December 5th, 2007
Steep learning curve
Pushy parents.
I’m not talking about your average, ‘I want what’s best for my child’ parents, that’s an understandable biological urge. I’m talking about the ones that go the extra mile.
I know I’ll be one some day, I just wonder what direction I’ll be pushing the child in… I’d quite like them to be able to make a decent cup of tea at 18 months.
Maybe I could make them into a child CEO of a major corporation… sort of like Dougie Howser, but with heartburn.
On the subject of Mr Howser, I too would like to have a strain of mice named after me. They’d be the black and white checkered ones.
Philip J Schadenfreude on 
I am gonna be like that as a parent.
My folks had me running small shops at 12, doing the books and stuff.
Unfortuently they gave up.
I want my kids to be able to read by 3 and doing calculus and algerbra by 6.
I want them to have friends aswell, so maybe not.
I dunno.
I think you generally need to spend a few years doing algebra and geometry before you can move on to calculus. Being able to add/subtract/divide/multiply helps, but if your kid knows how to use a calculator, they should be okay. Although I think I would make my kids do calc with a slide rule.
Slide rule? Nah, and no calculator. They can do it in their heads or go hungry.
I always used my fingers and the bead chains and frames at school. Hurrah for Montessori!
It’s easy to run out of fingers when you’re trying to integrate (69x+8)^54947.
Unless you’re some kind of mutant. Which you very well could be. =D
I used those bead chains, too! Montessori was fun.
Ack, pushy parents.
mine aren’t pushy, just dissapointed mainly, because i am not as good as my sister was at everything. although they do expect me to be able to do this that and t’other when i can’t, and my common sense has been established as non-existent. parents are always pushy, it’s natural.
If i ever get to be a mum, i hope i won’t be bossy. but i will be a hypocrite, because i will make sure they do well in school, and always do homework etc. when i tend to lie about doing it myself.
one thing i will do as a parent? care enough about my child to listen to all the stuff they tell me about their friends, and maybe even remember some of their friends names. and, when they get to be a teenager, i will check that they’re ok, sleeping well, managing at school, not lonely etc. i know from experience that they’d like it if a parent noticed they were down.
My parents were the exact opposite of pushy and it was FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC. I think most of my friends had helicopter parents though. At least up until I started collecting underachieving friends.
Helicopter parents?
My question exactly.
That’s what they call pushy parents ’round these parts. “Helicopter Parents”. They say it on the news all the time.
Ah, I found this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Helicopter_WikiWorld.png
Helicopter as in hovering.
My kids will all be able to do ballet, as well as ballroom dancing, and gymnastics, and they’ll be able to play tennis, soccer, basketball, and fence, plus they’ll be able to play the violin and the piano and the bagpipes and pipe organ and speak at least eight languages with a minimum of two being dead languages, like Latin or Ancient Greek. They’ll also be running marathons and doing calculus at age ten.
Me, pushy? Where do you get these crazy ideas?
I think it’s pretty sad that being able to read by four is considered amazing now. I could read at four, and my parents didn’t do anything special for that. We just…read together. A lot. Reading’s going to be a big part of my son’s life.
I think I’m going to want him to be interested in scholarly things rather than sports, since I don’t know how to really handle sports other than heavy weapons fighting or fencing.
My mother was pretty cool and made me decide that I’m totally going to get down on the floor and play legos (&c.) with my sprog, like she did. I’m already really popular with li’l chillin’s anyway. It’s just a matter of knowing how to play.
I’m definitely going to expose them to Muzzy and speak French at them, and sing to them. Music and language are going to be important. And books. Lots of books. Hopefully they’ll hear the Harry Potter books read by Stephen Fry. I just gotta find those…because damn it, Stephen Fry trumps Jim Dale. HE JUST DOES! >:c
Heheheh…having ‘The Scary Father Talk’ with my son’s girlfriend or boyfriend…. ‘Now y’see this thing in this jar, here? This is the last girl/boy that broke his heart. Just so you know.’
I agree on the reading thing. I’m told that my older brother, before he’d even learned to speak properly, would look confused and point at the page if someone misread a book to him. I don’t think I was anything like as quick to develop as that, but much the same as you I’d learned to read before reaching school age without my parents doing anything special.
I won’t name names, but I know of one person that could apparently read from a young age… until it was discovered that she had actually memorised the book after having it read to her.
So whilst technically not exeptional when it comes to reading, she is some sort of memory genius.
Oh, and when I work out how to do it, I’ll be cloning Mr Fry and selling minature versions of him on the Internet… I’m going to be rich.
