September 5, 2000

11:21 PM

Training toddlers to compete.This reminds me of the Dilbert episode where Dogbert holds training sessions for toddlers. I know parents often want to realize themselves through their children, but aren't we going a bit overboard here?
posted by jedrek (4 comments total)

As the Father of a 4-year-old (almost), I find this type of parental behavior to be insane. My daughter enjoys a wide variety of fun educational activities. She also likes to watch Rugrats. The fastest way to turn a kid off to learning is to force it down their throat. In 20 years, I would be happy to compare children with these people. I can guarantee my Daughter will be a lot happier with her balanced life than these other kids who will either rebel or turn into workaholics.
posted by quirked at 6:36 AM on September 6, 2000

Fool! These super-toddlers will "crush" your duaghter!
posted by Nyarlathotep at 8:29 AM on September 6, 2000

While a lot of these parents are whacked, I think there is a real problem where children aren't taught diddly before they begin school and kindergarten is nothing but play time.

Where I went to school (Jamaica) we played as much as any other kids, but we were also expected to learn more than just fingerpainting in kindergarten. As a result, when I transferred to American middle school I was two grades ahead and still bored out of my mind.

America has to fix their mentality about school so we won't get left behind...
posted by owillis at 11:49 AM on September 6, 2000

Insane indeed. I mean, what's the rush? The only reason these kind of services exist is because of parents that are willing to do anything to satisfy their egotistical egos by means of their children.

I could say I'm a "victim" of such treatment. Being the firstborn on my family, I played the parents' testbed role on all things you can imagine. And at age 5 to 7 I was given "special" higher-level subjects, differentiated from all other children. Academically speaking, I was light years ahead from these other guys, but otherwise it was just the opposite. I never was able to adapt to other kids' games, and I couldn't take anyone's jokes without bursting in rage. In fact I often say my friends it is now that I'm enjoying what was void to me in my childhood.

Now, more than twenty years have passed on, but I feel those happenings have marked me to this day. True, I tend to be a workaholic and find a lot of pleasure reading, learning in my leisure time (when all the others go rush to bars on weekends)... but if I happen to have children someday, I will do anything within possible to have them live normal lives. Let them play, get covered in mud, discover things by themselves.

Also, being a worker on the fast-paced, dog-eat-dog, merciless medium that is web development, where everyone tries to take over everyone, I end up more and more convinced that this hypercompetitive, "you're worth that you possess" environment we are pretending to throw our children into isn't really more than an overhyped, hollow, steamy big pile of shit even we don't want to believe in.

Let's let kids be kids.


posted by betobeto at 1:57 PM on September 6, 2000