She always wins because she cheats!

[abouttogetlynched]

AIBU to be pissed off that my 8 y/os friends mum makes stuff for her kid for school when it’s supposed to be made by the kid and she ultimately wins every time for the best item?
She won best Easter bonnet competition and won a giant Easter egg, she won best something or other at Christmas and got extra breaks, she won something creative last year and got to sit on a ‘throne’ all day at school and a big bag of sweets. But the mum makes all these things for her and not only should it be very obvious to the teachers that it’s not been made by an 8 year old, but the mum tells me she’s made it all and laughs about it. The kid is never involved in helping or even gives ideas, and often doesn’t even see the item until it’s given to her on the day of the competition. The one at Christmas she hadn’t seen at all coz the mum just handed it in directly to school.
The kid never admits that she’s had no involvement in making it and gratefully accepts the rewards and attention lavished on her for always winning at these creative competitions. My DD is getting quite jealous at this friend apparently being so much better than her at things and always winning. Pisses me off.

I would request no more "homework" competitions from school. They sound very naive.

A tale as old as time and still as bloody annoying.

One of my children always put in a huge amount of effort and hours and hours of commitment to every project - they were always terrible in comparison to most of their classmates for varying reasons.

One "kid" made a bunker with working lights. Yeah I am talking about you, teacher, who absolutely should have known better to do this for your child.

Is this a private school OP?

This happened every year at my child's school. the parent did the egg and took it in- how did I know? I lived next door to them and would see the Mum outside in the morning picking little fresh flowers as part of this massive adult made display.

School got wise to it and said they could take in a plain egg box and egg.

So the next year, my daughter actually won. She wanted to make an egg bird (of course!) so she took a box, painted the inside blue, painted the egg and taped the egg to a piece of string. It looked exactly like an egg on a piece of string but she won! The teacher said to me that she worked on it non stop for several hours trying to get it right.

We walked back to the car and we could see the child who had won every single other year having the biggest screaming car kicking tantrum you had ever seen. So I'm guessing that the child was a very bad loser and Mum made it every year so the child could win. But then thinking about it, never allowing her to lose wouldn't help her to learn how to lose graciously, I guess.......

As far as you know. Maybe mum is spending her weekends on TT Rockstars too? Sad idiot.

Personally, I'd wait until the next comp is announced and email the school to say that it's been clear for some time that the school is giving awards for submissions that have clearly had very little involvement from the children and so you are declining to continue to humiliate your child who has become demotivated and upset by it.

The Tudor projects done by '10' year olds - full wooden houses built by time served local carpenters furnished by art graduate parents.
'homemade' dresses like something from the royal opera house.
But I'm not the one storing it in my loft.
Our solution was Tudor smells.... honestly, what a winner. Samuel Pepys cheese, horse manure, cloves...no one is looking at the row of real estate when they are playing guess the stench.

The other winner from our home, entirely child produced was Anne Franks House in Minecraft.

My DDs have continued to do all their own work and by the time it gets to secondary it makes a massive difference. Be supportive, be encouraging, don't fret about 'wasting' materials, you can spend a lot of time hanging around the kitchen just in case you need to head off disaster but they need to see you make & do your own stuff not theirs.

@Dinoswearunderpants you may feel differently when your child starts school. The stuff you now call “petty drama” will actually be very important because it will massively affect your child.

@abouttogetlynched Do not mention Rock Stars. I had a little go to see what it was about and I got everything wrong. I absolutely did not blame my younger child when the child the account belonged too was very, very, very upset.

No, state primary. OFSTED outstanding if you can believe!

It starts really early. DD's nursery had an Easter bonnet competition in the pre-school class. I bought DD a hat from the Works and a load of Easter decorations and she decorated the bonnet herself. She even cut up and stuck on some pictures she'd drawn. It was very sweet but very much a 4 year old's creation.

I had to drop it off in the room and there were piles of gorgeous Easter bonnets - amazing creations but clearly no pre- schooler had been near them. Anyway, DD came home with the prize (a packet of haribo) and the staff told us that she won it because she was the only one who had clearly made it herself. I thought at the time that was a bit sad but they don't really care at that age. By primary though, it must be awful if you have to pass off your parent's work as yours!