I watched Beauty and the Beast so many times, as a wee child, that I memorised the opening monologue and ‘read’ it from my big picturebook version. So, at least I understood the concept of reading! X3
i think i’d like my kids to know martial arts.
O definitely! I want my kids to know fencing or swordplay!
I’d have to name my kid ‘Inigo Montoya’…
… just so that he could use the line,’ My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father prepare to die’.
otaku that i am, I’d be sorely tempted not to name my kid Vash
Maybe I’ve been in biology/psychology too long, but I find it really fascinating that no one has even mentioned the nature/nurture debate, or genes, or anything like that to explain exceptional children. Everyone attributes it to how the kids are raised. Interesting. Also:
Bravo!
Too many people get stuck in the fantasy that genes are little magic fate machines, and blame good and bad things about kids on them. My experience is, however, that it’s all about raising the kids well: good parents, good teachers, good relatives.
I think my parents bit off more than they could chew, in some ways, my siblings and I. We were raised in a house filled with books, and as far as I can remember, most of us could read early on (I was an exception: mild dyslexia that went un-diagnosed for years held me back, until I learnt to deal with it). They were both from poor backgrounds, and were the first children in each family to go to college, though my mother dropped out to raise the kids, and my father joined the military to support the new family, delaying his degree by ten years. They put a strong emphasis on education, reading, and math, but they tried to keep some of the conservative religion that goes with poor undereducation and low economic status. The two things (education and fundamentalist religion) didn’t mix well, and by the end of high school we were basically all atheists.
I wonder if she’d do it the same way, if she knew that making her children smart would make them loose God? I wonder if she really things, deep down, that I’m going to hell. I suspect she does.
On a lighter note, but the same subject, has anyone read the book Genius Factory? Great journalistic take on the nature/nurture thing, about a Nobel Prize Sperm Bank, and the kids that came from it.
Actually, my first attempt at this post was going to address that…
The fact that pushy parents tend to have failed to achieve, and so by pushing their children they are coming down firmly on the ‘nurture’ side of the debate… then I read it back and it made me sound a bit like a nazi eugenecist on a mission.
Genes are about potential… or potential potential… upbringing is about realisation.
That book sounds great, I’ll add it to my ‘things I want for Christmas but will probably buy myself’ list.
You sound like you were in a similar situation to me. My parents didn’t get to go to university and as such were keen that I went. The same with religion – My parents belong to different faiths within the christian church, and yet I’ve turned out as a humanist… though I think that might have been intentional on their part.
Funny the way child-rearing works. I wonder if you could step outside for a few generations and watch, if you’d be able to see cycles of intelligence in a single line, based upon reactions to how a person was reared. Over-protective/over-involved/helicopter parents have kids that have a more lax style of parenting, then their kids, not liking the laxity of their upbringing are stricter than they ought to by with their own children, and so on? Or would that really correlate with intelligence? And do kids really respond that way, raising their children in an “opposites” fashion. I wonder if I could get a long-term grant from the Health Department to start such a study…
Ah, but what about the mix? See I have one helicopter and then one mixed lax/disbelieving parent. So I’ve been shown what to and not to do.
i think there’s something to that, in a few ways my mom acts more like a teenager than i do.
My dad is all about genes, but genes just say what your health and structure are like (and when the structure genes mix…oy).
‘mild dyslexia that went un-diagnosed for years held me back, until I learnt to deal with it’
>>I would like to say bravo for you, luv (or brava, as I’m not sure what gender you are)! Too often I’ve heard the dyslexia card played as an excuse to not read, to not try. Same with the ADD card, or the Manic-Depressive/Bipolar card…&c. You get the idea. I’m glad you aren’t letting something, anything, control you. ^_^ Okay, sappy public service thingummy over.
Strong emphasis on education, eh? See that’s where I differ from most of the smart folks I know–I’m not obsessed with school. I was bad at school, I recognised that school was not a place to be learning knowledge. So I’m not going to send my kids to school–unless I find a Montessori one, of course. Then I’m all for it. And I’m not doing unschooling, don’t get me wrong (though it worked for me, it only works if learning is one’s hobby); I’m all about homeschooling.
As for religion, my parents didn’t give me any concept of spirituality, religion, or for that matter gender. I had to figure all of that out on my own and since I went to an arts school for high/secondary school, the gender thing came really, really late in my life. …Which has caused some…shall we say interesting?…problems.
