Young chess player dies form fall...

[HKphooey]

I happened across this news article today:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/07/28/czech.death/index.html

After reading it, I did some thinking. I know they have not yet ruled it suicide, but they did mention she was depressed. Growing up, I had friends that were "prodigies". Some went on to play in the major leagues, one went on to be the CEO of a mjor company and one other that I can remember getting into polictics.

All three were pushed very hard by their parents and teaches. I run into them form time to time and they never seem very happy.

So my question... Do we, as a society, push a children too hard to succeed?

There was another article last week about a TKD student that hung himself with his belt. They say it was an accident.

It bothers me to hear children so stressed out. What ever happened to worrries about whether it was raining out or not?

 

[matt.m]

Very sad. You know dad never pushed me to the point that I hated anything when I was growing up. We would see some of the kids whose parents did do such a thing.They would end up quitting. Not always because they wanted to either.

I knew a guy on the wrestling team whose dad made him quit because he didn't come in first all the time, same story in track and cross country.

It is kind of sad really. Looking back I took for granted being in a martial arts class, no one ever said "Why can't you do better? Your dad is great, what happened with you? etc."

When I grew up, yeah I got pushed to do better. Just not to the extreme, I fall into the "Is it raining, who am I going out with Friday Night, do I have enough bubble gum" kind of kid worries.

 

[HKphooey]

Matt,

Links to the other incident:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006330594,00.html

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=17422471&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=boy-used-black-belt-as-noose--name_page.html

 

[Xue Sheng]

This is very sad.

Sometimes parents do not realize they are pushing to hard until it is too late.

A few houses away form where I lived several years ago a kid hung himself because he had been getting bad grades on a tests and that meant he would no longer be able to play, I think it was football, and he was very good at it.

I believe the last words his mother said to him were about how disappointed his father was going to be since he had worked so hard with him at football.

 

[stickarts]

It is such a competitive world now and i see many times that kids are not allowed time to just be kids.
We incorporate some fun into our classes and while many of the parents see the value in it, from time to time we do get the parent that raises a fuss becuase they want their kid to be a blackbelt in a month.
These are usually parents that never come in with a smile and seem overpushed themselves.
You have to enjoy the journey!

 

[ginshun]

I dont think that you can draw the conclution that we as as society push kids too hard to succeed based on this article and a few others like it.

On the contrary, I think at large we don't push kids hard enough. For every kid that is pushed hard to succeed, there are 5 that nobody pushes at all.

Well, I jsut made that up, but I think it is proabably closer to the truth than the contrary.

 

[green meanie]

Very sad indeed.

May she rest rest in peace.

 

[Don Roley]

I think Ginshun has a point in that this may be more the exception than the rule. There are a few people that push their kids to make up for whatever failures they have made in thier life. They have always existed and always will.

Take a look at some of the kids at tennis camp or golf camp and you find stories like this all the time. Another is child models and actors. My kid is cute enough to be a model here in Japan and my wife's parents put us in contact with an agency that wanted her to model. The entire family turned against the idea when the agency said that she would have to get artificial teeth put in and taken out when her baby teeth fell out and the permanent teeth came in. They gave us a call a few days ago to ask if we would either change our minds or if all her permanent teeth are in. After seeing the type of thing child models may have to go through, for once I am in complete agreement with my battleaxe- in- law that we don't want my daughter in that type of enviroment.

But there are tons of mothers that do. I can't look at a magazine with a child model on it without feeling a sense of pity now.

 

[Jonathan Randall]

I think Ginshun has a point in that this may be more the exception than the rule. There are a few people that push their kids to make up for whatever failures they have made in thier life. They have always existed and always will.

Take a look at some of the kids at tennis camp or golf camp and you find stories like this all the time. Another is child models and actors. My kid is cute enough to be a model here in Japan and my wife's parents put us in contact with an agency that wanted her to model. The entire family turned against the idea when the agency said that she would have to get artificial teeth put in and taken out when her baby teeth fell out and the permanent teeth came in. They gave us a call a few days ago to ask if we would either change our minds or if all her permanent teeth are in. After seeing the type of thing child models may have to go through, for once I am in complete agreement with my battleaxe- in- law that we don't want my daughter in that type of enviroment.

But there are tons of mothers that do. I can't look at a magazine with a child model on it without feeling a sense of pity now.

Ditto.

BTW, while the average level of excellence has fallen dramatically over the past century in the Western World to the point of being BELOW MEDIOCRITY, there is still that subculture, and growing at that, that is so enamored of image and worldly success that they drive themselves and their families to the brink. There really is no comparison to the amount that the average college prep. student of today has to put up with to succeed and what my generation, only about twenty years earlier did. Many kids today are taking 7, yes seven, honors classes, enrolling in all sorts of community service "to broaden their horizons" and make themselves attractive to the top schools, and competing in some sort of extracurricular activity on top of all of this - and getting less than five hours of sleep at night. We were not so hurried as that. However; it is not as much a striving for excellence as it is trying to live up to some sort of impossible image as well as competing with the Joneses.