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Is there a limit to how far a parent should push his/her child?

How far would you push your kid to maximize his potential?

  • Spare no effort, go all the way, nothing matters more.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Push hard, and assume some balance remains.

    Votes: 5 35.7%
  • Push some, but balance is more important.

    Votes: 7 50.0%
  • What you are is more important than what you made yourself (however big).

    Votes: 2 14.3%

  • Total voters
    14

ab9924

Educator / Liar Champion
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Okay, the other thread where I wanted to discover this stalled in the total lack of my clarity, so maybe we can discover it here. Some parents believe that there is no limit how far and in what way they should push their children to "maximize their potential". At some places this attitude is at national proportions. It is surprising how few parents in the world think in terms of raising a "balanced individual". So, if you are a parent, where would you put the line between the win-or-lose and the what-the-kid-is?

Maybe even more importantly, if you are a kid, how do you save your piece when every minute of every day is already scheduled for you to discard yourself and to go full steam ahead to "maximize your potential"?
 
This poll has just the right number of options.
 
I see nothing wrong with pushing a child and being an involved parent. Now I think in order to set your child up for success you need to be involved, but not dictating his or her every move. They need to be able to survive on their own. If what you are asking is should there be a law against it. No. Every parent has different styles. You can only help your kids so long before they become independent. Why not do as much as possible?
 
Okay, the other thread where I wanted to discover this stalled in the total lack of my clarity, so maybe we can discover it here. Some parents believe that there is no limit how far and in what way they should push their children to "maximize their potential". At some places this attitude is at national proportions. It is surprising how few parents in the world think in terms of raising a "balanced individual". So, if you are a parent, where would you put the line between the win-or-lose and the what-the-kid-is?

Maybe even more importantly, if you are a kid, how do you save your piece when every minute of every day is already scheduled for you to discard yourself and to go full steam ahead to "maximize your potential"?



My young friend, you have actually asked a good and reasonable question, kudos. :mrgreen:

As a parent, it is common to wish for your children to excel in some way... many parents already have planned out exactly HOW they want their child to excel, and how they intend to get them there.

Now, this isn't bad in and of itself... it is better than parents who don't really care and are just "meh, whatever you want to do". The problem comes when a parent tries to hammer a square peg into a round hole.

Children are not tabula rasa... blank slates on which to write. I know a couple who are ball fanatics, and all three of their children are ball fanatics and very good at it.

That's fine... but what if one of their children was not athletically gifted, or just plain hated playing ball? They don't have that problem, but what if they did? I'd hope they would look at the situation rationally, and if the child gave it their best try but just wasn't any good at it or hated it, that they would modify their expectations and seek some other venue in which the child COULD excel.

Same with academics. Some people are not suited to excelling in academics, but might have strong talents for art, or literature, or building/making things with their hands. There are many talents in this world, and almost everyone has at least one.... but not necessarily the one their parents WANTED for them.

Certainly parents should encourage and help their child to excel in what they do, but they should also be able to recognize when "the plan" is going to have to be modified.

Then there is the "upper limit". A lot of people don't like to acknowlege this, but most people do indeed have an upper limit in how far they can go in a given field of endeavor. For instance, if you want your child to play professional sports, they've got to start off with considerable native talent then work very hard at developing it to the max... even then, there's a lot of uncertainty in that line of effort. Not everyone has what it takes to play pro ball, and not everyone has the drive and desire to do the work. If your child doesn't have the potential, trying to force it isn't going to work. If they DO have the potential, but just really flat-out do NOT want to make the sacrifices and devote themselves to pursuing it, that is a train wreck in the making.

Ditto for trying to make a child into a rocket scientist when they bust ass and struggle just to produce B's in school. Most of us have an upper limit to what we can achieve... most people are not Magic Johnson, nor Albert Einstein.

Shouldn't we try to encourage and even "push" our children to excel in whatever they ARE good at though? Yes, it is good to do so... to a reasonable point. Trying to force them to sacrifice anything resembling a normal life in favor of making the Olympic team when they don't want to do that, is taking it too far IMO.

Balance.

I also know a LOT of parents who seem to schedule every minute of their children's life... every single day, the kids are either attending gymnastics or dance or karate or classes in something or organized social events, to the point that I wonder if the kid ever has five minutes to him/her self, or time to figure out anything about themself absent parentally scheduled activities.

Again, I think balance is important. Giving kids lots of positive activities is a good thing, but anything can be taken to excess.


That's my two bits...
 
Personally, I'd rather raise a child to be a good person, and happy, than to be someone who society would label as "successful".

I will push my children, but it will only be pushing them to do their best in what makes them happy.
 
