This is nuts. Put your children in school develope various programs to grill them to learn the ABC's and to read before they start Kindergarten. Make 'em have homework plus soccer, dancing, music lessons, basketball, football, on and on. When summer comes and after that "quality" vacation to Disney or somewhere similar put them to work or plop them in front of the TV or computer with a babysitter while Mommy and Daddy are at work. Get them back in school and fast, preferrably all year to make the schools cost-effective. Keep them there until their early 20's and then it is time for them to hurry up and get out there in the real world and work until they die. What is going on here? We are running our little people in the ground with OUR expectations. Let them be kids, life and the responsibility that goes along with it begins all too soon and the working years lasts oh so long and some want it to last even longer. This competition that began with pro sports has filtered to the elementary school levels and it makes me sad. When can they just be kids--little kids--kids who misbehave, kids that are not medicated because of some thought up syndrome to make the drug companies more money. This all just makes me sad.
This is what I figured out after watching the system for 12 years as a parent. Many, many parents are being practical by pushing their kids into sports from a young age. Why? To get them a scholarship to college. Boys, especially, who aren't achieving high grades in school, can go to college thru sports. Girls, too. The cost of college is enormous, especially for families with more than one kid. The thing that bothered me most is that all of these families are sold on the idea that their kids have to go to college. Very sad. And equally sad is that the kids who are average could be doing much better work in school if only taught in the old school style.
I agree! I think this could be the reason for a lot of children committing suicide. They feel they can't live up to what is expected of them and are overwhelmed.