what parent wouldn’t want to improve their kid’s intellectual abilities? but the more products i see in the market that “sell intelligence”, and the more i hear of parents sending their kids to tutorials and enrichment classes, the more i get turned off with the idea. my son is smart (if i may say so myself). that’s good enough for me. i don’t need nor do i want him to be the top of the class; i do not need such validation and i don’t want him to feel that he needs a sticker or a medal from a class ceremony to prove his worth. afterall, how much is a class medal worth in life, really?

now, slow parenting… that’s a new concept. haven’t heard about it? neither have i before i came across this article: Slow parenting part two: hey, parents, leave those kids alone. it’s the second in the series of articles on what the author calls “slow” and “hyper”-parenting, but it’s the one that had me nodding in agreement the most.

The first step is to accept that children have a range of aptitudes and interests - and that there are many paths to adulthood. Life does not end if you don’t gain a place at Cambridge or Oxford.

Not everyone is cut out to work in the City, and not everyone wants to. By definition, only a handful of children will ever grow up to be truly exceptional in any field.

If we are going to reinvent childhood in a way that is good for both children and adults, we must learn to tolerate diversity, doubt and rough edges. We must cherish children for who they are, instead of what we want them to be.

Inspired by a growing body of evidence and scientific research, schools, coaches, communities and families everywhere are finding ways to treat children as people instead of projects - and finding that they grow up happier, healthier and more able to make their own mark on the world.

now if only the rest of the society where we live in would agree. but alas, it’s not so easy.

We want them to have the best of everything and to be the best at everything. This brand of child-rearing has different names around the world.

Helicopter-parenting - because Mum and Dad are always hovering overhead; hyper-parenting; Scandinavians joke about “curling parents”, who frantically sweep the ice in front of their child. “Education mothers” devote every waking second to steering their children through the school system in Japan.

Yet parents are not the only ones curling, pushing and helicoptering. In Britain, a task force of parliamentarians recently warned that too many children dream of growing up to be fairy princesses or football stars. Their solution? Career advice for five-year-olds.

On the other side of the world, ambitious parents in Shanghai are enrolling their children in an “early MBA” programme, in which pupils learn the value of team-building, problem-solving and assertiveness.

Some are barely out of nappies.

The yearning for an über-child has always been there, buried deep within the DNA of every parent. What has changed is that many more of us now feel the social pressure, and have the time and money, to try to create one.

Deep down, most of us know that hyper-managing children is absurd. The trouble is that it’s so easy to get caught up in the frenzy.

here are the rest of the articles on this series:
Slow parenting part one: gently does it
Slow parenting part two: leave those kids alone
Slow parenting part three: let babies learn to think for themselves

the author has also published a book on this topic: Under Pressure: Rescuing Our Children from the Culture of Hyper-Parenting

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