Why have parents gone crazy in the last 10 years?

Parents Forum
961

<p>@fluffy2017‌ said:</p>

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<p>Yes, in my daughter’s sports, she was a part of a team and a winning team at that. Her school regularly makes it to the state and they are expected to do so. There is that - which is plenty. </p>

<p>@TheGFG‌ said:</p>

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<p>TheGFG, I did not say she was JUST “there to have fun”. I said she was “ALSO there to have fun.” Her race times were indeed public record, and everyone was or could have been aware of them. Her coach and team very much cared about her times, as she was a key component of their success. (SORRY, PROUD PARENT BRAG…:slight_smile: ) </p>

<p>Most kids are not going to go on to be recruited D1 athletes. For them, hopefully this high school experience can also be fun. That does not mean it is not necessarily competitive.</p>

962

<p>Good point, @lookingforward‌. I had typed my post before seeing yours. We’re probably all really in violent agreement with each other, for the most part. :-)</p>

963

<p>Regarding kowing and commenting about outher people’s kids on the team.</p>

<p>Well, it depends.</p>

<p>In a high school varsity team sport, the parents of starting players certainly know who is playing particularly well and who is having an off day. Parents compliment the goalie it she had a great or winning game. But I’m pretty sure nobody (other than the parents who are keeping stats for the coach, or the goalie’s own parents) are keeping track of goalie saves, or how many goals were scored or assists made by other people’s kids. And yes, if some other team parent commented to me something about the specific number of assists my daughter had I would be taken aback. That kind of specific knowledge about another kid feels wrong, somehow. </p>

<p>On the other hand, we have a couple of teenaged fans on the autism spectrum who know every stat on every kid, and I don’t give that a second thought.</p>

<p>Track and cross country (and I guess swimming, golf and tennis?) are different because they are completely stats driven, and the stats are published online, available for anyone to look at. </p>

<p>Varsity cross country only runs 10 kids, and only seven scoring kids (I think… It has been a couple of years). The years we won state as a team, our number one runner was nationslly ranked. He was expected to win every race, usually by wide margins, and everyone noticed because he was so astounding. It is like that whenever a nationally ranked distsnce runner pops up in our county. HOWEVER, my kid was always one of the varsity, usually running within seconds of another team mate, and they flip flopped for second and third (within the team) finishes from meet to meet. He is a really great runner, but not in the same league as our #1 runner, and if any other parent had commented on specific times for my kid, I would have been taken aback. While the times are published, and available for anyone to see, I would think it was very strange for another parent to be that aware of my kid’s times. Friends would ask how he did, what his times were, etc, and that was fine. But for some random adult, or team parent to knoe my kid’s times or his PR, tht is a step too far. </p>

<p>In track, I would have thought it was weird for another parent to be paying attention to the times of anyone but their own kid, other than kids on an established relay team. Even the year our track team won states, I would have thought it was creepy if a sprinter’s parent knew specific finish times of my middle distance runner. That is taking it too far. Knowing the times of the kid who broke a state record? Sure. Know the time of MY kid, who finished second or third? Unless your kid also runs that event, it is a little weird.</p>

964

<p>And as for the kids who participate for fun, who cares? Why does the performance, or lack of performance of someone else’s kid bother anyone? They are having fun, getting some exercise, and maybe learing to love a sport. The third string, the B team on the track team… They aren’t hurting anyone. Why does their lack of commitment matter to someone elses parent? If the goalie is a slacker, it is a shame, but she’s the best th coach has available. You can’t create fire in someone else’s kid.</p>

965

<p>Good heavens, I apologize for my spelling mistakes on my last two posts! That’s what happens when I type on an Ipad while trying to do two other things, and then don’t re-read what I wrote until it is too lte to edit. </p>

966

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<p>Posters on CC not only know what your house is worth, they comment on whether or not you deserve it. Or they compare how much you deserve it relative to your neighbor and some even imply that if only you would move, the neighbor could have it. I think that’s inappropriate, especially when we’re talking about children. It would make me uncomfortable if someone knew my kid’s GPA, how many APs he took, his SAT scores, what sports he played, which ECs he participated in and his level of involvement, his class rank, and who wrote his recommendations and why s/he might have been swayed to write something positive. Some posters on CC seem to think they know all of that and more. I wonder if parents have always been like that, or is this a new attitude because admissions is getting more competitive?</p>

967

<p>eastcoastcrazy, we partially agree. It’s certainly less weird to know what top runners’ times are, than the times of just anyone. That is what I meant by my earlier post about paying attention to the times of a girl who runs under 5 min. for the mile but not so much the times of the girl over 6 min. The exception would be if the latter were a friend’s D with whose parent I regularly sit, and therefore her stats would get mentioned and I would be sure to be supportive.</p>

