..to think that having a child who is average is fine. And that having a child who is advanced does not actually reflect upon anyone

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...I have a staggeringly bright boy. i have another boy who has severe SN. I have a DD who is so far so average.
trhey are nice people. they are well mannered and very kind to each other. Loving, polite and affectionate.
I am not responsible for their IQ's - that is down to god the universe and genes .
The bright boy is not nicer than the boy with SN. My gorgeous average little DD is not of less worth than her more able brother.

Why are we all so obsessed with our kids 'smarts as if that is some holy grail bestowing health wealth and happiness.
And why do some of us seem to want to derive some vicarious kudos from the talents that their kids got from god knows where?

When did that start ?
AIBU that a whole generation of parents are going to be looking at their offspring in 20 years time wondering why they are just as averagly happy as everyone else ?

I dunno Fio, my mother was quite young when she had me and my sister and she was always very keen for us to do well academically. And very prejudiced against 'thick' people. Extremely bright herself - didn't just pass the 11+ but in the top few and got into a direct grant school (i.e. private but you didn't have to pay). She was devastated when my sister rebelled and dropped out of school.

Have to admit I am pleased ds seems clever academically. But I'll adore him whether he does well at school or fucks up.

Kerrymum

I think its more along the lines that if someone is constantly telling all and sundry how smart their child is, then they are being a bit of an arse. It might just be a fleeting moment of arse-like behaviour, blinded by love and admiration for their child or they might actually be an arse and bang on about it all the time making them less than popular with other parents and staff at their own child's school.

OMG KM they do, they do!

And what's more they ask how well your child is doing and then compare them

I thought it was an urban myth until DS started school (nursery parents lovely, school parents mostly lovely but subset of scary ones).

I find all the competitive stuff really upsetting. It upset me on Child of Our Time that little Rebecca was stressing about her SATS. Ds1 doesn't even know (purposely) that they are assessed at the end of this academic year, and I won't be telling him or anyone else his results. The whole SATS thing is designed to feed the competitive parent imo.

I also teach piano, and even there the parents are competitive between themselves - it's very obvious that all the children are very different, and I try to explain this (without saying 'you are competitive), I try and say that 'xyz has done really well on his scales, he obviously is good at patterns, now let's focus on his reading a bit', because otherwise the competition can be rife.

And I find the whole thing upsetting as regards ds2 who has just turned 2. He is fine, no problems as far as I can see, is a lovely lovely little chap, jolly, sociable, kind, sweet. But he is a later developer - he walked at 20+ months, crawled at 14 months, and at 2 he is just starting to use a few words - which don't really sound like words, but if you know what you're listening for then they are. Eg - Da - Daddy, mumu - Mummy, Deoo - drink/juice, boooo - train. The words are coming, I'm not worried. But I do have friends with similar aged children who delight in telling me that their nearly 2 year old knows all his letters , sings 20 songs in tune and can count to 100. This is always followed by 'what's your ds doing? Oh. Are you worried?'.

And the competition for school places is also depressing - parents seem to go to any lengths to put their child ahead of the others, and seem to trample on anyone in their way. It's not right.

The reading levels is a classic - 'what level is your dd on? Which page? How much do you do at home?' blah blah blah.

I think that there is a difference between wanting your children to do well , which I think is fairly universal among 'normal' parents. My parents wanted me to do well and encouraged me to take any opportunities tat came my way.

What they didn't do was worry and fret over providing those opportunities. Which I think is the essential difference between parenting in the 60s, when I was a kid and now.

Now we think that we have to offer out kids everything or they will in some way be forever thwarted. Sometimes all they need to do is run round with other kids

I let dd nag me for 6 months before I let her start piano. I've been burned by too many flash in the pan 'enthusiasms' in the past

MB - that is such a wise post. And I think that mentality (which I am guilty of, everytime one of ds1's friends starts something like kumon maths or something I fret and fret that I am letting him down in some way) comes from this idea of 'being the best'.

