Impressive parents with below average kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only peace was when the kids were on screens. They fought when trying to watch a movie though. At least one kid was upset about the selection of the movie.

While that sounds stressful and unpleasant, I think it's a mistake to judge parents by their family dynamics on a joint vacation. Travel can be very disruptive to kids, and traveling with other people can be particularly challenging because you don't always have the same options as you would if your family was on their own. My kids are generally great but I can think of three vacations which, looking back, they must have seemed like holy terrors to outsiders. I have this very distinct memory of my kid melting down on a European subway at age 9 during rush hour while a bunch of stone faced Europeans looked at us with a combination of pity and disinterest.

That kid is now top of her class, a decorated competitive swimmer, with ambitions to pursue degrees in environmental science and urban planning (she wants to figure out how to make cities more environmentally responsible and improve quality of life and environmental impact simultaneously). I don't know if she will succeed in her lofty goals, but I don't worry about her becoming a responsible, productive member of society, even though once while very hangry she went limp in my arms while yelling that I was the worst mother in the world in front of a train full of strangers. C'est la vie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Usually the parents spend more time on their careers than with the children.

+1

Successful parenting is a job in itself, if both parents have demanding careers it’s very hard to parent well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only peace was when the kids were on screens. They fought when trying to watch a movie though. At least one kid was upset about the selection of the movie.

While that sounds stressful and unpleasant, I think it's a mistake to judge parents by their family dynamics on a joint vacation. Travel can be very disruptive to kids, and traveling with other people can be particularly challenging because you don't always have the same options as you would if your family was on their own. My kids are generally great but I can think of three vacations which, looking back, they must have seemed like holy terrors to outsiders. I have this very distinct memory of my kid melting down on a European subway at age 9 during rush hour while a bunch of stone faced Europeans looked at us with a combination of pity and disinterest.

That kid is now top of her class, a decorated competitive swimmer, with ambitions to pursue degrees in environmental science and urban planning (she wants to figure out how to make cities more environmentally responsible and improve quality of life and environmental impact simultaneously). I don't know if she will succeed in her lofty goals, but I don't worry about her becoming a responsible, productive member of society, even though once while very hangry she went limp in my arms while yelling that I was the worst mother in the world in front of a train full of strangers. C'est la vie.

We have known this family since kids were babies. They are like this in their home and at school. The kids have behavioral issues and also hate school.

I’m not sure how such perfect parents could have such less than kids.

[Anonymous]

The mom and dad are super impressive. They are some of the smartest classy people we know. Total super achievers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have noticed many parents we know who are superstars in their fields have average/below average children. The kids are not motivated.

I wonder if they were born less intelligent or it is their upbringing.

We just spent the weekend with a family whose parents are some of the most intelligent kind people we know. Their kids are an absolute disaster in every way possible.

Oh come on. Hard to believe this is not a huge exaggeration. How old are their kids?

Fighting, screaming, whining, hitting, complaining, being disrespectful 75% of the time. The parents just tune out. It is like they just accepted this poor behavior and don’t know what to do with the children.

I’m surprised how such competent people can be such horrible parents.

They are overfunctioners and people pleasers. They probably don’t make their kids do a lot because they pride themselves on being able to do everything all of the time.

They also probably easily give in to requests by the group on vacation or wherever you are that throw off the kids schedules, so the kids are tired, hungry, etc.

There might also be an element, if the kids are also very bright, that the kids never act like their peers. So it’s hard for the parents to know when to let things go and when to intervene.

The bolded is something I have noticed in a lot of our highly successful peers. Kids get whatever they want during vacations or out to dinner or any time they are in public. It is a source of annoyance to me because we set limits on that kind of thing with our kids and when their peers have no limits, it makes my job harder. The parents are buying peace. One friend of ours will hand his credit card to his 10 yr old any time she complains about anything so that she can go buy whatever food, toy, treat, etc., she wants. He's very smart and accomplished, so his his wife, top schools, extremely high paying jobs. The can be lazy parents. It is what it is. Very few people are high functioning in literally every aspect of their lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have noticed many parents we know who are superstars in their fields have average/below average children. The kids are not motivated.

I wonder if they were born less intelligent or it is their upbringing.

We just spent the weekend with a family whose parents are some of the most intelligent kind people we know. Their kids are an absolute disaster in every way possible.

Oh come on. Hard to believe this is not a huge exaggeration. How old are their kids?

Fighting, screaming, whining, hitting, complaining, being disrespectful 75% of the time. The parents just tune out. It is like they just accepted this poor behavior and don’t know what to do with the children.

I’m surprised how such competent people can be such horrible parents.

You still didn't tell us how old the kids are, OP. Do you not see that that matters? If they are 3 and 5 that's very different from them behaving like this at 10 and 14.

[Anonymous]

The daughter is so nasty to the parents. It is shocking how disrespectful a person can be and parents don’t even flinch. They must be so used to this poor behavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have noticed many parents we know who are superstars in their fields have average/below average children. The kids are not motivated.

I wonder if they were born less intelligent or it is their upbringing.

We just spent the weekend with a family whose parents are some of the most intelligent kind people we know. Their kids are an absolute disaster in every way possible.

Oh come on. Hard to believe this is not a huge exaggeration. How old are their kids?

