Is it possible to have a bright child and not be a pushy parent?

[Enid]

What happens if you just leave your bright child to get on with it? Do you HAVE to do extra work with them at home or lobby the school for G&T?

Hmm, I think it's quite difficult to define success in happiness terms. Much easier to measure success in financial terms, but do we really know what the ideal preconditions are for long-term happiness?

Don't go there Fio.
Photocopied tedious little pieces of paper where you write in sentences, do fractions etc
Ds will get his, fear not. Most schools use them to some extent (eg for their little homeworks) - we get off quite lightly thank goodness.

I firmly believe that long term happiness is related to feeling in control of your life. The more choices one has the more likely one is to feel in control.

A better education/intelligence increases the choices available to people which is why in my view it is indirectly linked to happiness.

DS comes home with a worksheet on Fridays. He polishes it off in about 5 minutes. Except this week when he wasn't trying and had got lots of the answers wrong that I knew he could do, so I rubbed all the answers out, even the correct ones, and made him try harder and also concentrate on getting his numbers the right way round. Is that being pushy?

There are loads of studies recently on happiness. Or "wellbeing". It's quite a big research area. Actually the increase in choices has been correlated with a reduction in happiness, after a certain level. People get happier with more money/choices/security up to a certain point (which is about the level of financial security of the average Portuguese, incidentally). And as they get richer/more secure/have more choices, from that point upwards, happiness tends to start decreasing again.

Worksheets that contain cloze passages or boxes to fill in are a complete waste of time. Nobody learns from them, not the pupil nor the teacher about where a child is at. IMO, and in my class, worksheets are pieces of paper with Christmas trees etc on them that come out in the last week of the autumn term.

I think DS is bright. He was 2 in January and I can hold a proper conversation with him. His favourite phrases at the moment are, 'What's that,Mummy?' and 'Why?' I probably push him in the sense that when we are out walking I point everything out to him and talk about everything we see. However, I'd rather think of this as encouragement rather than hot-housing.

Yes- they said that Porguese prosperity was where it's at happiness-wise when they did that happiness experiment in Slough, fennel. I was surprised and impressed that anyone had the capacity to be happy in Slough, I must say.

I fully agree with your post, Soapbox!

Fennel, interesting post. I'm not sure the increase in education creates the downturn though.

Too many bloody aeroplanes above you, Scummy

Fennel - perhaps as long as you have enough money to make important choices then you are happy?

So food on the table, woth/sahm, roof over your head etc etc etc.

I do feel that feeling in control of your destiny is important - however that is measured with regards to income. I think education probably correlates more strongly than income though.

no my nepehew very clever g and t asn so on
suister does nothing

and me too obv

no ti just happens w[ink]

Fennel, I think you are quoting the same research in happyness that my husband always talks about!

franca70, could be, it's fairly well known stuff.

Increase in personal choice seems to cause a lot of anxiety for many people. Sociologists call it the Risk Society, with the increase in choice comes the increase in responsibility to forge your own destiny and make yourself (and those around you) happy. More choices = increasing the risk you will make the wrong ones. And blaming yourself more for the way your life goes.

Did Einstein have worksheets to complete for homework? Hate this blinkered view of life and what intelligence is...Yes, children should be encouraged to explore the world, to ask their own questions and to be quided to the means to find their own answers. The key to good parenting is`awakening children's joy to the world - making life and exploration fun in other words. A big no-no to dry earnestly-issued worksheets.

actually I hate the idea of homework until they are about 10 or 11 or something.

and don't like it much then, I must say

me too

Reminds me of the Handmaid's Tale - one of the evil Aunts says "We were a society dying of too much choice". It's not difficult to see how a wider array of choices/greater social m,obility causes more anxiety and self-blame for perceived failures, but not so easy to see how society can rectify the problem. It's a bit like not being able to go back to holding hands IMO - taking choices away from people now isn't really an option, so how do we address the unhappiness problem?

Agree about homework - how did my generation manage to be more literate on average than the current school leavers, yet not have to slog over homework all the way through primary school?

And I hate homework for primary kids too. It's mean and unnecessary. Teachers should do their teaching during school hours, not press-gang parents into doing half of it in the evening with tired kids who need to wind down.

I am also anti homework for primary age children.

How refreshing!!
I have just spent a fair chunk of my time preparing 'extra' homework for my year six SATs pupils, knowing damn well the anguish it will cause for the parents.
What a flipping waste of time.

Now Spudmasher - you and I both know that you hate it too

< sorry quick hijack- soapbox, you are not going to believe who I have just seen on here!!!!! And she blamed ME for the new addiction!!!>