To think "pushy parents" need sorting out?

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By pushy parents, I mean the ones whose eight-year-old daughter virtually lives at stage school or whose clever son has extra tuition in maths, with a view to him achieving a Master's by the time he is twelve.

They crucify these poor kids in a quest to have everyone acknowledge their talent as if it were their own.

I would happily have a quiet word and point these things out... free of charge.

OP, I see where you are coming from and I sort of agree but my parents (working class, uneducated) never pushed me at all (I was surprisingly academic, did well at school, ended up going to university etc). As a result, I did less well than I could have done had I been sat down and made to study like some of my friends were. Also my brother and I were allowed to join things and then give up for no real reason. I don't think children always know what's best for them and sometimes a bit of discipline and yes, you are going to your violin lesson/dance class/swimming lesson etc is a good thing.

I don't think supporting a child's enthusiasms and interests whether sporting musical or academic is pushy. I do feel sorry for the ones you see taking their maths (or whatever subject but it is usually maths) GCSE at 6, the A level at 8 and off to Uni at 12. Surely a well rounded education and acquiring social skills are essential as is having fun.

I was at Oxford at the same time as a 12 year old girl Ruth Lawrence and her VERY pushy father. We all felt sorry for her and loathed him. He had to be banned from student societies and meetings and she had no friends and no social life. Several such prodigies have later turned round and accused their parents of a form of abuse for pushing so hard and denying them a childhood.

Personally I found that whatever my parents tried to push me towards I automatically didn't want to do. However they totally weren't arsed about one of my interests, which has been the one which has brought me the most success.

It can be damaging when it becomes no longer about the child themselves.

I am one of 2.

My mother insisted on at least one activity every night. She hated the idea of down time or that we should not be doing something every minute of the day.

Most evenings would be at least one afterschool activity (some nights 2) plus homework plus 2 lots of music practice. Weekends would be activity after activity.

My sister loved it - as an adult she is constantly busy. Involved in running several of these clubs while working and having many clubs of her own to attend.

I hated every moment of it. I had no time or energy for homework so I didn't do it. My music suffered in the end as due to the other clubs I had no time to commit to the practice. I didn't enjoy most of the stuff I did. Even when I had glandular fever and was missing huge amounts of time off school I was still expected to attend.

After a sponsered stay awake one night at 10yo I was not allowed to miss my piano lesson followed by orchestra practice followed by something else the next day. I was too exhausted to participate.

By the time I was in my early teens I did (in a week) piano lesson, violin lesson, rugby training, swimming training, orchestra (3 different ones), choir (3 different ones), guides, 2 church youth groups.

The sport replaced the dancing (2 different types) I did while younger. I never got chance to socialise with my friends. By 15/16yo I refused to go home just so I wouldn't have to attend activities. I failed my a levels as was to burnt out, at 19 I dropped out of university. I couldn't face any more stuff.

What worked for one child didn't work for the other but my mum failed to do what was best for us. One was happy, one was miserable. It didn't matter how much I begged I wasn't allowed to give up. SO while was perfect for sis was terrible for me.

I totally agree with Cory, and her post makes a lot of sense. So long as the desire comes from the child, then I don't see the problem.

My DD does 4 hours of Gymnastics a week (she's quite good at it) and does a further 2 hours of ballet (which she is not particularly good at), I think she should give up one hobby (probably ballet - she's less good at it, and more importantly does not enjoy it as much), but she wants to do both. So am I a pushy parent? According to the OP I probably would be because she does a lot of extra curricular hobbies - but I never force her to go, in fact I have to force her to have nights off (and have recently said no to her requests of taking on Horseriding, swimming lessons and drama club).

But yes, because I have only refused three hobbies, and have not refused more - then I am probably a pushy parent

"By the time I was in my early teens I did (in a week) piano lesson, violin lesson, rugby training, swimming training, orchestra (3 different ones), choir (3 different ones), guides, 2 church youth groups."

wow that's heaps
why 3 orchestras and 3 choirs?

1 choir was church choir.
2 were school (I went to a church school) - 1 of which was a gospel one, the other used to put on performances of stuff like the messiah.

1 orchestra was a county music service one (where you have to audition), 1 was school string group and the other was school full orchestra.

We did the messiah quite a lot actually One year I would sing and then the next would be in the orchestra instead.

lolapoppins, my experience is similar to yours. We are Sri Lankan and my mother was always very insistent that I was going to be a doctor. The idea was pushed on me from the time I was very young, to make me think that it was what I wanted.