Fighting, screaming, whining, hitting, complaining, being disrespectful 75% of the time. The parents just tune out. It is like they just accepted this poor behavior and don’t know what to do with the children.

I’m surprised how such competent people can be such horrible parents.

Sounds awful. If this was a vacation, it is possible the behavior was worse than usual.

That said, none of that behavior correlates with their future success. Plenty of bratty kids grow up and do very well for themselves. Plenty of lovely well behaved children do not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Usually the parents spend more time on their careers than with the children.

this right here. marching around the office, pretending to be a big shot while the family life and kids are left behind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have noticed many parents we know who are superstars in their fields have average/below average children. The kids are not motivated.

I wonder if they were born less intelligent or it is their upbringing.

We just spent the weekend with a family whose parents are some of the most intelligent kind people we know. Their kids are an absolute disaster in every way possible.

Oh come on. Hard to believe this is not a huge exaggeration. How old are their kids?

Fighting, screaming, whining, hitting, complaining, being disrespectful 75% of the time. The parents just tune out. It is like they just accepted this poor behavior and don’t know what to do with the children.

I’m surprised how such competent people can be such horrible parents.

You still didn't tell us how old the kids are, OP. Do you not see that that matters? If they are 3 and 5 that's very different from them behaving like this at 10 and 14.

They are various grades in elementary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only peace was when the kids were on screens. They fought when trying to watch a movie though. At least one kid was upset about the selection of the movie.

While that sounds stressful and unpleasant, I think it's a mistake to judge parents by their family dynamics on a joint vacation. Travel can be very disruptive to kids, and traveling with other people can be particularly challenging because you don't always have the same options as you would if your family was on their own. My kids are generally great but I can think of three vacations which, looking back, they must have seemed like holy terrors to outsiders. I have this very distinct memory of my kid melting down on a European subway at age 9 during rush hour while a bunch of stone faced Europeans looked at us with a combination of pity and disinterest.

That kid is now top of her class, a decorated competitive swimmer, with ambitions to pursue degrees in environmental science and urban planning (she wants to figure out how to make cities more environmentally responsible and improve quality of life and environmental impact simultaneously). I don't know if she will succeed in her lofty goals, but I don't worry about her becoming a responsible, productive member of society, even though once while very hangry she went limp in my arms while yelling that I was the worst mother in the world in front of a train full of strangers. C'est la vie.

We have known this family since kids were babies. They are like this in their home and at school. The kids have behavioral issues and also hate school.

I’m not sure how such perfect parents could have such less than kids.

How can you really not understand this? If the kids behave this way all the time, and have for years, and the parents have not figured out a way to address it or improve the behavior, then the parents are not perfect at all. They may be professionally high achieving but that doesn't translate to parenting.

Are you shocked to discover that an elite athlete is a bad cook? That an efficiency expert might not be a good artist? Why would excellence in one area automatically translate to excellence in every area, especially something as complex, personal, and labor-intensive as parenting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have noticed many parents we know who are superstars in their fields have average/below average children. The kids are not motivated.

I wonder if they were born less intelligent or it is their upbringing.

We just spent the weekend with a family whose parents are some of the most intelligent kind people we know. Their kids are an absolute disaster in every way possible.

Oh come on. Hard to believe this is not a huge exaggeration. How old are their kids?

Fighting, screaming, whining, hitting, complaining, being disrespectful 75% of the time. The parents just tune out. It is like they just accepted this poor behavior and don’t know what to do with the children.

I’m surprised how such competent people can be such horrible parents.

You still didn't tell us how old the kids are, OP. Do you not see that that matters? If they are 3 and 5 that's very different from them behaving like this at 10 and 14.

+1

How old? And I’d be curious do the details as some people can be pretty over dramatic, especially if not used to be around kids a lot. Is it “the kids had a squabble over a toy that was resolved in a few minutes” or “the kids punched and kicked each other all day long and Suzy got a black eye” or whatever. The judgment of a lot of those behaviors (whining etc) kind of depends on age of the kid and frequency

[Anonymous]

The initial post talks about intelligence a lot, but then the follow up talks about behavior.

Those 2 things have little to do with one another.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do the kids have household chores like vacuuming, dusting, mopping? Did they ever learn to do yard work such as weeding and cutting grass? Do they change sheets and help make beds? Much is given to kids nowadays and they don’t realize what goes into common chores or functions. There’s no appreciation or gratitude because they are so far removed from any work.

No, their kids don’t do chores. I asked one of them to do something small and it caused a ton of drama. The kid never did it. In attempts to be anonymous, I will give a very simple type of example. “Could you please throw out your trash from the table?” It was something very basic I would ask my kids to do. I was not trying to discipline or be demanding but it turned out to be a big deal causing a lot of drama.

If the real example involved a dishwasher, I wouldn’t be so quick to judge. Our kids don’t load the dishwasher because it needs to be done a very specific way so the dishes end up clean. So they would be unable to do what you asked. They do other things though and certainly throw out their own trash.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The initial post talks about intelligence a lot, but then the follow up talks about behavior.

Those 2 things have little to do with one another.

+1, and also this whole thread is really about one interaction with one family, from which OP is making all kinds of leaps. Just say "I am disappointed my nice friends have bratty kids."