14 Responses to “Competitive Parents”

1. 

   ZMM said on October 30th, 2009 at 8:41 am

   Easier said than done though.

   We parents get a lot of peer pressure too.. best way is, don’t talk to other parents. 😛

2. 

   chanelwong said on October 30th, 2009 at 9:16 am

   sounds scary hor…
   I feel takut…like agnes said…easy to say but hard to do….

3. 

   chooi peng said on October 30th, 2009 at 12:57 pm

   i only hope my kids can pass their paper, marks is not important for me.

   but i heard some teachers will pressure the parents and kids to score higher mark so that their class ‘level & standard’ is higher.

4. 

   miche said on October 30th, 2009 at 1:09 pm

   my hubby’s is trying to brainwash me to homeschool our children. no stress coz kids will study on their own pace and no other kids to compare too. hahaha.

5. 

   health freak said on October 31st, 2009 at 12:34 pm

   We parents tend to lean towards comparing our kids with other kids, just to see where our kids stand. I know this is bad coz the kid will feel the pressure and embarrassement. When my time comes next year, I think I’ll just tell Alycia to try her best. I won’t force her to score a certain mark and if she fares badly, I’ll see where she went wrong so that we can work on her weaknesses/mistakes and prevent them from being repeated.

6. 

   Yenny said on October 31st, 2009 at 10:30 pm

   I like your post very much…we, parents really have to work with our child and not pressuring them…I really feel bad after reading this coz I’m one of the ‘competitive parents’/kiasu parents…and I do pressuring my 7 years old girl…what a bad mommy here…really ‘kesian’ my only darling girl!What am I going to do…like what you said ‘Give our child a break’

7. 

   michelle said on October 31st, 2009 at 11:00 pm

   Yenny: Thanks. The important is to teach her, not scold her. If she makes a mistake, tell her where she went wrong. With encouragement, she can excel with happiness.

8. 

   slavemom said on November 1st, 2009 at 12:20 am

   I don’t mind if my girl doesn’t score perfect marks in the exam. More importantly is that she understands wat’s being taught. Hopefully I’ll still stick to this theory when she enters primary sch next yr. :p

9. 

   Tracy said on November 2nd, 2009 at 11:30 am

   Yeah! The exams were finally over. Guess I’m one of the kiasu mummies too. 😛 After reading ur post, I feel so guilty conscience. Guess I ‘pressured’ my girl too much. But this girl of mine needs to be pressured else she’ll be worse and another thing is she’s very careless. I always remind her to check after she has written the answers but always tells me she forgot … sigh …

10. 

    mumsgather said on November 2nd, 2009 at 11:58 am

    Wuah, above 95 also kena scolding ah, so kesian. I always tell my girl, your work is half done already even before you go for your tests. You are a good girl and you have worked very hard indeed. What marks you get is not important.

    If she gets anything above 90, she gets hugs, not scolding or punishment but I admit I will scold her if she makes careless mistakes. 😛

11. 

    Annie Tan said on November 2nd, 2009 at 6:13 pm

    Depends on type of mistakes. I do not scold if it was because she doesn’t understand or doesn’t know the answer. If careless mistake, I’ll be a bit “cheong hei” lar, ngigo ngigo. My girl came back with one whole section wrong because she did not read the instruction. She was asked to draw “smiley face” and “sad face”, but she put “tick” and “cross” (as previous section). Scold or not?

    I did not. Took this opportunity to advise and teach her how to go through exam paper, which I have done before but did not register in her. Losing mark this way is already a lesson to her. And also, I think age is catching up, I feel so tired to scold nowadays.

    But if she has “no feel” towards losing marks this way or be more attentive, then I’ll give her a good scolding. Tired oso will scold ar!

12. 

    michelle said on November 2nd, 2009 at 10:05 pm

    Annie: Don’t be angry. If you read the comments here, most children makes careless mistake. Remind them.

    Sometimes, we may think it is careless mistake because it looks easy to us. However when the child is in the exam hall, the feeling is different.

    My son circled the correct answer on the test paper but in the answer sheet, he shaded the wrong one. Well, I just have to tell him to check his paper after he completes it. I believed the next revision, I will teach him how to do that.

13. 

    Mamajo said on November 4th, 2009 at 5:27 pm

    Geeee….you’re right. In another way, I feel more pressure and stress than Jona when the result is announce and when other parents ask me about Jona result. I just want Jona and Isaac to enjoy their schooling and not keep pressure themselves to score high mark…..Haha..end up, both of them never do revision or doing homework except play play play….mmmm…

14. 

    KittyCat said on November 8th, 2009 at 5:12 am

    I agree with ZMM LOL – it’s really the best way to cure competitiveness among Mothers!!!

    During my search for a new kindy for my boy, I met many, many Mums who absolutely scared me when they started telling me how their kids were scoring 97+ now bla bla bla when they were only scoring 90+ previously.

    I was like – wah, 90+ is REALLY good already wor but they tell me oh, no it’s different nowadays. I run like the wind LOL