Reply to Raising kids in a competitive UMC community? Would you do it all over again?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Lol, telling people "whatever you're just mad because your kids can't keep up" is really proving the OP's point.

[b]The real issue is that I don't want to raise my kid somewhere that requires her to be "the best" in order to feel good about herself.[/b] I of course encourage her to try her best and she has things she's great at (school) and things she struggles with (sports). That's normal and will not inhibit her ability to have a successful, good life.

So we're moving to an area where it's totally okay to be a math whiz with no hand-eye coordination, are a B student who does student government and rec soccer, or a band geek who is saving up babysitting money to buy a keyboard because she wants to start a ruck band. In places that are not ultra-competitive, all of these kids would be described in the community as "great kids." Because they are! Well I have a great kid too, and I'm tired of living somewhere where anyone sees her as lacking because she isn't an elite athlete who speaks three languages, has been to four continents, and gets straight As. She's not lacking, our family isn't lacking, this area is just nuts.

So yeah, I guess we just couldn't hack it.[/quote]

Whether a person feels good about themselves is something internal, not something external. What happens when she eventually encounters people who speaks 3 languages, etc.? Will she feel bad about herself and make sure she also moves to an area where she never sees these people? Or will she feel confident that she's great even if she doesn't have those skills?[/quote]

Self-worth is internal but it has to built -- it's not inborn. Kids develop self-worth when they have the opportunity to experiment and both succeed AND fail. In fact failure is essential to building self-worth because the more kids see that they can try something, be bad at it, and still be accepted and cared for, the more they understand that they have intrinsic worth that isn't linked to performing at a certain level.

Kids in hyper-competitive environments often have a severe fear of failure, because they are given so few opportunities to do it. They are started in sports, activities, and academic enrichment at a young age in order to ensure that they always make the team, win the aware, get into the honors class, etc. Parent invest in preparing their kids to compete with the goal of ensuring their kid will be competitive from the jump. And frequently kids who are just okay at something  after a year or two are pulled from that activity because it's deemed "not a good fit" and their parents will go searching for something they can excel at.

So yes, in this environment you might wind up with a kid who gets perfect grades in all honors classes (especially since you started him in Russian Math in kindergarten and hired a writing tutor in 2nd grade), makes varsity baseball his sophomore year (ditched soccer after a season because he was middling, hired a hitting coach when he was 9, sent him to the best camps you could find from grade 2 and up), plays the piano (violin didn't work out even though he liked it more, but with piano you can drill more because you play), speaks Mandarin (immersion school staring in PK plus tutors). But he will believe that his worth comes from that success, not from something else inside that can't be undermined by failure. So if he goes to college and flounders a bit, or struggles to make friends, or discovers that while he's a varsity athlete he's not D1 material, or while he's a good student, he can't hack it in med school, it will be terrifying. His whole identity is "the best." Well there are a lot of people working at being the best at all kinds of things in this world. One day he won't be the best. Then what?

B student serving in student government playing rec soccer might actually be a more confident, resilient person because that kid understands that it's okay not to be the best at something. You're still a worthwhile person, and it's okay to do things just because you enjoy them or because it's a good way to meet people or hang out with friends, and not just about achieving.[/quote]

So many mental gymnastics playing out here . You ok?[/quote]

NP. I appreciated the poster's reflections. Your post added nothing, in fact it subtracted value. [/quote]

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