All my writing when I was a little girl was about me wanting to be a doctor (I feel like a fool when I think about it, because even then it wasn't what I wanted but I was sort of mechanically complying) and teachers at school would get rolly eyed about all the I-want-to-be-a-doctor-when-I-grow-up essays they see from the class (so most parents were like that!).

However I grew up, understood, and when I was choosing my A Level subjects I went down the Maths route instead of Biology. My mother wasn't just angry or upset, she was distraught .

I wasn't too bothered though, didn't even feel an ounce of guilt and refused to have any discussion about it.

I think the OP is being a tad simplistic and like many others here think that if the child is in the driving seat then crack on. I also have a lot of sympathy with the pov that having shelled out on a course of classes at the behest of the child if that child then changes it's mind then they perhaps need to learn a lesson abotu sticking with things when you don't always fancy doing so.

Having said that careers like medicine, law etc, requite such personal sacrifice to get and stay at the top that the drive HAS to come from the child. I have lawyer friends that work the most insane hours - you can't "push" someone into doing that. They would hate you.

Sending someone to Oxford at 12 however is just stupid. What the hell is the rush?

YAsoNBU, its tragic really - they are being fleeced of their money too!

I took my DD to ballet lessons when she was 3, she loved it, really enjoyed it - it was fun. She got to run around and dance and flap her arms around for an hour on a saturday morning. And i got to sit with all the other lazy pushy mums and drink coffee for an hour. But then it all got too serious - the xmas show - £50 for the costumeS, yep costumeS for a three year old - two costume changes FFS, extra lessons on a sunday - for THREE hours!! Needless to say we didnt do the show and DD got bored when it became too structured. I don't think i'll bother with it again. I want my DD to enjoy herself, i couldnt give a flying fuck if she can arabesque or pliet (sp) I never did any of that crap when i was at school. I did do gymnastics and horse riding though - loved horse riding, but hated gymnastics, the woman was forever shouting - stuff that.

It starts from when they are born really doesn't it = baby signing (although i have to say this was brilliant for DD who had speech delay), but i drew the line at french at six months old.

Friend is going to enrol her DD in afterschool ballet and french lessons - enough already, shes 4 she needs to come home from school and veg out!!

Nobody ever says that stereotypically male physical activities shouldn't be structured. I don't hear people complaining that they took their son to football so that he could do cartwheels on the field and isn't it annoying that pushy parents wanted their children to kick the ball.

Ballet is meant to be structured. DD dances in an unstructured way in the kitchen. You don't need lessons to do that.

I agree with MillyR - it seems to be the total lack of understanding that learning something, or doing something might be fun.

Someone higher up the thread listed "spending a fortune on books" as pushiness. That's ridiculous. My 13 months old daughter has probably over 30 books. Mostly, because her dad and I enjoy all kinds of books and kids books, too, and also because she has two languages to choose from (is bilingualism pushy btw?).

Clearly it depends on the circumstances. I think there's potentially a very big difference between a reasonably self-motivated school-age child doing activities that they enjoy (or being introduced to activities that the parents think they might enjoy, for whatever reason) and things like language classes for toddlers or extra maths tuition for kids in Reception.

I was incensed to receive leaflets on Muzzy (language courses for toddlers) through the post the other day. I want my children to be children, not swotting French verbs. (Completely different from bilingualism, btw - obviously if I were a French/Spanish/whatever speaker, my child would be speaking a language other than English), But I will certainly be encouraging them to do well and try hard once they are learning French, maths etc at school. And they have heaps of books - completely bonkers to say that is pushy. IMHO.

spending a fortune on books is not def pushiness. DD(9) loves books and prefers books to seeing TV.We do borrow a lot from the library but also buy a lot.You can read to them(if you are pushy) but cant make them read if they are not interested themsevles.

I have tried to make as many things as possible available to my DC. And if they have enjoyed them they carried on. But if they wanted to stop they stopped - whatever my feelings were on the matter . And when they asked to do X I did my damndest to enable them to do so.

I think that is normal. It has to be down to the child.

Don?t know much about music or stage school, but OH works in sport and says the problem is that to become a professional in football or tennis, say, DC have to be playing that sport every day to the exclusion of almost everything else from about the age of 5 or 6. At that age, it?s almost by definition going to be more about the parent than the child, isn?t it? Very few 5-year-olds are going to say ?I want to do this every day, and nothing else??

I?m not saying this is a good thing, by the way, not at all! But that seems to be what it entails. By the time a DC is old enough to decide for him or herself that they want to concentrate on one sport, it?s probably already too late. Catch 22.

The problem, OH says, comes with parents who don?t know the difference between a DC who is quite good at something and a DC who has got genuine potential.