To think some parents can't accept their kids are just normal & average?

[Devonco]

In my children's circles there are some parents (very wealthy & highly educated) who refuse to accept their dc are average & normal.
They are constantly complaining their dc aren't pushed enough in school, aren't getting on better in extracurriculars etc.. Throw money at the "problems" then complain..
Also openly despise children who aren't as affluent as theirs surpassing theirs academically & in extracurriculars..
Drives me batty & I feel they should just let their lovely dc at peace & let them find their own path

If I had the choice, I'd definitely prefer my kid to have emotional intelligence rather than academic intelligence. I'm the more academic one in our family, third level education etc. H has no third level, quite basic second level, but he's light years ahead of me in terms of 'cop on'.

Friends Ds got a fully paid for sports scholarship to a US colleges from
a state school - you don’t need to go to a private school to access that. Also school differentiation will probably mean less in the states anyway so is a good option for state pupils.

Just checking that you meant what I thought you meant. I have direct experience of a primary like that as we ended up there as it was our catchment school. My DC were naturally very academic and we were very low-key about it but the hostility and competitiveness from other parents (and their DC by extension) was astounding. It really shocked me. It was a CofE school as well and the values were anything but. It was tutor-tastic from about Year 2 and so materialistic, just awful. My best friend's DC were at a high ranking London prep and the atmosphere was nowhere near as toxic as our state primary. I put it down to wannabe syndrome. They were all maxed out on their mortgages on their £2 million plus houses and probably couldn't stretch to primary school fees but were saving like mad for private secondary. They really were not a nice bunch of parents or DC. We escaped!

In all honesty I find people like you intolerable.
I highly doubt that these people are telling you intiricate details of your wealth and education as you sit next to them at the pta. They are either your friends, otherwise you wouldn’t know so much information about their lives- therefore you should either accept them for who they are, or grow a pair and not be their friend….. or, as I suspect, you are just projecting a wealth of insecurities onto a bunch of people you barely know and justifying it to yourself by inadvertently criticising their children as ‘average’.

personally, I’ve never met an ‘average’ child yet. But plenty of bored, average adults, most of whom whine about their friends behind their backs.

You can do a lot with an average kid though with the right support. Unless you’re planning to be a rocket scientist or something like that, you only need a certain level of intelligence to do some really good jobs.

@CalisthenicsOnDemand

I think having a natural talent means better than average - not necessarily top 10%.

I think one of the most underrated attributes is determination.

Very average people can achieve amazing things with determination

No these are not my friends. They are the parents of my children's friends. Acquaintances. They absolutely exist & have a very entitled attitude as to what their own children should be accomplishing. And that's surprising you havn't met an average child, the vast majority of children are average, middle of the road, meeting all expectations (except the expectations of some sharp elbowed parents)..

‘Unless you’re planning to be a rocket scientist or something like that,’

i know an actual rocket scientist- dull as dishwater and finds it hard to look people in the eye when talking to them. Social skills of a goldfish… being really really good at one thing doesn’t always make someone the ‘best’ at many other things…

You get that in sport too. DH was a football coach in a city famous for football and the number of parents aggressively pushing that their son was going to be the next Pele was incredible.

Yes, sporty parents are something else - the rage and emotion being shouted at tiny kids from the side of fields is quite terrifying at times.

I'm sure some of the parents you're talking about are just arseholes, but I wonder whether some of them are parents who only know how to use a hammer, when their kid is a screw

This is a really interesting point. I think some nuance is being missed here.

Yes there undoubtedly are some pushy parents who are entitled snobs who are used to being top dog and think they can buy success for their kids.

There are also some people who are academically high achieving for whom this is just the norm: spending money on coaching or music lessons is just what people do and they would feel their kids were missing out if they didn’t support them. And these people as you say often aren’t equipped for a less academic child.

Then there another group of parents who are aspirational for their kids because they lacked these advantages when they were children and don’t want their kids to miss out.

I think also you have to take the chances you have in life. Yes it’s very unlikely your kid will go on to be an elite athlete or a world class violin player but wouldn’t you kick yourself more if you didn’t at least give them the chance to try?

The reality is that it’s a competitive world and children do need to compete. Being sharp elbowed and unrealistic about your kid’s abilities isn’t great. But neither is encouraging mediocrity and inertia in a child with potential.

