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.

My oldest dc's school was like this! Things that had clearly been made by parents always won!! Its unfair and wrong! It was always the same parents btw!

It's mildly irritating but it's hardly going to matter outside the tiny world of primary school is it?

I read it as the mum got to sit in a throne all day with a bag of sweets!!

There’s always been parents like this. I had a 10/11 year old hand in a project that included a mix tape.As I read through the (vast) book that had been written “by the child” I was supposed to press play at certain places to hear associated music. Parent was well peed off their kid didn’t win the prize. It went to a child who’d written their own work.

I'd say 70% of entries st my kids school are made by parents but the school rarely place them in first place, it's always a winner that's clearly been made by the child

One of my dc was quite talented at making stuff .I remember him once doing an amazingly intricate Titanic, junk model.I am sure the teachers didnt believe in a million years it was the work of an unassisted 7 year old.

This is why all projects like this should be actually made at school either in art lessons or at art club.

This is clearly completely out of order!
The school should separate entries that have clearly been made by the parent and judge them separately making it very clear that they are awarding prizes to the parents of the children rather than the children.
I'm wondering if the cheating mother has got dirt on the teachers?

That's shit , my dc have finished primary now and I used to help out in the school alot. The kids whos parents had obviously made the things never placed they always picked the bonnets etc where it was made by the child with maybe some help from parents. I'm glad they did it this way as otherwise it wasn't fair

On the other side of the coin, when I was in Year 3 everyone was fairly rubbish to the same standard at drawing, except one little boy who was amazing compared to us and could draw realistic animals with perspective and texture.

He won everything for art inside our class - which we all felt was perfectly fine, as he was clearly in a different league and wasn't stuck up about it - but although our teachers kept encouraging him to enter other art competitions (at the library, in magazines etc) he never ever won those because presumably the judges always assumed a parent must have done it and chose to reward much less good drawings at the usual level instead. I can recall us all being outraged on his behalf! (village where we all went to the same library/youth group/etc)

Well I think this whole system is shitty as there’s always going to be 29 kids feeling bad.

Our school has an award system - you get stickers for good work, behaviour, helping out etc. it’s not just academic and everyone has an equal chance to earn stickers. Plus it based on work done at school not home…

This happened to us first week in reception with eldest dd. Decorate a shoe box. Dd did painted her box, cut and glued animals all over it, then covered it in glitter and wrote her name on it. All herself. I didn’t help at all (too busy cleaning up the glitter). She was very pleased with it. It looked like a 4 year old had made it.

Most of the others had beautifully covered boxes with bows and wallpaper coverings or paintings of cars or cats on the front etc - I’m not convinced some of the 4 year olds got to even help with the box.

I felt really awful at the time but now I’m older and wiser I’m okay with it. I followed the instructions! There wasn’t a prize but now I think it’s sad so many kids didn’t get to do the activity.

TT rock stars is often done by parents too apparently - you can tell if the time is too quick 😂.

You said you hadn't raised it with the teacher because she's new? Why didn't you raise it with the previous one?

I wrote a poem for my eight year old son. Just to make my life easier basically. It was either fight him to finish this piece of homework, or just have him copy what I'd written. Which was a battle in itself.

Forgot all about it until we received a letter telling us it was going to be published in a book of children's poetry from around the country.

Absolutely mortified. My son is a lot of things, but poet? Nah. From that moment on, my kids paint their own easter eggs and do their own homework.

I did buy a copy of the poetry book and we joke how I finally became a published writer.

Around here most (all) parents do help quite a lot on all crafty projects. I can’t believe I have ever seen an Easter bonnet made by children, I used to ask my nanny to make these for my children.

Don’t get me wrong, I would by far prefer if all these were 100% made by the children but I also don’t want my children to be the ones turning up with the poorly made bonnet/costume/piece of art when everybody else has a great one. Oh and they actually ask (beg) me to to it for them - because they know their friends parents are doing it.

My suggestion? Stop asking children to make crafts at home for school.

Our school actually stopped the yearly Easter egg competition because it became totally hijacked by parents year after year. It happens everywhere but teachers should be able to see which have been made by a child and which clearly haven’t.

The schools enable this. I am in Wales and every year we have a contest to create something for St David’s Day. Usually it is won by child in reception or Y1 who has created a giant wooden scale model of the millennium centre or a mechanical dragon or a 6 foot tall papier mache daffodil. It is utterly ridiculous!

I'm so glad our school doesn't do stuff like this! I'd be pretty useless at helping

At my children’s school Easter bonnets were made in class and the juniors came to the infants to help.

I remember one mum had to pull up in a van to get the Viking longboat her 5 year old had apparently whittled, into the classroom. It was remarkable really as the child struggled to hold a pencil properly.

I'm not the least bit creative or arty, so DD never won anything. Neither of us were bothered though.

I'm disappointed that a minority of posters on this thread think it is OK to do this.

I would never be able to get away with this with my son, he has loose lips and would grass me straight up! 😂

This happened to my son. His Easter bonnet looked awful compared to the rest. The teacher started to ask the pupils how they’d come up with the idea, and how long it had taken to make. When the kids looked to their parents for answers there were a few embarrassed prompts and admissions of helping a little bit “but X did most of it, not me” type answers.

Out DS gave proper answers as it had taken him 10 minutes and he came up with the very basic and simple idea that looked like a 6yr old had done it (DS was probably about 8 at the time 😂) . DS wore his sparsely decorated winning cap with pride for the rest of the school garden fete.

This infuriates me too!
I am making a pirate ship today with my son for parent/pupil project and he has already said how most of the mum's just do it for them and they win every time.
Last term the school even awarded a mum herself for her work! I think it's outrageous. It's supposed to be parents help work with their kid, not so it themselves. Very sad for the kids.

This pisses me off as well. Our school have got very good at sniffing these out though I have to say. I mean it's quite obvious!

There's one of those mum's at our daughter's school. If she chooses not to let her child be involved in creative things, then it's that child who ultimately loses out.
We had sports day on a beautiful day last year. Most of us had gone straight from work, but this mum had clearly spent the morning straightening her hair and painting her nails. Lovely floaty dress, you get the idea...
When the mums race was announced, she produced a pair of trainers, complete with running spikes!
Some people just can't bear the thought of others being successful. Everything is a competition to them.