Its your kids life not yours. If you want something to get what you could not build an android otherwise let the kid find their own way. Guide them yes, show them right from wrong yes, help them learn and understand yes. try not to influence them with your shortcomings and prejudices yes.

Have them live your life for you NO. Have them achieve your dreams NO. Drive them so they fall apart or have no identity of their own NO

Read my first signature
 
The polls asserts "pushing hard" does not also include balance - just not the balance the OP means.
 
Okay, the other thread where I wanted to discover this stalled in the total lack of my clarity, so maybe we can discover it here. Some parents believe that there is no limit how far and in what way they should push their children to "maximize their potential". At some places this attitude is at national proportions. It is surprising how few parents in the world think in terms of raising a "balanced individual". So, if you are a parent, where would you put the line between the win-or-lose and the what-the-kid-is?

Maybe even more importantly, if you are a kid, how do you save your piece when every minute of every day is already scheduled for you to discard yourself and to go full steam ahead to "maximize your potential"?

There's a part of me that believes ADD is parent-nurtured.

Parents who think "success" is having their children's time taken up with sports, ballet lessons, piano lessons, violin lessons, tap dancing, (insert anything else here), are crazy. As in c.r.a.z.y. What kind of success is that fostering? Flitting from here to there? Keeping up with the Joneses? Good over-the-fence conversation?

All at the expense of family time, in my opinion. Dad works all day. Mom works all day. "Let's grab a bite at the kitchen counter...here's your cereal. Time to go to soccer practice." Are you kidding me?? This is somehow better than mom, dad and their two kids sitting down at the dinner table and actually, you know, talking??

When do kids get to play? When do they get to use their imaginations? Play "Weather Girl"? (I always loved playing Weather Girl.) Play school teacher. (I always loved playing school teacher.) Add computer games to that scenerio, and we're raising zombies, for God's sake.

It's about family, folks. F.a.m.i.l.y.
 
Thanks ALL for the replies. I have learnt a great deal from them.

I think I fall squarely into Goshin's last category (the 2nd last paragraph), and MaggieD's objection.

I am not run by my parents, but by a script that they assembled. The people who execute it (or the script itself) does exactly the booking of every single minute that I have energy to spend awake. It is only my extreme efficiency of differentiating task priorities that allows me to even think about what is peace and not work. I have now progressed from being a person to being a program, something that software application developers write, and I have squarely exited the human world.

I think I got a first hand understanding of what it is to be a creation of parents, my friends are now at gallactic distances. You all have helped me understand that this is simply the generic parental nature. Maybe I can ask a (cheeky?) piggyback question, is there a good way to research how to get back to the human world and map a way back from planet Zod? It would be nice to have a trick for that. I can't change my environment, but you all have excellent ideas most of the time, I guess I could use a few. :) Thanks.
 
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my parents pushed me hard in school, but there was always balance, and the pressure was applied in a rational way. that is absolutely key. too much pressure is counter productive.

i am appreciative every day for my parents doing it the right way, and i have told them this multiple times. i'm glad i figured it out early enough to say thanks.
 
Thanks ALL for the replies. I have learnt a great deal from them.

I think I fall squarely into Goshin's last category (the 2nd last paragraph), and MaggieD's objection.

I am not run by my parents, but by a script that they assembled. The people who execute it (or the script itself) does exactly the booking of every single minute that I have energy to spend awake. It is only my extreme efficiency of differentiating task priorities that allows me to even think about what is peace and not work. I have now progressed from being a person to being a program, something that software application developers write, and I have squarely exited the human world.

I think I got a first hand understanding of what it is to be a creation of parents, my friends are now at gallactic distances. You all have helped me understand that this is simply the generic parental nature. Maybe I can ask a (cheeky?) piggyback question, is there a good way to research how to get back to the human world and map a way back from planet Zod? It would be nice to have a trick for that. I can't change my environment, but you all have excellent ideas most of the time, I guess I could use a few. :) Thanks.

Print out the replies here that "speak to you" and show them to your parents. ;) Ask for a compromise. Be specific!!!!! If your parents are pushing you, and you think they're pushing too hard? It's only because they love you. Start a reasonable dialogue. You might be surprised what you can accomplish.

Don't just whine! Be specific! ;) ;)
 
Hrm. Some of the responses have surprised me a bit.

I push my children to do the best they can and not to limit themselves. Do I demand they participate in the things they like? Marching band, JROTC, baseball and softball... cross country? Heck no. I don't think I'm "crazy" for supporting my children in doing extracurricular stuff they enjoy. It's a good stress relief for them.. My son also takes guitar lessons and my daughter plays the clarinet, flute and piano. They both do these things because they WANT to... not because I got a hair up my ass and decided to force them to.

