1st let me just say that I have already figured out that Seethruart is not worth paying any attention to.
That said, I think that there’s no problem with a certain amount of ‘pushing’ in the upbringing of children. Different children need different amounts of push. Some children can handle an awful lot and thrive (e.g. the Williams sisters). Others do poorly when pushed too hard. It is the parents’ job to judge this.
OTOH, the school system has been playing around with this quite a bit for a while, mostly in a totally inept way. There’s a lot of people out there who resent it when exceptional children get exceptional treatment. (e.g. all the people who think it’s wrong to give out bumper stickers to the parents of honor role students.)
I say let’s reward success. If a student excels, reward them. If a student is heartbroken because they tried hard but failed, I hope they learned that effort is not always enough. I hope that someone comforts them a bit and encourages them to continue trying. Individuals have different abilities. Some individuals have little or no talents. This does not make them worthless. There are some people who have very little to offer society. They love and are loved, one would hope. And so we should try to give them every chance to support themselves, and even support them at a low level if necessary. This does not mean we should give them good grades on poor work. We should not lie to them and say that they are just as smart, or coordinated or whatever, as everyone else.
Encouraging them to strive to improve performance is a good idea. If a healthy 7 year old is despairing of ever running a mile in 7 minutes, you can surely say that you know they can do it in 6 minutes if they try hard enough. For surely a healthy child who tries hard will eventualloy be able to do that. They might be 9 years old (or 12, or 15) by the time they do it, but they will achieve it. Give them reachable but high goals. Show them that you love them regardless of whether they reach those goals or not, and reward them when they DO reach them.
I’m against lying in almost all cases, be it “you can do it!” or “you can’t do it!”
Also, I think it’s a bad idea to group kids of widely different abilities into the same class in hopes that the slower kids will be helped by exposure to the faster kids. Group the kids in groups as similar as possible and they can have a chance of winning some competitions. If they win too many, they should be in a more advanced group. Too few, and they can be moved to a less adnvanced group. The hardest thing is if a child is at the bottom class in every subject and still never wins. This child need some special counciling and help. The one who wins everything can be skipped grades or whatever until they reach a point where they are challenged.
I have more thoughts on how team sports can be used to get groups of different talent levels to cooperate effectively, and more. But, I’ll shut up about that stuff for now.
Let me just chime in on the side of encouragement and pressure in moderation.
This whole thing comes under my personal heading of ‘overprotection’. My parents had to put a sign up on their lawn saying keep off, because neighborhood children were climbing their trees. My parents have no problem with kids climbing their trees. However, they don’t wnat to get sued if a child falls and hurts themselves, which happened to a neighbor. A few years back a lady was trying to sue the District of Columbia because her unsupervised 8 year old fell in the Potomac River, hit his head on a rock, and drowned. She claimed there should be a fence around a hazard so dangerous as a fast moving river with large rocks. I say let the kids get a few bumps and bruises. Supervise them if they can’t recognize a life threatening situation. I learned to watch out for bees when I stepped on one barefoot. I had been told to watch but I didn’t really get it until I stepped. Then when I was told, be careful of walking on the slippery dam, I listened a bit more closely because I remembered the bee sting. And, sure enough, the dam was slippery but I didn’t fall in because I was holding to the rail carefully and testing my footing. I had learned more than just that bees can hurt you. You can get overprotected to death as easily as underprotected.
