Saying that most parents are competitive to some extent?

[Talkwhilstyouwalk]

I have 2 DD's and, whilst my main hopes for them are that they are happy, healthy, kind and polite I will admit to being secretly quite competitive when it comes to things like sports and academics.

For example, I'm secretly loving it that my reception age DD is on a year two book band which is much higher than most of her peers. But I know that maths hasn't quite clicked for her yet so I'm keeping everything crossed that it does. I wouldn't say I'm too pushy but I make sure we put a reasonable amount of time into reading and the weekly 'homework' that she gets. Over homeschooling I was far more bothered about the feedback she got than she was 😂

I guess a lot of this comes down to wanting my kids to excel/not to struggle at school. I was a fairly average student but have done well in life so I don't know why I'm secretly so competitive! I would never admit to this to my friends in real life!!

Anyone else like this?!

Also I think there are different types of competitive.

We certainly wanted our children to do their best, make the most of their opportunities and to work hard.

But that is within our family.

What their friends do is none of our business.

All of my children have friends that are seriously academic and brighter than they are, but that is life.

Our focus is OUR children and ensuring that THEY do what they need to do to do well in THEIR exams and get whichever university course they want.

I truthfully wouldn't know IRL a single parent that doesn't want the same.

Over the years my eldest son used to joke about hearing other parents roaring at their son's to "get off the ps4 and get some study done", just as I have done.🤣

Part of parenting IMO.

I can't imagine anything worse that a child turning around and asking why I didn't push them more to study harder and achieve more.

Some children are self starters and just do the work required (my husband was one).

But others need pushing and encouragement to see how important it will be for their future choices.

No, I’m not like this at all because my DC have differing abilities. Two of my DC are exceptional across the board, have always been in the top groups and became free readers before anyone else in their class. I praise them when they do well of course but I try not to make my other DD feel bad because she just isn’t as academic. She’s very athletic so skilled at sports, especially climbing but she’s always been behind her siblings academically.

I feel bad for her and try to support her as much as I can. DH and I are both academics so I’m not sure why she is so different but it’s for this reason alone that I’m not a competitive parent. I’m just pleased when DD gets 7 or 8 /10 in her spelling test because it’s a big deal for her to achieve this. If she gets 9 or 10 I make a huge deal of it even though her siblings get 10 every week.

@Mugsen

But surely wanting your DC to be "invited to all the birthday parties" is competitive? I want mine to reach their potential I suppose. It would feel bad if they didn't. But sometimes things get in the way of that. You can only do your best at the end of the day. Whilst I did have visions of them being exceptionally talented in a variety of ways, it turns out they're much like me and dh.

Not really, I don't keep score or feel smug because they are invited to MORE birthday parties than anyone else.

I just like to know they are having a good time and have a great group of friends. As long as they are not ridiculously behind at school, that's enough for kids in Primary.

I start giving them a kick in the backside (if needed) in Secondary, but it's in their own interest, it has nothing to do with being competitive with other parents.

My kids are in a good school, have working parents who have done rather ok, so I am quite chilled about it.

To the poster who said they "facilated rather than pushed" can you elaborate on what you meant.. Sounds interesting!

I guess a lot of this comes down to wanting my kids to excel/not to struggle at school. I was a fairly average student but have done well in life so I don't know why I'm secretly so competitive!

I would guess it's probably because you feel like you underperformed at school (if you were average but later did well that suggests that you had more potential than average results reflected?) and so feel on some level that you have something to prove through your child? This is going to make me sound like the biggest twat on this thread of people admitting to twatty tendencies but I think the reason I find it easy to ignore not to get caught up in this kind of thing is because I'm really secure in my own academic achievements (not in many other areas of life, but that one I nailed!) and so I don't think I need to 'prove' I'm clever by having very advanced children. The worst person I know for this is my friend's wife - she has a lot less formal education than his social circle all do and it's clear that she's desperate for their (very young) child to be the most advanced to prove that she isn't stupid (which no one thinks she is, to be clear - she clearly isn't!).