by Elle Kamino

Created on: June 15, 2008

A-Parent Success?

We've all been at a table-conversation where every parent is loudly talking over the next to ensure that everyone else realizes that their child is the best. Parents have a natural instinct to want their children to do well, but is that instinct always put toward the proper reasoning? When a parent beams with pride for their child, is it really always actually for the child?

I believe that inside parents there is a need so deep to see their child succeed that it can easily rise to a level of unwarranted competition between both parents and children alike. Shouldn't we be teaching our children that working together is better than trying to trample one another in order to reach the top spot? Shouldn't we be teaching them that being happy for one another means so much more than having to have an even better pair of sneakers than the friend who just got a new pair? Shouldn't we be setting a better example, ourselves? This whole attitude about having more than our neighbours have has moved beyond ridiculousness because we are now using our children to make it happen.

When I was little, years ago though it was, my whole cirle of friends and I played T-ball; our parents signed us up and we were on a team, ready to go out and have some fun on the field. It was still considered fun to play ball back then but now that my own nephew is playing it hardly seems that fun is even an option for play anymore. The worry that lived in that child in the weeks leading up to team tryouts was painful even to have to watch from afar. This whole attitude of having to be the greatest has taken away from what it means to be able to just be. My nephew apparently did make it onto one of the "better teams" and because he has, his parents have earned the rights to boast and that, it would seem, is what is most important. I'm very proud of my nephew; he worked through his fears of being judged by adults who would rank his abilities and is now part of a team. I'm happy simply for his wanting to be outside playing a game with a bunch of other kids.

I understand and I even agree with the fact that parents want for their children to have great self-esteem. Where I disagree is with parents who lift their own child higher by squashing the spirits of others. Children hear a lot more than adults give them credit for. They know what that raised eyebrow means when they hear mom or dad talking covertly about that third kid who struck out at bat and they don't ever want to be that kid, and so, the cycle continues.

We need to stop forcing our kids to compete and just allow them to have fun. We complain about how our world has changed but it's changed because of us, because of our expectations, because of our winning desires. We need to beam with pride because our sons and daughters are amazing little human beings and not because they can toss the ball farther than the neighbours kids can. We need to beam with pride for our children and not simply because of what their successes will mean for us as their parents

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