school have recognised their other qualities, and the feedback I've recieved at parents evening is very much congruent with their personalities so I'm fairly sure it isn't code for 'dumb not not a trouble maker'.
And for those kids who struggle with behaviour, do we really want to give up on a child as they have poor impulse control at age 6? If those children are not made to feel good about themselves they are more likely to gravitate towards gangs etc, and I think it's right that small improvements are recognised.
I went to a very academic school, and was ignored as they realised I wasn't naturally academic. Thankfully I felt and attended the 'rough' local 6th form college. I now have a PhD and a career in academia which I love. The turn around was being with teachers who made the effort to look for my strengths and work with them.

I’ve heard of people looking in book bag on play dates! It’s bonkers but there are a few parents from the primary days I can imagine DH just that.

I don’t understand why people put a synopsis of parents evening on Facebook

@GlummyMcGlummerson
I work in a school and have never ever heard a single teacher say this either. It was definitely a lie on the parent's part. Mind you the dd has form for lying about things that have "not" happened in school and goes home and tells parents they have. So could be on either part tbh.
On a completely unrelated subject what does HTH mean??

Here to help

@Feministicon
Thank you!! Have been racking my brain!!

I just saw one where a women I know posted a pic of her dd dressed up for end of year school dance (not in uk). Fine so far. But the comment on the photo gushed about how the dd was so pretty, how her bf was so special to the family and how she came home from the dance "grinning from ear to ear". I cringed so hard for this poor girl! Imagine your mum posting that.

@GlummyMcGlummerson

I've seen a few "my child is top of the class" on here and SM.

Now I'm a teacher and I have never pegged someone as "top of the class", much less actually expressed it to anyone. There is no top of the class, it's impossible to measure because there's so many aspects to every child. Someone children very much struggle academically but are the kindest most thoughtful children going. Whereas the ones with the best exam results can have terrible attitudes. Who is telling you your children are "top of the class" - and were they the exact words used?

Agree. I would never have said stuff like that

olbndanszombie
Same here. I've never known staff genuinely say their child is top of the class.

I've known several parents call up to complain that their child has been moved down a set in schools where students aren't set at KS3. It's absolutely infuriating because even when told categorically that they will remain in a mixed ability class with that teacher, they insist that their child is in the wrong set because 'my child is much more intelligent than .... my husband and I have very important professional jobs so it's important our child isn't held back by being in lower sets'. Some also like to tell me I am lying because their child's timetable says '8B', which is obviously set 2, and this is damaging for their DC's self esteem and progress.
I find myself rolling my eyes on the phone as I point out for a 3rd time that Key Stage 3 classes are not sets because they are mixed ability.
🙄

The fact is that the older among us will recognise being top of the class was judged on exam results. Since they were all posted on the wall it was not difficult to judge who was top of the class. We did not need a teacher to tell us, although it was usually quite obvious who was getting the most praise.

@OrigamiPenguinArmy Definitely. However there were a few show off mums in my year who were competitive and quite nosy /back handed braggy at the school gates. So as awful as it is (I don't condone it) I think my mum went on covert bag-mining missions as a fight back for the truth- she definitely didn't believe some of the bullshit or get involved. I'm sure she wasn't alone in it either.

Her revenge was watching the mums of the "clever" girls in year 2 working out which was the other child (their Dds were 4/5 entrants) doing higher level English KS1 SATs. They asked a few other mums with dc they considered quite smart and spent quite a few days trying to suss out which girl in the class could it be. Eventually they gave up and mum quietly announced it was me but refused to be drawn any further. She'd made her point.

My cousin's wife posts on fb her child practicing the spellings; then she posts her results. She also does faux concern (she's a TA she ought to know capabilities) saying she tries so hard but it's not her best subject . Of course she laps up all the praise for her parenting.

Banj0girl
True, but that's not how schools work anymore. We don't judge our students based on individual exam results or rank them and we don't only dish out praise to the top few.

It's why parents these days who make a big deal telling everyone that DC's teachers always comment on how they are top of the class, the best sportsperson, he best musician, the best artist etc are talking nonsense 99% of the time.

Students can often work out where they attain roughly in a class, especially if in primary school they have evidently tiered tables, but they can't say they are top and better than everyone else. Parents who turn everything into a competition for bragging rights do their children a huge disservice.

Unfortunately the children who go through primary school with boastful parents who turn everything into a competition can sometimes find moving to secondary school difficult because they might have been high (so sat roughly top 6 in their class or always given a big part in the play, always made the sports teams) in year 6, but when you put them in a cohort of 200-250 students then they could easily find themselves in the top 25-30% but not the shining star or child genius their parents have spent years telling them. For some children this is quite an upsetting realisation because instead of their parents valuing their effort and attitude to learning, they've internalised that they have to be top and only top will do (so mum and dad can boast). Some end up really embarrassed at parents' evenings as their parents try to push and argue with teachers.

I've had students apologise to me the following day for their parents' attitude on parents' evening and had some students warn me that their parents have a bee in their bonnet about a non-issue.

@Banj0girl teaching has changed dramatically and a child's success isn't always measured on exam results, thankfully

Super amazing parents evening with xxxxx the best one ever we couldn’t ask for anymore...smashed it princess