<p>Knowing the times of your competitors is important as far as goal-setting. Your kid, the #4 cross country runner for the team, might need to strive to place before some other team’s #3 or #4 in order to win the meet. If you know there’s only a difference of 10 seconds in terms of previous times run, then it is reasonable to motivate your kid to focus on crossing the line before that other kid to help his team. Granted, that level of analysis would not be done by a parent usually, but D has come home saying “I’m supposed to make sure I beat X team’s #2 girl,” which might motivate her or me to look up how fast that girl can run. That way I can tell D, “You only have to drop 2 seconds a mile to beat her,” which helps with focus and motivation. For track, knowing who in your race you can reasonably strive to keep up with and beat, versus who you need to just let go, can be very helpful, especially for a runner who struggles with pacing. I might tell my D, “You’re the number 4 seed, but number 3’s seed time is very close to yours. You can beat her.” Or I might say, “Try to stay with that girl in the blue (whose time I know) for the first 3 laps, so maybe she can pull you to a faster time today.”</p>

<p>The performance of “slackers” does not hurt as much in individual sports like track, except during this time of the year when teams run a lot of relay meets. If your team has depth, then maybe the non-slacker won’t have to worry about the slacker. But I can tell you that the kids who work hard in practice are not happy when one of the relay legs is a kid who skips out on mileage by going to the Starbuck’s during long runs. My kids respect hard work and understand there are differing talent levels. They have never been upset at having slower kids on their relays, unless they felt the kid was slow because of goofing off.</p>

968

<p>“might tell my D, “You’re the number 4 seed, but number 3’s seed time is very close to yours. You can beat her.” Or I might say, “Try to stay with that girl in the blue (whose time I know) for the first 3 laps, so maybe she can pull you to a faster time today.””</p>

<p>What prevents her from owning that herself, and deciding on her own that she’s going to try to match pace w the girl in the blue or beat the girl in the red? </p>

<p>I admit I’m on one side of the extreme but it’s fair to say you’re on the other side of the extreme. </p>

969

<p>“would make me uncomfortable if someone knew my kid’s GPA, how many APs he took, his SAT scores, what sports he played, which ECs he participated in and his level of involvement, his class rank, and who wrote his recommendations”</p>

<p>And yet it’s claimed all the time on CC to justify why some other kid “stole my kid’s spot.” You know, “the kids all know who the real deal is,” asserted on this thread if not others. </p>

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<p>Being bothered by a slacker on the relay team is a waste of your and your daughter’s time and energy. After all, if there was a better runner available the slacker wouldn’t be on the relay team. The slacker is the best available runner. If your daughter has an issue with another runner she should take it up with the coach, or do what my son did, and convince his friend, a good lacrosse player, but a better cross country runner, to go out for track instead of lacrosse to complete a relay team that ended up placing in the top three at state and doing well at the Pen Relays.</p>

971

<p>What bothers me a lot more than a slacker is the person who skipped regionals to attend a recruiting tournament for another sport, which meant that her ranked relay team was left without the fourth runner. The person who did this didn’t need to attend that recruiting tournament, as she has already has a D1 commitment for that sport. This same family took a last minute trip to a different D1 school during the sport season, skipping our high school’s toughest game of the season, and not telling the coach she would miss the game until the afternoon before the game.
As I’ve said, there are crazy sports parents, and everyone else knows exactly who they are.</p>

972

<p>PG, athletes need coaches, like students needs teachers. They have different roles to play. My D did not get home from her meet until after 8Pm last night. So after dinner, shower, and homework, how much time does she have to think about track anymore? As I said earlier, facts are not fairy dust. Of course she has to want the goal and own it. But, if you understood sports and had read my earlier post on this very topic, you’d get that D just deciding on the start line to chase the blue girl in front of her, without having an idea of that girl’s times, could be a big mistake. Most girls she has raced so far this season have not been more than 2 or 3 seconds faster in an 800 m. than she is. At our last race, though, the top girl had run 15 seconds faster. D just deciding to make it her goal to keep up with that girl was stupid, and yet that’s what D started to do at first. Had she been better informed by her coach, she would not have made that mistake. </p>

<p>Moms, in particular, blab a lot. Just yesterday at the meet, I learned what grades two track girls have in their Algebra 2 class (parents were complaining about the teacher, who also happens to be D’s teacher), and the grade one boy in D’s English class got on the last test. At a previous meet, I learned the SAT score of another older student because the mom mentioned it. I didn’t ever need to ask, pry, or snoop. People talk about what concerns them, and parents in certain communities care a lot about educational achievement. If your community isn’t like that, you may misunderstand this. </p>