I think it's important to encourage kids to explore different things and if they find something they enjoy - then go for it! I didn't have that kind of support as a kid and honestly.... I wish my folks would have done that.

My son needs a firm person to help him in school (he's a sophomore in high school) because if he doesn't have someone telling him that what he's doing now affects things for him in the future, he will do the bare minimum. That's just the reality. My son was also diagnosed with ADHD and fetal alcohol syndrome when he was younger. He was adopted at birth and it wasn't discovered that there were things that weren't quite 'right' until later on. I'm here to tell anyone that has some idea that these things do not exist... you simply haven't lived through it. He has and I've been there with him from the beginning.

My daughter does very well in school (she's a freshman)... a couple of honors classes and is an A student. I don't ride her to do her best and keep at it, she does a fine job of that herself. I encourage her and we have discussions about different things that interest her.

Anyway... I think being a support for your kids while coaxing them to do their very best at whatever they do... there isn't anything wrong with that. If a person is trying to re-live their life through their children and doesn't let them explore things on their own, then that's different.

/shrug
 
I won't go into ALL of my incessant boasting of my oldest (adopted) daughter. We PUSHED HER HARD - but NEVER to be like either of us - and she is quite different in many ways. She is even voting opposite us in the her first election. Good for her. But her priorities, needs and wants are different than ours.

What we did in "pushing" had to do with 1. development (knowledge, resume, socialization, education), 2.) self reliance, 3.) to grasp reality - including life is not fair and that many aspects of life are competitive etc. Our goal was not to make her a clone nor exactly for her immediately happiness and pleasure. It was so that she would evolve to becoming a diversely capable, focused, capable, ethical and successful-to-her-measure ADULT in life. Very time consuming parenting. But in many ways also relentless. We also are very lucky - because it was only when she got into high school did she really start seeing REAL benefits to HER - and increasingly just thanking us out-of-the-blue.

Too many parents see their job as only keeping their child safe, happy and getting along and them BAM! suddenly all of adult life is thrown on them and the child is lost. She is SOOOO far ahead of nearly all others her age it is amazing to her and everyone around her. The professors at her university now openly recognize that while she is not super-brainy, she just has that special "something" that says things like "leader," "above the others," "going somewhere in life, "capable" and worth spenting time on.

PARENTS - FOREMOST - NEED TO PREPARE THEIR CHILD FOR WHEN THEY BECOME INDEPENDENT ADULTS. If done right, that child will NOT be like you - but well beyond anything you ever were or can ever be. What it mostly takes isn't money. It takes FOCUS and LOTS OF TIME. Every day. Every night.
 
I say parents need to push themselves, first. "Do as I do, and as I say".
 
Sure there's a limit, but parenting is one of those things that you do, and then evaluate, based in part on what you had for parenting as a child, and what you've managed to piece together about life in general. There's a fine line to be walked between good parenting, effective parenting, and poor parenting, and I think it's a line that few manage to find really successfully. Kids are all so different that it takes a fine-tuning to do the very best for the child that you can. Very difficult, and very important job.
 
I would push my kid to achieve 100% of what he/she can achieve. Any less, and you'd be slighting them in life. Any more, and you'd create esteem issues and real issues later in life (overcompetitiveness, judgmentality, etc.).
 
There's a part of me that believes ADD is parent-nurtured.

Parents who think "success" is having their children's time taken up with sports, ballet lessons, piano lessons, violin lessons, tap dancing, (insert anything else here), are crazy. As in c.r.a.z.y. What kind of success is that fostering? Flitting from here to there? Keeping up with the Joneses? Good over-the-fence conversation?

All at the expense of family time, in my opinion. Dad works all day. Mom works all day. "Let's grab a bite at the kitchen counter...here's your cereal. Time to go to soccer practice." Are you kidding me?? This is somehow better than mom, dad and their two kids sitting down at the dinner table and actually, you know, talking??

When do kids get to play? When do they get to use their imaginations? Play "Weather Girl"? (I always loved playing Weather Girl.) Play school teacher. (I always loved playing school teacher.) Add computer games to that scenerio, and we're raising zombies, for God's sake.

It's about family, folks. F.a.m.i.l.y.

ADD is genetic pure and simple. Parents pressuring children can lead to other manifestations of "unusual" behavior but not this. This is a hardwired developmental disability. if you want to talk about it more go over to health care and Autism and we can talk about it.
 
I'm just trying to get them to remember to brush their teeth every night at this point. 5 and 2. Great times.
 
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