😂
when they first got their log ins I went on to see what it was all about and properly messed up the scores because I was just having a look around the site to figure out and didn’t know the apparent damage I was causing. So you’re not alone lol

@Dinoswearunderpants Yeah it is petty, until you have a child who spends 20+ hours on a project. Asks for reassurance that its good enough x 1000 and they rock up at school proud as punch to see that some of their peers are submitting their parents work and the teacher will turn a blind eye and bang on about what a talent they are and how incredible their work is. You then have to comfort them and deal with severe anxiety the time a project is due. But yeah, it is petty.

Next time she does it congratulate her, the mother, on winning yet again by cheating, preferably when there are other people around, see how smug she is then.
Back in the days of Maths coursework I refused to accept a piece of work from a pupils who, I believed because I'd tried to talk to her about it, hadn't done the work. The father kicked off and the school management told me I had to accept it! Didn't do her much good, her final result was still pretty dire.

Good on her.
It makes my blood boil when children are subjected to such unfairness.
Life is tough enough without them seeing unfairness in plain sight practised in their school.
I'd have to have a word with the headteacher.
It's ridiculous.
What sort of idiots are the staff allowing this ?

I think with these sorts of projects, parents help to some degree. Its just the way it is. But i do get it that if the same child keeps winning, the teachers should be the ones to understand that this is unfair on the kids and give some motivation to the ones that aren't chosen.

My DD is really upset that the same child keeps winner the 'best sticker' in one subject at school. She tells me all the other kids are fed up and so this will obviously demotivate them. I intend on having a word with the teacher at parents evening. Surely if you keep awarding the same child week in, week out, the other kids will feel shit!

When my son was 6 they had an Easter egg competition at school and he had no interest in it whatsoever so I spent hours creating what I would say was the best looking egg in the world lol anyway he comes running out of school a few days later with a massive chocolate Easter egg as he had won first prize!! I can honestly say I felt bloody awful lol I was actually a bit annoyed tbh because it was so obviously not done by him and I didn’t even do it to win anything I just genuinely enjoyed creating it. First and last time I ever did anything like that because I felt like I had robbed a kid of the chance to win something lol it is very unfair and I was mortified by it

Yes, the school should be able to tell. My DD won a colouring competition where her efforts were clearly less accomplished than those of the parents of other children. The prize was tickets for the family to a local rather downmarket theme park. It was ...sticky, and smelt of old fat and vinegar.

What do you say to her when she says this?
"Christ I have better things to do with my time and think she needs to learn to work on things herself if she wants a reward. Why do you do that?"

Again, I’m not in the UK. But why do school make the students do stuff like this at home? What is the point?! If it’s that important they to do crafts they should do it during school hours and provide the material.

And not make it into some stupid unequal competition with prizes. Nothing of it makes any sense. There is no way in hell it would be happening here. School even had the kids do homework at school (or just after school), so that everyone had access to equal help from an educated teacher.

I would speak to the teacher about what the expectation is.

”Am I supposed to be making these projects as c friend has told me she is making them for her child. As they’ve been far beyond a child’s standard, can I just check it’s not intended as a project for parents?”

I’ve said similar and she’ll say because she’s bored or because she’s a perfectionist. Or I’ll say “Wow, you reaaaalllly wanted that bag of sweets didn’t you? I hope she’s going to give them to you.” She laughs even though I’m not. She isn’t even embarrassed.

Tell the school your child is no longer taking part in these competitions.

She may not be embarrassed but she is an embarrassment to her child and damaging her self esteem.

I would just ignore it. I remember with one of mine the teacher called me in one day at pick up to discuss my child’s craft projects. They actually said ‘I’d like to show you the standard of the other children in the class, and your child’s’. It was obvious all the others she pointed out had been done completely by a parent, and no 4/5/6yo had touched it whatsoever. My child’s looked like it had been done by a 5yo. I actually thought she was showing me in order to congratulate the work my child was doing. But no. It was to point out that my child’s looked sub-par compared to the others that had clearly been done by scrap-booker mums. In that instant I realised the teacher was batshit crazy.