I say push your kids, challenge them,
love them. More harm is done by not
setting expectations. If your children
rebel, that’s a good thing. Encourage it.
If you do right by your child, he or she will be whatever he or she is supposed to be.
My friend, a MA in English and a PhD student, is the child of hippie free-love actors.
Amen! So true.
But the one thing all you guys who are “for” pushing children seem to be forgetting is that there’s a point you will reach where the child won’t be able to take it any more, especially if they are finding it difficult to meet the standards their parents are setting. And once they reach puberty, and start getting all the hormonal changes and stuff, then the stress of having pushy parent can drive a kid insane.
Eh, on the other hand it could just be me that thinks that.
No Ma-chan, you’re absolutely right! That’s one of the more common reasons kids start cutting–they start expecting themselves to be absolutely perfect in every way, and when they fail they feel like they need punishment.
Since I’ve known a few cutters in my time, and I deal with life-long suicidal depression myself, I’m not going to push my kids. I know I’m passing on the gene for depression of some sort, so…no, no pushing for the stupid honour roll, show up, top-of-class, valedictorian kind of thing. Not a chance.
Aye, that is a common reason indeed. Unfortunatly, the most of the cutters I have known have done it for attention and nothing else, really.
Well. most of them…
I guess currently I’m kinda bitter cos my parents think it’s my teachers fault not mind that i got an E in textiles, and they haven’t yet…Ah you know what, stuff it. None of ye’ need to hear about my life, and i’d be going off topic with it anyway.
So Yeah, I probably agree with Melanthios, that pushing your kids isn’t such a good idea. You don’t have to push them, just notice what’s going on, surely? Although you can incourage them to do well, but not insisting that they do.
Cutting is always for attention–though usually the cutter does not need the sort of attention they think they need. But regardless, it should never just be ignored. /rant
You’ve touched on a topic there, with mentioning your parents…parents that think their child can do no wrong (Malfoy Syndrome?) are also damaging, in that ‘high self-esteem, low morals/achievment/whatnot’ sort of way. That is, if the child believes the parents.
Encouraging isn’t the same as pushing, in my opinion, and I’m sad that the words are used interchangeably.
Well…Matter of opinion I think, I know at least one person who really did just do it for attention, but then, it’s been “fashionable” in a sense recently, with all the emo jokes and stuff.
Ah, that wasn’t the topic i was getting on to, but your point sounds interesting, i’ve never heard of that syndrome but it sounds familiar as an idea.
I wasn’t suggesting they were the same, as far as I’m concerned encouraging is a much nicer thing than pushing.
Well, all psychology is a matter of opinion. Self-harm is a sensitive subject in any circle, clearly.
I didn’t mean to intend that you did–you just got me thinking about it.
Aye, it is a very sensitive subject…and a kinda depressing one. brings back memories, either of those you know that have done/do..or for those people, memories of them doing/having done.
Sorry, I sounded rather rude when i replyed, didn’t i? my apologies, your thinking was very interesting. continue to think, it’s good.
Malfoy Syndrome! Ah, the Harry Potter does creep into the public consciousness a bit, doesn’t it.
I feel like home schooling or un-schooling are amazingly great options, though with home schooling in particular the religious extremists take advantage of the malleability of youth, bringing children to believe some patent un-truths (I was home schooled for years three, four, and five, and my science text book was called something to the effect of The Six Thousand Years of Creation, and Proof That Evolution Is a Lie; that didn’t work for me because I went back into the public system when we moved, but I shudder to think what it would have done to me had I maintained that sort of veil all the way through highschool.) One must be careful.
On un-schooling, it seems like given the right environment and early upbringing, it could work well for everyone. At four and five, isn’t learning everyone’s hobby?
^_^;; Fanboy for the Malfoys, here. I’ve been thinking a lot about them lately.
I see your point about religion–I know I’m going to raise my child(ren) with my religion, but I think there’s a difference between religion and science. There is a place–and room–for each, which I think is something a lot of people (Atheists as well as Christians?) don’t realise or care to acknowledge.
Oh, and unschooling–I have seen it in action. It sounds nice in theory, but it can be a pretty cold way to raise your kids, since the philosophy is the (very Rousseau) idea that children are only harmed by influence and guidance, not helped.