My granddaughter is very arty and has always been. In her junior school, (which was in a well off area) the other mothers used to see my gd doing very well & questioned the teachers ethics. Now I understand we all want our children to do well but this one parent used to question me when I picked her up about why she was so good, my reply, children excel in different things. She took her child out of that school into another & her child still did not do well. Its the child not the school. You can throw money around all you want & come from wealthy background but it's the child at the end who is doing this work. BTW my gd is in art school now doing extremely well and other child, well apparently she went down another path n her parents disowned her. Leave your kids alone they develop skills at there own pace

It's hard to know what's for the best sometimes tbh. If they show an interest in something and you sign them up, and all of a sudden they've lost interest, do you force them to see it through even though they're no longer enjoying it, or accept it's not for them and let them quit. I can see the merit in both of those approaches and the pitfalls tbh. Mine is such a lazy arse I'm taking a wait and see approach now, she's just recently picked her secondary school subjects, all her own choices. I would be very slow to let her change those, it would only be on the advice of the teacher I think. (I just wish the little wagon had picked a language I knew 😂)

Denis Law - Manchester United's mens third highest goal scorer did not wear shoes till he was 12 years old.natural talent cannot be bought. But access to opportunities unfortunately can be.

How did he get through school without shoes? I would have thought teachers/priests etc would have stepped in in that case?

Brilliant 😂😂😂!!!

But without private schools, those children would still be going to the better state schools - those in the posher areas with generally better behaved children and pushier parents. They’d still have parents and peers. who prioritise academic achievement. They’d still be getting private after school tuition (probably even more so).They’d still be getting better grades.

Paying for private education is a symptom of significant social economic disparity, but not the cause of it.

There was probably a class full of barefooted kids. He was given some second hand football boots as he got older for his birthday.

And my point is even with people paid thousands a day today he is still the third highest all time scorer!

I doubt that tbh. I stand to be corrected of course, but I sincerely doubt it.

Huh they are everywhere. Remember some parents discussing schools how difficult it was to get their precocious little darling in. This while waiting outside the same private nursery for our DC. Asked me which school I preferred I just shrugged named a couple of state schools they obviously assumed I couldn't afford a private education for my DC. They were wrong but I just thought I succeeded by going to state school and college. Were they shocked when they saw me put DC into my Jag and drive off. People are so up their own backsides. I just find them amusing and full of their own self importance. Also note my D C has bought his own house has 3 lovely DC an excellent job. He decided to work his way up the ladder instead of going to uni as he didn't want the debt. His friends from nursery are still looking for that perfect job lol.

IMO whether to push depends on the personality of the child.
Giftedness = talent + passion, to achieve a high level. Extremely difficult if you hate something although you have ability, and vice versa.
The kids that are gifted IMO would happily spend lots and lots of time doing it, but sometimes the pressure knocks their confidence and causes them to want to give up. However a lot of kids aren't really 'gifted' in the first place... they just want to do it because it's cool, or they just enjoy it but have no desire to achieve further, just not motivated.
I have the firm belief that, even if it comes to nothing 'concrete' it'll still have developed them in a good way. Intellectually, physically and/or creatively. I'd never see it as money wasted.

After a long time in the corporate world, despite the emphasis on 'high achieving' kids I see successful people from many backgrounds. People blossom at different rates, and as they grow into adulthood change a lot, and can have different motivations.

Personally, I'd be disappointed if my children lacked curiosity, self-awareness, grit and common sense/street smarts. These things can't be measured easily. Anything else - meh.

I wouldn't overly push anything even if my child was gifted. I really wouldn't like to push something they didn't want to do. Imo, let them pursue their own interests as they see fit. But perhaps, if they sign up to something for a term, they should stick with that for the term. Depends really. I'd hate to make them suffer if they really hated it, equally I wouldn't like to send a message that that it didn't matter about the money we paid for the lessons.

That's fair enough! Personally I try to avoid signing them up for anything without a 'taster' but of course that's not possible for everything. Also, if they're not going to continue anyway the money paid for a term is wasted. Sending them because you've paid incurs extra effort and cost on your part... especially for things like music where no practice = waste of a lesson anyway.

We've tried that but madame made it very clear she had no interest. So we just said ok. But we won't be signing up up to random stuff again. In future I'm going to be properly lead by her or school. I might have wrongly assumed that she'd like music/sport etc because I had as a child. She might just find her own path.