What is the most obnoxious or even delusional brag you have heard from a parent about her/his child?

[Anonymous]

ES teacher here--have taught second, third, and fourth grades over the years; right now teaching fourth. It absolutely does NOT level off, IMO.

[Anonymous]

The road to hell is most definitely paved with good intentions. It is natural for us as parents to want our children to be successful, and school is the route that gets them there in our society. I think it is great to get a kid acquainted with learning at the earliest age to help the kid succeed. But when a kid is helped too much then the over-achieving parent becomes the resource the kid needs all the time, and when the kid is thrown into an environment where the parent is not there to help with the English battle, that can really suck for a kid's self esteem. I saw the latter when I was in college at a school full of over-achievers, and it really sucked for those kids to find out that they were average or below average in this new and most-competitive environment. Its a difficult balance between helping the kid and getting into the genius mode that upper middle class parents often get into. The difference between reality and perception is inevitably revealed by reality, and these average children of over-achieving parents face major self-identity crises when they are confronted with their betters, the above average children of poor parents.

How do get kids genuinely interested in learning and not into the genius mode? When I hear that 20 percent of the class is in gifted...well that is (1) statistically impossible (2) potentially damaging to a kid who goes around boosting themselves for having been in the gifted class and proceed to demonstrate full-blown average-ness and an average school.

I want to buy my kid all kinds of books and get DC involved in learning....how do I do that without unwittingly getting into genius mode?

[Anonymous]

Composing music is common in (Bethesda) K kids??
I can't imagine that...those children would be prodigies.

[Anonymous]

Eventually the Bethesda over-achievers have to compete with everyone else at the top schools-well, they first have to get in. Do we know that the graduates of these Bethesda schools eventually end-up as graduates from the top college programs? I am not baiting, I did not grow up in this area and honestly have no clue of the answer.

[Anonymous]

That a 4-month old was clearly advanced

[Anonymous]

Some of these things are just parlor tricks. The mom who has her kid memorize facts about Beethoven or learn the US capitals at age 3. It can be done, but it signals nothing.

[Anonymous]

My baby girl was standing on her own at 4 months. We never told anybody for this exact reason but we have plenty of photos and videos of that so there will be no rolling eyes when we talk about it later

Flame away!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My baby girl was standing on her own at 4 months. We never told anybody for this exact reason but we have plenty of photos and videos of that so there will be no rolling eyes when we talk about it later

Flame away!

That's pretty cool and you have evidence, no sense in flaming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My baby girl was standing on her own at 4 months. We never told anybody for this exact reason but we have plenty of photos and videos of that so there will be no rolling eyes when we talk about it later

Flame away!

Why would anyone "flame" when this is merely eyeball-roll worthy? Unless she becomes an olympic gymnast and this is some sort of early signifier of her talent... who cares?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The road to hell is most definitely paved with good intentions. It is natural for us as parents to want our children to be successful, and school is the route that gets them there in our society. I think it is great to get a kid acquainted with learning at the earliest age to help the kid succeed. But when a kid is helped too much then the over-achieving parent becomes the resource the kid needs all the time, and when the kid is thrown into an environment where the parent is not there to help with the English battle, that can really suck for a kid's self esteem. I saw the latter when I was in college at a school full of over-achievers, and it really sucked for those kids to find out that they were average or below average in this new and most-competitive environment. Its a difficult balance between helping the kid and getting into the genius mode that upper middle class parents often get into. The difference between reality and perception is inevitably revealed by reality, and these average children of over-achieving parents face major self-identity crises when they are confronted with their betters, the above average children of poor parents.

How do get kids genuinely interested in learning and not into the genius mode? When I hear that 20 percent of the class is in gifted...well that is (1) statistically impossible (2) potentially damaging to a kid who goes around boosting themselves for having been in the gifted class and proceed to demonstrate full-blown average-ness and an average school.

I want to buy my kid all kinds of books and get DC involved in learning....how do I do that without unwittingly getting into genius mode?

Well it makes perfect sense that when someone goes from a school filled with the general population to a school full of students who are hand-picked as the best and the brightest that their status will change. I don't think that's a surprise and don't think it means the parents were coddling them, either -- it just means the competition got more fierce. It's like saying your kid did great on the high school swim team but once they got into the olympics, they suddenly didn't look so special just because they could swim fast -- and all those years of the parents driving the kid to practice were just foolish!

[Anonymous]

And I still think people who consider most of this stuff "bragging" have their own jealousy and competition issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The road to hell is most definitely paved with good intentions. It is natural for us as parents to want our children to be successful, and school is the route that gets them there in our society. I think it is great to get a kid acquainted with learning at the earliest age to help the kid succeed. But when a kid is helped too much then the over-achieving parent becomes the resource the kid needs all the time, and when the kid is thrown into an environment where the parent is not there to help with the English battle, that can really suck for a kid's self esteem. I saw the latter when I was in college at a school full of over-achievers, and it really sucked for those kids to find out that they were average or below average in this new and most-competitive environment. Its a difficult balance between helping the kid and getting into the genius mode that upper middle class parents often get into. The difference between reality and perception is inevitably revealed by reality, and these average children of over-achieving parents face major self-identity crises when they are confronted with their betters, the above average children of poor parents.

How do get kids genuinely interested in learning and not into the genius mode? When I hear that 20 percent of the class is in gifted...well that is (1) statistically impossible (2) potentially damaging to a kid who goes around boosting themselves for having been in the gifted class and proceed to demonstrate full-blown average-ness and an average school.

I want to buy my kid all kinds of books and get DC involved in learning....how do I do that without unwittingly getting into genius mode?

Well it makes perfect sense that when someone goes from a school filled with the general population to a school full of students who are hand-picked as the best and the brightest that their status will change. I don't think that's a surprise and don't think it means the parents were coddling them, either -- it just means the competition got more fierce. It's like saying your kid did great on the high school swim team but once they got into the olympics, they suddenly didn't look so special just because they could swim fast -- and all those years of the parents driving the kid to practice were just foolish!

Poster here, you make it a good point, there isn't as much causality between generally helping the kid succeed and what happens in a more competitive environment. I was referring specifically to the cases when the parents pre-condition an average kid to feel and behave as though way above average.

[Anonymous]

My 4 year old is the happiest kid I know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GREAT TOPIC!

One mom assured me her 6 year old had read all of the Harry Potter books by herself. My son read Junie B Jones at that age.
One mom told me her nine year old son was writing a book.

I don't think that's too far of a stretch. My DD just turned 5 and has been reading Junie B books for some time now. By the time she's 6, she'll have to progress to something more complicated. She also keeps a "journal" each night about her day.

Wrong thread - this is a thread for laughing at people like you, not an opportunity for you to brag.

What's so funny about this being a fact? I didn't say I go around "bragging" about this at parties. I was responding to the pp who seem to believe the mother statements were unbelievable (not just annoyed at her for bragging).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GREAT TOPIC!

One mom assured me her 6 year old had read all of the Harry Potter books by herself. My son read Junie B Jones at that age.
One mom told me her nine year old son was writing a book.

I don't think that's too far of a stretch. My DD just turned 5 and has been reading Junie B books for some time now. By the time she's 6, she'll have to progress to something more complicated. She also keeps a "journal" each night about her day.

I'm sure her musings about her wetting accident and her refusal to eat her broccoli at the dinner table are profound.

Actually, she doesn't have wetting accidents and broccoli is one of her and her brother's fav foods! Lucky me