<p>And kids talk a lot too. D’s cohort was not as open with each other, but I can tell you that the boys in S’s cohort were very close and shared all their academic information with each other. They viewed each other as companions in striving for the same goals. One might have scored a little better on the SAT than his friend, but if so, it was likely the friend had a slightly better grade in AP physics or something. So they didn’t care about privacy in that way because they felt they were all equals. One of his friends got a perfect SAT score, so that got well-publicized. Kids know what the NM cut-off is for their state, and they know who the MNF’s are, so they get an idea of SAT score ranges from that too. Our school used to have a community business discount card give-away as a reward for getting good grades. There were different levels, like gold, silver, and bronze cards. You had to have above a certain GPA to get the gold card, so when they were distributed, kids got a general sense of who was where in rank. In addition, the boy in charge of giving out the cards had seen the GPA list and blabbed the class rank order of the top 10 kids in his class. In sum, there are all kinds of ways people find out these things without being “crazy.” </p>

973

<p>People blab things, but that doesn’t obligate you to remember them. Do you remember the order of the guy ahead of you in Starbucks? You might overhear it, but it goes in one ear and out the other because it’s irrelevant. The fact that you hear that Susie got this and Bobby got that and Billy is #4 and Joey is #6 and you bother to internalize and remember means that you’re invested in keeping score. </p>

<p>I care a lot about educational achievement - my kids’. Memorizing who was in positions 1-10 in the class or who did better on their SATs doesn’t advance their education one bit. It just says I have an interest in keeping score. </p>

<p>You like to keep score of everyone’s accomplishments, successes and failures. Own it. </p>

974

<p>Actually, both of my D’s have taken up the issue with the coach. But in today’s PC world, there is not a whole lot coaches can do, and many don’t care to try. They’re there for the extra pay, and that’s it. When my oldest was at the high school, several times his track coach threw kids off the team for not doing the training ,etc… Each time, though, the AD would hear from the parents and would make the coach take the kid back. It never happens now at all, and so kids know they can do whatever they want with impunity. Just like it’s the case that now coaches must name every senior “captain,” because too many parents started complaining if their senior kid didn’t get the title they “deserved.”</p>

975

<p>"Kids know what the NM cut-off is for their state, and they know who the MNF’s are, so they get an idea of SAT score ranges from that too. "</p>

<p>Don’t you encourage your kids to smile / congratulate others (such as NMFs) on their successes, and then put it out of their minds? “Susie made NMF, I heard it announced over the loudspeaker, and so when I saw Susie next at lunch I made it a point to say congratulations.” Why would you encourage your kid to take up one brain cell more of her headspace by filing away the specifics-unless life is just One Big Competition where it’s important to know where everyone else stands? </p>

<p>This kind of behavior is precisely what turned me off to building relationships in my community. I wanted no part of people who “knew” and had mental spreadsheets of my kids or any one else’s kids other than their own. </p>

976

<p>"At a previous meet, I learned the SAT score of another older student because the mom mentioned it. "</p>

<p>And you kept that piece of info in your head, but not the Starbucks order you also overheard. Why? </p>

977

<p>“You had to have above a certain GPA to get the gold card, so when they were distributed, kids got a general sense of who was where in rank.”</p>

<p>If they were the types of kids who bothered to notice. Please stop assuming your noticing-and-filing of every detail orientation is what “everybody” does. Didn’t the fact that some mothers thought it was creepy that you knew their kids’ times clue you in? </p>

978

<p>Because I don’t go to Starbucks. But actually, I do remember all kinds of trivial stuff, for a while at least, without it having particular importance to me. I have 3 kids and am done having babies, but I could repeat back to you what the lady sitting next to me yesterday was saying about her fertility treatments. You always assume that knowing and remembering information takes some misplaced psychological investment. No extra mental energy is required, and knowing/remembering also doesn’t imply a lack of graciousness and good will. However, you can’t have it both ways. If my kid congratulates the NMF finalist, that means he had to pay attention to the fact the kid got the honor, which you seem to think is a sick focus.</p>

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<p>I’m with PG on this one. My interest was in what MY kids were doing, not in what the others were doing…or comparing my kids to others. My kid was in the top ten in her class, and I had no idea who the other top ten students even were until the awards night the BOE had to honor them. </p>

980

<p>Gfg said: “Moms, in particular, blab a lot…And kids talk a lot, too.”</p>

<p>If a mom blabs, and nobody listens, will it make any difference?</p>

<p>There is a whole lot of self justification for being nosy about other people going on here. And the nosy is vering into “crazy” territory.</p>