Have you seen the Johnny Depp version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. My kids are going through a 'Johnny Depp phase' atm (shame), and Violet Beauregarde (sp)'s mother is the archetypal 'competitive mum' - 'Eyes on the prize, Violet, eyes on the prize'. And her comment at the end when Violet says 'Look Mum, I'm much more flexible now' she says 'But you're blue.' i.e. not perfect. And also her comment 'she's so driven. I can't imagine where she gets it from.' before displaying her many 'baton' trophies.

MB, they do have to want to do it, because it is a big commitment. Ds1 had to beg me to start him on the piano, and he loves it, but I did hold off until the point where he was desperate to do it.

Tell him the reason he has to practise is nothing to do with knowing the notes, it's building up the muscles in his fingers and hardwiring the patterns into his brain, otherwise he won't be able to progress. The notes simply enable him to do this.

Ds1 is fantastic about practising, much better than I could have ever hoped for (I was dreading it tbh) - he does 20-30 mins piano each day, 10-15 mins violin, which I think is pretty amazing at age 6. But one of the things he really enjoys are the 'Dozen a Day' books - they are books of shortish exercises, each based on a gymnastic move - perhaps the splits (contrary motion scale), breathing (chords), stretches (stretching the little finger) etc. He does gymnastics, and this really appeals to him, and it also feels more like a 'workout for the fingers' rather than 'learning notes'. He does 12 exercises each day, then moves onto the next group when they're really easy.

And this really wasn't a brag! Reading back, in the context of this thread, it feels like one, just trying to help KM!

Maybe I have a differnt perpective because DS sheres not one teeny tiny gene with me and therefore his fantastic good looks and genius level intelligence (only my opinion but sure to be independently corroborated at some point), whilst attriuctes to be marvelled at (and I do frequently) I see as just him (IYSWIM).

What will thrill me immensely is if he can turn out to be a stable and happy man living above the poverty line despite the fact that he wasn't dealt the best hand possible.

I have seen it in my cello teaching "Do you think X will have a career in music ahead of him?"

"No idead, he's 6 and hasn't mastered holding the bow yet"

My kids are bright average and "behind" in equal measure. They asre just normal kids IMHO.

All kids are good at some things and crap at others IME. It's abour encouraging them in what they are interested in doing, not what parents think will make them look better.

I must admit, I am always when folk go on about baby signing. Both of mine let me know what they wanted b6y screeching at 986729 decibels and pointing, and I didn;t have to spend £££ being patronised by a smugger

Certainly where I live (SW London) there is constant parental neurosis that if you don't start 'em off right they'll have a miserable life - which leads to irrational anxiety about 'averageness'. I think some other places must be more laid back.

I know someone who said of their 7 year old, at a selective private school, "We need to make sure she stays in the top quarter of the class if she's to have any chance of getting to Oxbridge."

But in general people want to think their children are special - and intellectual specialness is part of it. We are all charmed when our babies do things for the first time and we think they are the cleverest and most wonderful babies in the world. We know they're not, objectively, but they are to us.

Being 'clever' is genetic luck just as being good-looking or tall or musical or a fast runner is genetic luck. That doesn't mean that people shouldn't be pleased that their children have lucked out in any of these areas. We love them. We want them to be lucky.

DD1 has a friend who 'composes jazz', and managed to learn piano without reading music. His music teacher has now discovered how he could memorise things, and has restarted him on the basics. DD1 is delighted, as she has to slog away and is now well ahead of him in 'grades'. Me, i hated piano lessons and finally escaped when I couldn't do the middle bit of 'The Rose of Tralee'. So, if he doesn't want to do the boring stuff he might end up being sneered at by a local DD1!

I agree with what you say, till you got to baby signing. Not sure how that follows? Babies learn to sign if you show them - it doesn't mean they're gifted if they pick it up? And it does cut down on the screeching, imo and ime. You don't need to spend money on classes - you can make your own signs up if you're consistent.

stleger, that's really interesting, because jazz probably is the area where certainly the reading is less important. But in jazz the scales are almost MORE important, so that when it comes to improvising the various options (blues scales, whole tone scales, jazz sequences) are in your fingers already.

KM - you could tell him the famous quote 'If I don't practise for 1 day, I notice it. If I don't practise for 2 days, my wife notices it. If I don't practise for 3 days, the audience notices it.'