I mean to say…er? That doesn’t fly in real life, sorry. ^_^;;
Oh, I think we mean different things by un-schooling: “children are only harmed by influence and guidance” is’nt quite the way I was thinking of it, though I can see how that would damage children. I know a couple families that have used it successfully (my friend Brown, for example, is now at MIT after twelve years of un-school), and their cases seem to take almost an opposite philosophical stance: “the more influences in a kids life the better.” They had access and free run of several libraries (including a university library), art studio, fast computers, etc. et cetera. And the thing that really impressed me about Brown’s family in particular was the interaction of parents and children, and the sibling amongst themselves. It’s not a leaving the child alone, but a letting the child learn for themselves. Her parents were infinitely supportive, wonderful people. (Not that I’m trying to say that that would work for everyone: clearly it won’t even work for MOST people. I was saying that in an ideal world, it would work. After the Revolution, perhaps.)
On religion: I’m not actually an atheist, in the way most people think. Nor am I really agnostic, leaving god to be distant and uncaring. I spent a lot of time wrestling with the faith I was brought up with, and the hypocrisy inherent in the Christian church, the social downfalls of conservative fundamentalism. I moved through a lot of different phases, spiritually, spending a fairly large chunk of time under the tutelage of a Cherokee medicine man. I finally came to the conclusion that religion is necessary, for psychological reasons, and the problems with religion and science, or religion and society, come from religion over-stepping its boundaries, and from organized religion being used as a tool to gain power over the many by a very few. To that end, I feel that organized religion is a Bad Idea, and I fall in with the Discordians. Religion needs to be personal, and solely personal, to avoid the pit-falls that Christianity or any other major religion has inherent to it. But that’s like being atheistic to my Mother: I’m going to hell either way. That’s why “we were basically all atheists.”
I didn’t mean to come off as anti-religion, or to say that religion and science exclude each other — I think that more than there being room for both, both are necessary. Many people can and do raise there children to view their faith personally, and to see no conflict between their own religion and the rest of the world, but then again, many people purposefully introduce such conflict, to the detriment of both faith and science. I wish you the best of luck with your children. They have one good thing going for them: a wonderfully intelligent parent.
I’ve never heard of unschooling, but it looks rather fabulous. The first few years of my schools were at a Montessori school, which was kind of like that. It was really nice. I normally use the summer as a sort of platform for self-directed study, which is also really nice. I think I would have enjoyed unschooling. Oh, well. Little late now.
I must say that I completely agree with you with your beliefs on religion, as well. I’ve recently come to believe/accept the rather Jungian (I think… I could be getting this confused with something else) idea that all religions are true at some sort of fundamental level. I believe in the concept of a universal Truth, but also believe that people will never really be able to understand it. I interpret various religions to each be a sort of interpretation of that Truth, a way of understanding the way the world really is. Different religions work for different people, in much the same way (I believe) that different people may need the same complicated concept explained to them in different ways. Some people need graphs to interpret data, others need tables. Some people are Buddhists, other Christians.
O! I believe that all religions are true. It’s mathematical, though I haven’t found a way to express it in an equation, but the power of any given religion is based on two factors together: a) the number of believers and b) the strength of faith. Whichever adds up to more. So maybe 20 believers with strong faith actually outweigh 20,000 believers with weaker faith.
I feel like I’m explaining game mechanics. XD
Once you figure out a way to express religion as a mathematical equation, let me know. Hopefully, by that time, I’ll be far enough along in my mathematical studies that I’ll be able to understand nearly anything you can throw at me.
See, what you’re describing is homeschool, really.
I’m actually glad you aren’t anti-religion, because I’ve met so few people who actually think that religion is psychologically necessary.
Absolutely! You speak my mind.
Melanthios: Mind-Speaker!
what a cool superpowe that would be…
Not if you couldn’t turn it off! I mean, look at Jean Grey.
I can’t, I don’t know who that is…
Jean Grey is the telepath in X-men.
I forget sometimes that I was raised by a society of geeks, my apologies! ^_^;;
Ah, i never managed to get “into” x-men, i realy should’ve..well, there’s still time…^^
Those are worth a lot in Animal Crossing. They only come out when it’s raining.
Ahh, Animal Crossing… now there’s a way to lose some time.
I always enjoyed a fossil hunting spree myself.
I wanted to save up and buy a DS to play animal crossing on, because i love it. But my parents wouldn’t let me, they say games’re a waste of time. Which they are. but i don’t see what’s so wrong with wanting to waste time paying off a little character’s mortgage…:p
Fossil hunting is fun.
I was reading when I was 2 and a half years old, and by the time I was in 5th grade I was reading college level books… and my parents aren’t pushy… not at all. We’re lax on kids nowadays. Now It’s an accomplishment for them to just barely pass all of their classes let alone pass with an A.